Sheffield Tunes: Cat.# 016682-2 STU.
Released 2005

Tracklisting:
1. Lights Out (1:45)
2. Hello! (Good To Be Back) (3:33)
3. Privileged To Witness (4:32)
4. Rock Bottom (3:28)
5. The Leading Horse (3:25)
6. Take Me Baby (4:15)
7. Apache (2:58)
8. See Me, Feel Me (4:09)
9. Unity Without Words (Part III) (6:02)
10. Everlasting Love (4:22)
11. Seven Bridges (4:55)
12. Mesmerized (6:41)


IN BRIEF: More like "last fit of eurodanciness"

Another Scooter album? Yeah baby, they're back with more nonsense lyrics and chipmunk voices. Scooter has, as most of us know, recently descended into the darkest pits of commercialism with the addition of Jay Frog to the group, replacing Axel Coon. However, besides him, there's also Rick Jordan, who actually has talent, and you can hear it. The production is very crisp, the basses deep and the treble clear. But, my friends, are these qualities worth anything if the music itself is bland and commercial? Somewhat, maybe. But the music is still more important. That's not to say Scooter haven't made good tracks... on the opposite, they've made a lot of them - but usually along with 3 other tracks ranging from bad to horrible. So, what is this album like?

We'll find out soon enough.

So. Who's Got The Last Laugh Now? (WGTLLN from now on) starts with a short ambient-ish intro piece like most Scooter albums do. Lights Out is not too shabby for a calm introductionary track. Slightly lush feeling, and it reminds a bit of - please don't kill me - some track off FSOL's Lifeforms. Yes, seriously. So it's good. It has some samples in it too, that I know at least two artists have used, besides Scooter: Tiesto on A Tear In The Open, and Ott on Splitting An Atom. So anyway.

The next track is Hello (It's Good To Be Back) and sounds like a sing-along when drunk afterski track. There's a catchy chorus (from "Hello! Hello! Good to be back" by Gary Glitter) that goes like the track title, and some shouts from the MC, just as nonsensical as ever. It's a cover too... did I mention every track except two, which I will note in due time, are covers, or, should I say, very 'inspired' by another track? Ah nonetheless, this track is like a watered-down version of the pretty nice One (Always Hardcore) from their previous album, Mind The Gap. The melody is typical Scooter fare, but is it original? I don't care, to be honest, as it's nothing worth mentioning.

Privileged To Witness, the track with the pretentious name, is next. After the typical introduction with banging beats and HP shouting, there are chipmunk vocals. What is this? We've had more than enough of these lately, and they just keep getting worse - it seems Scooter have gotten stuck to their tracks. Disregarding the high-pitchedness, they are nice, but sadly not original, being from Walking on the Moon by The Police. Overall, there is nothing that makes this one better than the music from their two previous albums.

Rock Bottom is pretty much Explody by Jordan & Baker, and also has the same structure as previous Scooter song Maria. Pretty high-energy, and not too shabby, but as I said, it's not their own, other than the infamous vocals from HP. There's a downright embarrassing part in the middle, where HP goes "Rotter Rotter Rotter Rotter" as in Rotterdam. Yes, it's embarrassing, I wouldn't want anyone to hear me listening to this.

The Leading Horse starts with a (chipmunk) chorus from The Four Horsemen by Aphrodite's Child. After that piece of hell has passed, we discover that the structure in the song is ripped off from 50 Cent's In Da Club. Couldn't Scooter find a worse song to get inspired by? Other than that, there is no musical quality in this either, and the main chorus is... I'll let you judge by yourself, imagine the following sung in a high-pitched voice: The leading Horse is white, the second Horse is red, the third one is a black, the last one is a green. I personally can't listen through the complete track.

Take Me Baby is a complete cover of Take Me Baby by Jimi Tenor. It's quite groovy, but not enough to compensate for its flaws. Scooter probably tried to make this song sexy, but it's more parodic than anything.

Apache is sampled from Apache by The Shadows. It's a complete instrumental, and very short, at 2.59. It's just mediocre and bland. There's not much to comment on in this one.

Guess how See Me, Feel Me starts? With a high-pitched chorus, from Automatic Lover by Dee D. Jackson. It seems that high-pitched choruses are the main focus of the album. This would probably work as a single too, with it's obvious radio appeal. There's a little melody, and the now-familiar aggressive drumming Scooter always use. On a second though, the melody isn't too bad, being somewhat different from the blatant stuff from the other tracks on this album.

Original track: Unity Without Words Pt. III. Most people liked the previous two installations, both made in the era before Scooter became completely radio-friendly. And I agree, they were both nice pieces of music, despite sounding rather dated today. But the main question here is, is this a worthy successor? The simple answer is no. It's a fairly generic mellow trance track. There's a nice part somewhere in the middle with some synth pulses, but for the whole other time, it's very repetative with no real focus... almost progressive. Whatever it is, 'tis not to my taste. Your mileage may vary. At least it isn't commercial.

Everlasting Love can only be fairly described as happy hardcore. It has all the ingredients - distorted kicks, breakneck tempo, repetative vocal samples, and finally a high-pitched vocal chorus stolen from someplace else, in this case Everlasting Love by Robert Knight. Right when this starts, I get flashbacks that make me fall to the floor in highly unpleasant spasms. It's very old-school, but at the same time, much worse than what Scooter made back in '95, when they were still making purely happy hardcore. If you like this style, not too different from what Dune used to make, you might like this. I know that I don't.

Seven Bridges is one of the more popular tracks from this album amongst Scooter fans. It starts in fairly epical fashion, with thumping beats and HP actually saying something interesting; And we dance to forget, we dance to remember. Quite deep, especially for Scooter, and completely unexpected - but then again, if you have been making lyrics for 10 years, you'll eventually coin a nice phrase -it's inescapable. Despite the chorus being from über sieben Brücken by Karat, this track isn't that bad. It's eurodance, but somewhat better than the most generic ones. (note to the reader: this doesn't mean much.)

Now for the single highlight of the album: Mesmerized is an original (as far as I know) trance track. Completely instrumental, it builds with an arpeggiated melody, much like the other epic trance out there. It's rather professionally made, however. Supersaws commence after a short break, and then a cut-up vocal sample which is actually rather good. I can't deny that this does manage to touch some trancey nerves right under my skin. However, while much better than your average epic trance track, it's probably the weakest of the recent Scooter instrumentals, namely Devil Drums, Soul Train, Trance-Atlantic and now this.

So all in all, I dare to claim this is Scooter's weakest album. It's very commercial, as was to be expected, but unlike the previous albums that contained at least two nice tracks, this has a single one that is sub-par to the previous efforts. There's not a single piece on this album that I would describe as "good" besides the last one. If the evolution of Scooter continues in this fashion, I'd suspect that the next album goes STRAIGHT into the recycle bin, like this album does when I've finished typing this sentence. There. One star for a good intro and one acceptable track, marking my lowest given score up to date.

ACE TRACKS:
Lights Out (intro)
Mesmerized


Written by Cinos for TranceCritic.com. May not be reproduced or republished without the consent of TranceCritic.com. All rights reserved.

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Title: Scooter - Who's Got The Last Laugh Now?
Category: Album
Sub Category: Euro
Reviewer: Cinos
Related Link: Scooter Website
Added: November 13th 2005
Viewed: 8967 Times
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