The name of Hey Monday’s album, Hold On Tight, is an instructional title urging listeners to hold down their lunches.
While female lead vocalists are always a hot commodity in music, we are beginning to see a slew of Paramore carbon copies. Hey Monday is a paint-by-numbers Paramore rip-off. While Paramore makes sugary, guilty-pleasure pop rock, Hey Monday plays predictable, contrived music blatantly trying to cash in on the trend. Hey Monday may be a hit with the Pac Sun crowd (the junior girls section) and will likely secure a spot on the coming Vans Warped Tour, but anyone older than the age of 13 will be throwing bottles at them. All the trends and cliches are represented here with lyrics straight out of a junior high diary set to a backdrop of boring, generic instrumentation. There is a "cute, slightly edgy looking, but safe enough for mom and dad to approve of" female lead singer. Guys complete with girlish haircuts, facial piercings and skater shoes will also be stoked on Hey Monday. Well, that is what Columbia Records/Decaydance is hoping for.
Fall Out Boy bassist and Decaydance Records head honcho, Pete Wentz is trying to be the rock version of Jay-Z, who signed Wentz’s Fall Out Boy to his Island Def Jam label. The opportunity to be given major label backing and money to run your own label is a musician’s dream come true. Wentz seems to be in it to simply cash in with signings such as Hey Monday. Can Wentz honestly like this band? This is the same guy who worships Morrissey and Lifetime.
Hey Monday will likely fare well as a band next year. They will sell a lot of colorful T-shirts ripping off hip-hop culture and design and gain a new fan base opening for Metro Station. Once its fans turn 21, the only thing Hold on Tight will be used for is a beer coaster.
