There's nothing desperately original about the 12 songs on their debut album – think Busted and McFly and, on Long Way Home, Wheatus's Teenage Dirtbag with the rough edges smoothed off. But they're delivered with such winning enthusiasm that they make an old formula seem fresh, even if carefully calculated lyrical references to "my Cobain shirt" suggest they're trying too hard to prove their punk credentials.
Real rock fans will pay them dust. That should bother them. If it doesnt then they must be cynical fake rockers happy to ride the teenybopper train and make money.
I still think theyre all ugly and their music just doesnt stand out at all. Its like Kidz bop rock.
If the group was hoping to build a bridge between the old and the new, they have definitely succeeded in the task. There is a bit of a punk-pop mash-up throughout most of the album and it works in their favor. It is loud enough to blast when you want to thrash around your room, but it is blended well enough to show that 5 Seconds of Summer have something good going on here.
They are pop as a gateway drug, heartbreak-lite, with their 12 carefully calibrated mini-dramas about first love, growing pains and dizzy schools-out euphoria. At times, they make The Wanted sound like Joy Division.
Their name may signify the depressing reality of a British summer but after a solid debut album from the Australian four-piece, boasting of anthemic pop-punk hooks and some of the best summer sing-a-longs, it seems their five seconds of fame isn’t fading anytime soon
5 Seconds of Summer deliver a solid debut with their self-titled album, especially considering they had a hand in writing every song. Fantastic vocals and brilliant instrumental melodies are evident throughout the entire album and the boys seem to have a clear idea of what sort of image and band they want to represent.
65
Generally favorable reviews based on 5 Critics Boston Globe
50
Original score: N/A
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The lyrics leave no room for subtext--“Good girls,” goes the kickiest song’s thesis, “are bad girls that haven’t been caught”--and the gleaming instrumentation sounds untouched by human hands..
I like groups/bands like The Wanted and One Direction, but this album is really bad. I downloaded and She Looks So Perfect is literally the only song that I kept! I like them, tho!
I liked She Looks So Perfect but I was underwhelmed with the rest of the album. Maybe they should work with better producers to achieve a new sound because the pop rock formula just makes them sound dated
Doesn't even deserve a 65 on metacritic. Only good songs on the album are "Amnesia" and "English Love Affair"..... and English Love Affair's hook is stolen from "Pain" by Jimmy Eat World. Like 80% of the hooks on this album are stolen from other pop-rock songs.
"Social Casuality" is probably the best example of this. The entire song is other songs pieced together into one.