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Type: Single Release date: 24/01/2005
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It's desperate really, how The Used try to be this behemoth of rock. A clichéd, repetitious vocal line sung by Kelly Osbourne's ex, Bert McCracken is delivered over a hideously over-produced meandering set of riffs. It's not that The Used are any worse or better than anyone else in their genre - but that's just the problem. There is just so much of this contemptible screamo/metal/whatever-the-hell-it's-called-today rubbish, that I find myself wishing for just something to set it apart.

You can hear the band trying to sell records and maintain interest with what appears to be an attempt at a hook into the chorus, but ends up making the entire song sound like a drone with someone being injured for interest's sake at the end of every verse. There is a whole subculture of people now who have been weaned onto this via the Busted -> Blink182 route and are looking for something a bit 'edgier', but the problem is whilst this is louder and screamier than the two afore mentioned bands, the lack of any sort of melody or decent chorus makes for what is essentially a 3-minute dirge of MTV2-style teenage rebellion.

The Used want to launch a 'violent, dynamic attack' with this single, but end up with something so bland, hackneyed and repetitive that listening to a mobile phone ringtone would provide more excitement. Avoid.

The Used - Take it Away

What a moronic review.
The Used are a great rock band. Simple.
Your review is lazy (read: remarks about both Kelly Osbourne and 'screamo') and a poor attempt at being contentious.
Go back to listening to the Dawn Parade. Please.

Re: The Used - Take it Away

Lazy?
What else is there to write about The Used?
I mean, the NAME is the give away - The Used.
I.E. it's ALL BEEN DONE TO DEATH A BILLION TIMES BEFORE YOU CELEBRITY-SHAGGING PRETTY BOY FUCK.

I hate waste-of-shelf-space shit like this. Why oh why do you SUCKERS buy into it?

There is nothing of value here - avoid The Used like you would Staind or Papa Roach - it's all the same faux-angst cheap guitars shite.

Re: The Used - Take it Away

I'm going to defend my review here.

I listen to enough 'heavy' stuff to be able to qualify my take on this single.

Sure, I like scmindie too, but I can only say that the diversity in my musical palate only enables me further to comment on what is, essentially, a piece of shite record.

Re: The Used - Take it Away

Re: Diver's point - just because it wasn't released on tin pot indie label X doesn't mean it can't be good. The Used are not like Staind - they write rock songs that are both interesting and melodically acceptable. If they were on deep elm records and had a lead singer that was going out with Chloe Sevigny you would love them.

Re: Crablin - you have not defended your review; you have defended what you think qualifies you to review it. Your musical diversity is lovely, son, but your ability to write a record review is not; it is a lazy attack on a band that you believe will not be defended here and is a poor attempt to garner easy respect from DiS folk.

Re: The Used - Take it Away

Don't be silly.
All Deep Elm bands are gay and thus go out with pretty boys.
Although thingy Sevigny is almost a boy.

Re: The Used - Take it Away

The Used LP got 4.5/5 on the site when it came out from Peter White - one of our most respected writers.

I spent a long time writing an article defending Busted - which made me quite unpopular.

But you're right, the whole reason I do anything for DiS is so people respect me. It's the only reason I like music. Or girls.

Re: The Used - Take it Away

Leave the teenagers alone. They like to wallow in self-pity!

(I commend you on liking The Mars Volta though. But Iron Maiden, puh-leaze?)

And leave the pretty boys alone, you're just jealous 'cause they (mostly) get the best girls.

The Used - Take it Away

I think its funny that you think the used are pretty!
Have you SEEN them!

The Used - Take it Away

Eh, 'The Used' is actually a fairly good pop-metal record. It's Glassjaw for children, really. This is just bollocks though. Utter bollocks.

The Used - Take it Away

the first Used record was a good piece of pop-metal /screamy-pop-punk whatever (sean's right)
the second album isnt half as good
both were overproduced
this review is just an attack on the band not the song and whats with the kelly osbourne crap, that was years ago, and its not like she was in the band

The Used - Take it Away

Their drummer is GREAT, but there isn't an awful lot else that sticks in my mind about them.

Re: The Used - Take it Away

"...a lazy attack on a band that you believe will not be defended here and is a poor attempt to garner easy respect from DiS folk."

Well, I praised the Used when they first came out - or rather when I caught them live in the States nearly 4 years ago.

At that point, there wasn't half as much of this screamo crap around as there is now. Then, they were an unknown act doing something that was, admittedly, fairly different for the time. Now, after the launch of My Space - which undoubtedly helped popularise this whole scene - and after I met the guy Bert in person and saw him for the arrogant, pretentious, boring and desparate little geek that he is, their current music seems nothing but vapid and meaningless: becoming a product of a fame, money-seeking and clothing endorsement-centred "scene".

The music just appears to be a means of getting it all.

See, at DiS, something we all look for in a band's music is their ability to convey true, honest emotion
- angry music: anger / acoustic music: sadness or love.. etc...

With The Used all they seem to convey with their new material is rich faux-angst, attention-seeking white-boy-suckered-into-the-music-business-'game'-of selling-records-through-safe-predictable-stadium-filling-screamo ROCK.

And very little else.

Re: The Used - Take it Away

Skip the essay: they're shite, simple as.
Always were, always will be.
End of.

The Used - Take it Away

Older stuff was acceptable, but now it's just really contrived and intentionally angsty/miserable/shit.

What a steaming heap of excrement this song is.

The Used - Take it Away

I liked the first Used record... it was catchy. The second just isn't, it's just derivative.

Still listen to it though... listening to all good music makes my head and ego hurt. Crap music makes me feel like anything I write is bloody brilliant.

The Used - Take it Away

this ok, but similar to everyu other band who are like this, screaming bit of singing screaming, mosh break bit then more of the same blah blah who cares. I liked the first album tho, maybe memories was good.

The Used - Take it Away

At the risk of saying stuff very similar to the previous posts, I would just like to say that the old album was amazing. Ok Glassjaw may have been doing something similar before them but The Used blended the melodies well and made heavy music accessible to many.
Ok So many that isn't completely a good thing, they may be in part to blame for this emo deluge, but at the end of the day with the first album they were writing what they wanted to write, and it was awesome. Whilst it may not have been 100% original, (you can always say a song/band is just a take on another band if you think long enough and compared hard enough - it's the nature of the beast) they were doing something at least that little bit different. I agree the new album is a real let down. I feel that they have fallen to the emo MTV culture and agree the new album is far too overproduced. But i don't think the band are necessarily to blame.
A lot of honous has to be on the record companies who in these days of piracy allow less freedom to acts and are more willing to drop them at the drop of a hat. Also the young generation who have been weaned onto this music from the likes of blink and busted are largely to blame. Seeing bands and listening to them, going to gigs etc. is about expanding your musical tastes but it should be about that - your tastes, not what is popular at the time, passed off as your tastes.
Also there are a lot of people out there who lay claim to knowing the band before they were famous etc. We all from time to time see or hear of acts long before they become big, and often we recommend them to friends but then we seem to become jealous when the band is not just "our thing" anymore but are big-time, it can almost breed a culture opposite to the aformentioned where people go out of their way to not like popular stuff.
It's not big to make a stance about a band like the Used just because lotsa kids now like their stuff. It is a shame and I agree that the Used have lost some of their integrity and the new stuff is nowhere near the old stuff, but some of the album stuff is still quite listenable and better than a lotta mainstream crap.
I've liked the Used for ages but I'm not going to hate them because the new album is poor, I will savour the old songs. O and I agree Branden is an amazing drummer... I caught his stick (but then the security guy stole it after loadsa ppl tried taking it off of me :-( )

Siddz

Re: The Used - Take it Away

i absolutely agree with you. when i bought the new ablum i have to say it wasn't nearly as good as their first one which i thought was really honest and just four guys just wanting to make it into the world. it was kind of disappointing that they kind of changed their style. yeah i really can comprehend with the " jealousy". i mean we discovered this cool underground band then suddenly their all over mtv and we get this possive feeling. and why not? let's just say it, bands going mainstream has us getting pissed off and it sucks because we soon find ourselves not as excited about them. what's the point when everybody even the people who usually don't listen to rock music say, " Oh, the used rocks." or " hey you know the used, i like them too." everyone knows them therefore everyone wants to know everything about them. i guess it's just people wanting to be different and not follow the corwd all the time. our own thing.

Re: The Used - Take it Away

u guys r bein a lil mean... these guys hav been thru a lot and they're just singin about it. have none of u heard poetic tragedy or buried myself alive? i no theyre off the 1st album, but theyre still the same dudes, give em a break

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