Tokio Hotel
Humanoid
Cherrytree/Interscope Records

Ahhh, those wacky Germans. From the people who brought us both an unfathomable fame for David Hasselhoff and nine-syllable words now comes Magdeburg, Germany’s finest four-person pop-boy band, Tokio Hotel.

After great success (according to the press release, at least) in France, Poland and Russia, a new English version of their newest album Humanoid is being released in the states, and may I be the first to introduce it to America with a big yawn.

What is it about most Europe pop music that insists on sounding like they copied it from what was popular 15 years ago? Just to give you one example, the song “Pain of Love” could easily performed by Bon Jovi for use in the movie Teen Wolf II.

There’s plenty of talent here, mainly from vocalist Bill Kaulitz and his twin brother Tim on guitar, and you can tell they really love what their doing…

But no. I’m sorry, but I just can’t give a free ride to crappy Euro-pop anymore. This makes the Jonas Brothers look like a legitimate musical phenomena.  If they did it this way to try and be more commercial in the ‘ol USA, well good luck because if you’re not on a reality show nobody cares.

There’s even a song here, called “Automatic”, that directly rips off the intro to Cher’s neo-disco opus “Believe”. Really, that’s just tacky guys. Maybe Hasselhoff isn’t all that bad. — Brandon Whitehead

Brandon Whitehead can be contacted at brandonw@kcactive.com