The Flying Tigers

(Atlantic)

Take a guitar, distort it, add simplistic drumming and throw in a voice that sounds like every other voice on every other corporately created and marketed rock band, and the result is The Flying Tigers.

Ah, thank you, record industry, for delivering us yet again from original sound and talented musicians.

To prove this point, lyrics on this album include the following from the song "Hell for You":

"I went thru hell/I went thru hell for you/You're coming thru for me/I went thru hell/I went thru hell for you."

No, that's not a typo, the word "through" is actually spelled "thru" in the CD booklet, where one can also gander at the band clad in black clothes, displaying tattooed arms - a kind of goth/raver/eurotrash/community college dropout motif that all the "hip" bands seem to be sporting nowadays.

This band was probably chosen almost entirely because their look and sound fit certain criteria for what sells and what is marketable to a certain demographic.

Dear sweet zombie Jesus, this is why people flocked to Napster. The existence of The Flying Tigers shows the contempt the record industry has for music as an art form. If the Beatles had started off in the present time, they would be known as "Those four dishwashing lads from Liverpool" for their lack of marketability.

Still, one can easily imagine hearing The Flying Tigers again, over and over and over, on one of Clear Channel's radio stations, followed by a music video on MTV, appearances on all the major talk shows and then, maybe if sales are good, a Grammy nomination. Then they will fall off the map completely around about June.