After pulling the ever-popular “fire your entire lineup” trick, Powerman 5000 put out this album in 2003. It’s more of a straight-ahead alternative rock/punk rock blend, although not overt enough to belong to either genre.
I miss their old sound, but this isn’t bad. It doesn’t have anything as good as “When Worlds Collide” or “Danger is Go”, and in general it plays it a bit too safe. Conceptually, the band explored the stars. Musically, they wore knee pads and padded helmets. In their quest to not put a foot wrong, they don’t particularly put a foot right, with everything staying at a designated level of inoffensive.
Highlights are “Free”, “Action”, “Top of the World”, and “A is for Apathy,” which are all catchy and hard-rocking. “The Shape of Things to Come” is weird and trippy. When I first listened to it the final couple of minutes were buried under a wall of clicks and distortion. I actually got excited, thinking I was listening to some kind of experimental sonic collage. Turns out the mp3 had become had become corrupt.
Carbon-copy an idea enough times and it eventually degrades. This is seen here with some harmless but really boring songs like “Hey, It’s Nuthin'” or “I Knew it Was Right”…I can’t even distinguish their titles. “Stereotype” is the same, but remove the “harmless” part. It’s fucking horrible. It’s like a warmup for the all-out country song on their next album.
But basically Transform is OK and interesting. They rounded everything out and made it all sound the same, but it’s not awful. Strategically apply the skip button and it’s actually a good CD.
This album caused Powerman 5000 to become very big, very fast. It went platinum – something the band would never repeat, and (on the evidence of their previous album) should never have been possible at all.
In 1999, many things suddenly went in their favor. They were signed to a major label, and now had the muscle to swing Sylvia Massey and Ulrich Wild as producers. Lead single “When Worlds Collide” was added to heavy rotation on MTV, and immediately caught on as a ready-made WWE walk-on music. And by 1999, industrial metal was bigger than it would ever be again, powered by mainstream crossover smashes like Orgy’s cover of “Blue Monday.”
Spider One abandoned the rapping and funk-rock riffs of their first album for a sleeker, catchier, more mainstream sound. The guitars are loaded with effects, and although Spider’s barked vocals are the central point, the guitar work is pretty ambitious and fascinating. This is one of those records where it’s not always easy to distinguish the riffs from the loops and the electronics.
Classic songs abound. “Supernova Goes Pop” brings the party with heavy riffs and Spider’s sinewy, slithery vocals (it has personal significance for me, as it’s the first song I learned to play). “Are you the future…or are you the past?” The title track is incoherent, out of control, and fun. “When Worlds Collide” is still the album’s best song. It’s short, it’s catchy, and it’s loaded with energy, making it suitable for all of the 5 million “XXXtreme” sports games it has appeared in.
“The Son of X-51” is driving and propellant. Rob Zombie gets a guest spot on the explosive “Blast Off to Nowhere.” The album ends with a cover of a Cars song, further cementing them as a rock band. The only clear link Powerman 5000 has to hip hop at this point is the presence of “skit” tracks.
This album really kicks ass. Even at their biggest, Powerman 5000 was behind Rob Zombie and Static-X, but not too far behind. They could have built on this, but instead the band imploded soon after. That’s the thing about supernovas: they’re bright and pretty, but they mark the death of a star.
Weird, but it works. A lot of their later stuff is weird and doesn’t work, so small victories, right? Powerman 5000 isn’t a band so much as singer/frontman Spider One (who is Rob Zombie’s brother) writing music with whoever happens to walk through the studio door. The band has an ex-member list as long as a monkey’s arm, and frequently changes styles. Across the years, they’ve been an indie hip-hop outfit, a rap-rock band, a crazy glittery Babylon Zoo-esque performance act, a pop punk group, and then a weird amalgamation of all those things.
This is the rap-rock incarnation of Powerman 5000. Noisy, edgy Limp Bizkit sounding stuff sold by a vocalist who drawls as much as he raps and has an obsession with comics, B movies, and martial arts films. The guitar work is visceral and sloppy, heavy on the effects, and there are even some solos (which were hard to come by in the mid 90s).
The CD functions more like a sonic house of horrors than a set of cohesive songs. “Neckbone” and “Organizized” are pretty fun, with Spider just yawping all over the place and letting out throat-ripping screams. “Standing 8” has vague implications of radio-friendliness, sounding like a Red Hot Chili Peppers song at times. Production is pretty raw. It’s listenable. I could do without the overly roomy snare.
Do I like this? Maybe the only way I can answer is to say that I don’t hate it enough to turn it off. There are listenable moments, and the whole thing is just too much of an experience to easily forget. Skip the bullshit joke song at the end.
