J-Records
Pop, 2001

LFO is cheesier than Swiss cheese, and I like their debut CD. After some long legal wrangling, they are back with their follow-up, Life Is Good. Which isn’t, if rather miserable record sales are any indication.

Still, Life Is Good is still quite fun in a cheesy way. The single Every Other Time is infectious and cute, with the “na na na na” riff sticking with my head and never letting go. It’s a cute song about a hot-cold relationship that culminates in her telling everyone on prom that he is gay. Heh. Tracks like 28 Minutes and the PG-13 raunchy 6 Minutes follow the similar vein of feel-good pop tunes with cheesier than cheese lyrics.

But the true surprise is the fact that boyband member Rich Cronin is behind almost every other song in this album. It’s obvious where the brain of LFO is and how this young man is determined to have a career behind the scenes or alone after LFO. He even hogs most of the vocals, from the usual LFO pop to the Depeche Mode sound-alike Erase Her and faux-rock track Gravity. The beautiful Dandelion, coming in two versions (one is a duet with Kelis) will make a good song if the lyrics aren’t so vapid.

Life Is Good lacks the cheerful bubbly edge of LFO’s debut. It’s harder, a direction that follows the usual path boybands take. If these guys make a third album, I’ll bet they’ll appear on the CD sleeve art with bad hair and leather duds. But still, a grown-up LFO is still a cheesy in a good way LFO. And if the great Erase Her is any indication, a rockier LFO won’t be so bad an idea after all.