Hollywood Undead – Swan Songs

Releasedate: 31-07-2009; Label: Universal
By: Nina Mende

Hollywood Undead is a rap rock band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 2005. It originated from the members’ MySpace profile which they filled with pictures of themselves in hockey masks. Their debut album is called “Swan Songs” and was released in the USA last September. Now it finally gets released in Europe as well. The band originated in 2005 from a song titled “The Kids” that Deuce and J-Dog posted on the band’s MySpace profile to positive reviews, leading them to form the group Hollywood Undead with their friends Shady Jeff, Johnny 3 Tears, Charlie Scene, Funny Man, Da Kurlzz and Deuce. In an interview with Shave magazine, J-Dog explained that when forming the band “Whoever was in the room at the time and played an instrument was in the band.” Shaddy Jeff later left, leaving the band with only six members. In their first nine weeks on MySpace they had almost a million plays and by 2006 they were said to be leading MySpace’s top unsigned artists list with over 8 million plays. By November 2008, the band had over 440,000 friends on MySpace. They made their live debut in August 2008 at the Virgin Mobile Festival after winning 285,000 votes, over half the total, in a Book the Band contest against four other bands….

I guess I can say this band is like no other and their music definitely is like no other. As I listened to the album for the first time I was quite surprised. It begins with Electro, followed by Rock and Punk before it hits Rap and Hip Hop but ends with symphony-like orchestra stuff. An amazing album, I have never heard anything even close to that before. The music is energetic and animating. It is hard or even impossible to sit still during this album. The wide variety of music styles makes it fun for a wide range of listeners. Several songs talk about Los Angeles, California and Hollywood, how great it is. “Black Dahila” is a slow, touchy and thoughtful song. “This Love, This Hate” is a quite chilled one. “Bottle and a Gun” starts with talking, a very funny piece. “The Diary” includes piano and orchestra in the background combined with catchy tunes and lyrics. The songs are in your head long after you finished listening to the album. Somehow I think you could say “Swan Songs” is a drug, because it gets you addicted very fast. I don’t think you can get sick of this album, and if it would take ages. Hollywood Undead is an amazing band you should keep in your mind. Keep eyes and ears open to catch them live, on CD or wherever.

A little last impression about the CD booklet: on the cover you can find the entire band with their masks as well as an upside down view of the LA skyline. Inside you can find pictures of each band member and the songs. Great artwork and pictures.

Links:
Hollywood Undead MySpace
Hollywood Undead Official