THE NETWORK
Money Money 2020 (Adeline)
Reviewed by Alan Wright

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All I know about this mysterious group for sure is that the Billy Joe from Green Day is involved, and Adeline is his label. Other than that, they're a mystery. Rumors abound that all three Green Day members are involved, augmented by a couple of pals, but since they all use fake names - the members are credited as "Capt. Underpants," "The Snoo," "Van Gough," "Fink" and "Z," - and wear disguises who knows? The Adeline website even talks of a supposed feud between members of the Network and members of Green Day! Other rumors I've seen include one that claims that this was slated to be a new Green Day album, which Reprise rejected, so they decided to release it as the Network on their own label. I'm not sure how to describe this: it's definitely Billy Joe singing, and the music is vaguely like Green Day if they had been crossed with vintage Devo and the Screamers, and about the most recent thing I can find comparisons to might be Servotron or the Epoxies. Obviously not taking it too seriously, this is good fun with songs like "Joe Robot," "Transistors Gone Wild," "Supermodel Robots," "X-Ray Hamburger" and "Hungry Hungry." One of the funniest songs is "Spike," where an electro-beat rattles away while the protagonist tries calling a dealer because he needs "a fix," all the while telling a story of panhandling gone wrong, then calling his mom to tell her his woes of getting dumped by his girlfriend and losing his place to live ("I was wondering if I could stay with you or Grandma or something"). Come to think of it, the narrator seems to sound like Green Day drummer Tre Cool. "Right Hand-O-Rama" shamelessly borrows the riff from the Syndicate of Sounds' "Little Bit Of Soul" and adds mechanical effects and hilarious lyrics about jerking off.

There's also a bonus DVD included with videos to almost all the songs, all of which are wacky and bizarre. Whoever, or whatever, is behind this, only time will tell.

© 2004 - Alan Wright