Genre: Rock Year: 2004 Country: USA Official Site: Jet Details: Tracks & Audio Label: Elektra
In a twisted up world dominated by flaccid teen pop and paint-by-numbers hip-hop it is far too easy to get excited by anything featuring real instruments being played by real musicians. Things at radio have gotten so bad that the mere strum of a guitar across the airwaves gets me harder than the potent combo of a Viagra pill and a Jeff Stryker video.
With their American debut Get Born, the Aussie quartet Jet poses an interesting dilemma for rock purists everywhere. The question is, are these guys for real? Are they the partial heirs to a rock-n-roll dynasty once ruled by the likes of Hendrix, the Stones, Patti Smith and others? Or are they just four horny and market savvy Australians looking to fill the rock vacuum on airwaves and in CD racks?
While it is too early to know the answer to any of those questions, one thing is for sure: these boys love rock-n-roll. This fact is evident in every overly familiar guitar riff and drum solo on the disc. They have listened to the masters, and, as a result have produced a riotous, ass-shaking, fist-pumping cheat sheet to the history of rock. The first single, the urgently infectious and equally masterful "Are You Gonna Be My Girl?" recalls the brilliance of Mark Bolan and T'Rex. In fact, the ghost of Bolan is invoked on several of the tracks on Get Born but nowhere more so than in the opening bars to the glorious "Lazy Gun." The second single, and one that is as nearly infectious as the first, is called "Cold Hard Bitch" and while it certainly breaks no new ground musically it openly defies you to not want to tear your clothes off and shag for days.
Jet excels in groove driven rock anthems with a dirty drum edge, but they find success in a couple of requisite power ballads as well. "Move On" provides some fine vocal harmonies and a chance to work that same tired riff that every rock band for all time has worked. "Radio Song" and the stirring "Timothy" are the best of the slower numbers, and provide some needed lyrical power in an album otherwise short on intelligent verbal expression.
All in all Get Born is an exciting breakout debut by a bunch of boys who remember what rock is, or was, or could aspire to be again. Truth be told the disk sounds like someone threw Poison and The Black Crowes in a blender and gave them a hard-on, which is fine by me. Jet is sexy, dirty, drunk, unholy and I love them. All this and not discernable guest vocal by Justin, Usher or Jennifer.
Jet Get Born
