ALBUM REVIEW: Grand Prize Winners From Last Year – Rocket People

Just to be honest, I always get a little nervous about reviewing my friends’ work. I’ve known the guys in Grand Prize Winners From Last Year for a hot minute now, even back to when they were a 4-piece. I always try to give an unbiased opinion on a musician’s art. With that being said Rocket People isn’t going to be the next My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, but perhaps we don’t really need that. If it’s one thing that The Beastie Boys taught us it’s that sometimes it’s alright just to have some irreverent fun and in that regards this album is much more License To Ill.

Grand Prize Winners From Last Year have always been their own band, if sometimes compared to Outkast, but being compared to one of the biggest and unique groups of the 2000′s is far from the worst thing that could be said. With that being said the band has always straddled the line between hip-hop and rock I was curious to see what would unfold on their long-awaited LP. Would we get the hooky rock-pop of “Electron Blue” or the high-energy numbers like “I Get High”, or would we see the band delve into more standard hip-hop fare? There’s no real answer to the question, not in conventional terms anyways, just more GPW FLY.

Fans have probably already heard “Electron Blue,” which was released about a year ago as a standalone single, and I’m just going to go ahead and let you know that even though it’s included here it’s the only real rock-pop song on here, as the band have mostly stuck with their hip-hop roots. Speaking of singles, I was really unsure about why the band chose to release “So Fly” as their next single until I woke up one day this week with the hook in my head, and realized I shouldn’t have doubted these guys ability to get in the listener’s head. If you stick around to the end you’re going to hear some interesting confessions of how fly his girl is, “girl you make me wanna drink Hennessy and chase it with your bath-water/girl you make me wanna sit down with your father and discuss your future”.

Other standout tracks include the Biz Markie-esque singalong, “Armpiece” and the appropriately-placed closer, “The World”. While “Electron Blue” stood out as the singy/hooky single, The World stands out just as much, but for it’s lyricism. The second verse finds singer/guitarist Believe breaking out of the character-piece that was the rest of the album, to impart some truthful and relatable moments to the listener. Sample lyrics include “I know things change but I’m stuck inside the same shit/The more I stress the more these haters test my patience/So I’m forever lonely, forever keeping to myself/Like we was ever homies that mean we peoples to the death”.

The only real problem with the release overall is that sometimes it’s hard to stay in the groove as the band will throw an instrumental piece in like “G.F.U.” or the slower “Overdrive”. But they do make sense overall because one problem with a lot of modern releases is they tend to bludgeon the listener over the head with production. So I do appreciate the band’s effort to break this up for us so we don’t get exhausted halfway through, but I can’t help wonder if they should have spaced out these numbers a bit more.

There’s not much left to say except that fans of the band will not be disappointed, as the band returns with everything you’ve loved about them in the first place. For those unfamiliar with the band….come on I posted 2 videos above! You can download the album from their bandcamp for only $7.99 here and stream it below. The band will be returning to Greenville tomorrow, May 19th at the Radio Room along with We Roll Like Madmen and Zak Rolley. Admissions is $3 and starts at 10PM.