This Is One Singles Jukebox Entry Every Child Of The Nineties Is Guaranteed To Love…
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[4.11]
Megan Harrington: When Bush debuted in 1994, their albatross was their inauthenticity. Bush were not grunge, they hailed from London and manufactured the Seattle sound wholecloth, borrowing producers like Steve Albini to create a hologram of credibility. At the time, they were, unfairly to all involved, considered pretty boys for teen girls, nothing like the real rock that inspired them. Of course, much of that real rock has aged badly — so badly that we hold regular postmortems for the whole genre. Bush’s advantage is that they were charlatans. They weren’t loyal to anything but catchy chords and crunchy guitars and they’ve been able to adapt and update that sound much better than their peers. “The Only Way Out” is as good as modern rock gets, Rossdale’s vocals are scratchy and effectively urgent, the background “oh-oh”s are sufficiently poppy and the guitars are bright and lively.
[8]
Brad Shoup: Rossdale’s always had a soothing vocal tone, a sanded-down, burped-out baritone. It works well on this almost-power-pop cut, a throwback to that golden Vertical Horizon sound. The bass paddles in place; when the chorus hits, you can hear the pedals getting punched. I’m pretty sure Apple put this on my phone last month.
[5]
Abby Waysdorf: Gavin Rossdale was my first celebrity crush, mostly thanks to my parent’s Rolling Stone subscription and the perfect overwroughtness of “Glycerine.” (Both of these hold up, by the way.) As I went down the dark path of music snobbery, my interest in Bush didn’t continue, but that I have some lingering fondness for the band probably makes me the target audience for this single. I can tell that they’re trying to go for that angst mid-tempo rock thing that was what I remember of them, but my memories aren’t enough to keep me interested in an even more bland retread. Plus, Rossdale doesn’t even sound British any more. What’s the point if he’s not British?
[5]
Edward Okulicz: No, Gavin Rossdale did not vanish after Razorblade Suitcase. You would still see him once a year when the camera randomly panned to him during the Wimbledon coverage, and he was probably alive in 2004 to lift this song’s chorus from Alanis Morissette, and his band’s no longer peddling mediocre post-grunge. Dare I say, it’s peddling slightly-better-than average shiny modern rock/pop and that this single is lot more enjoyable than all their old hits? Jeez, I’m halfway to enjoying this; either today’s rock bands really are worse — hi Imagine Dragons or whoever — or my ’90s nostalgia is now terminal.
[6]
Micha Cavaseno: Gavin saw Veruca Salt and Courtney were cashing in on the ’90s alt nostalgia wave and he wasn’t going to get left behind, no sir! I can’t take Bush as a band too seriously because they took their Nirvana fetish so far; they even made a comparatively unlistenable follow-up to their commercial blockbuster with Steve Albini. The jokes write themselves! However, I am horrified to think that Gavin Rossdale thinks Kurt would be writing U2 songs by now.
[3]
Thomas Inskeep: A joke about how “the dream of the ’90s is still alive and well” would just be lazy, not to mention inaccurate, because this doesn’t sound particularly ’90s. It doesn’t sound particularly anything, which is its primary problem: this is so inoffensive as to be anonymous, pure genera-rock. And Gavin Rossdale is a more interesting actor than singer; chew on that for a minute.
[2]
Alfred Soto: Imagine the Wallflowers trafficking in holy-roller tropes and guitars that sound Pro Tooled in a wind tunnel. Decent cheekbones though.
[5]
Anthony Easton: There are other ways out — like marrying well, or returning to an aesthetic like a dog returns to its vomit, or by refusing to engage when people who never had anything interesting to say continue not to have anything interesting to say. This has no reason for existing and is even vapid for a comeback single from a band who defined vapidity.
[0]
Dan MacRae: This band sounds awfully similar to a band we used to have in Canada known as Bush X. (REGIONAL TRADEMARK HUMOUR FEVER: CATCH IT!) “The Only Way Out” isn’t particularly interesting, is it? The tune just kinda sits there for three-plus minutes as a testament to polished blandness. It’s the sort of song where Gavin’s vocals could be swapped out for a testimonial on how taking classes online really worked for Meg M. from Knoxville and I wouldn’t really notice.
[3]