I'm writing reviews elsewhere now, here are my notes.

I'm going to review some albums for Prefix--yeah, I don't know what that is either--but I'm going to try and do records that I'd never listen to anyway. Here are some notes I made while listening to Hearts by Awesome New Republic. Guess how awesome they are. Go ahead.

Hint: they're less awesome than the name may lead you to believe!

-An overly polished Hot Chip with lyrics that are too cliché to actually be earnest.

-Vocals ranging from mediocre faux-prince falsetto to something you’d hear on an 80’s soft rock station

-Waaaaay too many vocals. Bigtime 80’s/electrohouse thing going on here.

-This is really bad; it’s the vocals. This would be serviceable in the hands of some Swedish Balearic pop dudes, but these guys are seriously out of their element. This guy has the least cool voice I’ve ever heard. It’s proficient in the way the dude’s voice from King of Leon is; it is so out of place here. I can’t believe I’m thinking it, but I want him to sound more detached and ironic.

-This is so by the numbers. These are not good dance songs. These are not good songs.

-If this is meant to be a joke, it’s even worse than if they’re serious. There is some seriously uninspired proficiency at work here. It’s like when commercials can’t afford song rights so they hire some songwriter to do similar genre stuff.

-Oh no. Acoustic guitar. This is probably going to turn mid tempo dancey soon. These guys make MGMT look like the beatles. This is the best song so far, I think? Track 5. It would be Cut Copy’s worst song. Falsetto works much better than his “soft” voice.

-Uh oh, soft voice again. Whoa, these guys are really bad. Of course they’re from Florida. I almost forgot these guys are called “Awesome New Republic.” What the fuck did I expect? This is MGMT for the mentally handicapped. “I feel like Darth Vader inside?” Oh my god. They said it again. I think it’s the chorus. No no no no no. Now I feel like Darth Vader inside. Thanks, Awesome New Republic.

-I like this beepy thing, it’s the most pleasing sound in this song. Consider the bar lowered.

-Ooooh! Club track! Electro-saw-synth thingy. Falsetto! This song might just be inoffensive enough to work! I don’t even know how to evaluate this record anymore. I’d probably feel really embarrassed to be listening to this around other people, but in the context of this record, it’s pretty good. This should be playing over the credits of an 80’s movie. I don’t even know if this is good or not, but it’s not horrible like the rest of this album. “Deep Love”, track 8.

-DANCE PUNK ALERT!! Is that a saxophone? This song is pretty goofy. AHHH dance punk thing again, it’s really not working for them. This is the worst Franz Ferdinand song ever.

-Weird Al. That’s what the guy sounds like when he’s singing in his normal voice. Not nasally jokey weird Al, but like, serious singing Weird Al. He probably doesn’t sound anything like him, but something like that. UGHHHHH. EXTENDED METAPHOR ABOUT BIKES FOR THE WHOLE SONG!? THIS SONG IS ABOUT SEX TOO. I HATE MUSIC NOW.

-Ooooh title track/album closer. Let’s do this shit, Awesome New Republic; let’s get motherfucking serious. Good, start off boring…now build it up for me! Really wow me with this one, I know you’ve got it in you. Sad montage music for a crappy movie? Check. This album is everything bad about the last 5 years of crossover hipster dance pop. Really, that’s it? That’s your big finish? You guys suck. Go back to Florida.

-Well, it’s a short 35 minutes. So, uh, awesome.