Tuesday , March 19 2024
It's Only Time before these CDs hit the $1.00 bin at your local Wal-Mart.

Music Review: Drake Bell – It’s Only Time

Written by Fumo Verde

Yes, it was only time until Drake Bell made the jump from The Amanda Show on Nickelodeon to making music, or at least trying to. Bell, who had started his acting career at the age of five, began playing the guitar at age thirteen, and now at the ripe old age of twenty has come out with his second CD, It’s Only Time. Bell has a great-looking resume that includes some made-for-TV movies and shows on Nickelodeon, but that’s where he should have either stopped or got off the bus. There’s no other way to put this: this album sucks. I don’t know what his first one sounded like, but some record executive should have probably listened to it, so I wouldn’t have had to suffer through this one.

We start out hearing sounds from the bridge of a submarine. Admiral C.J. Abraham greets our ears with his faceless voice. Abraham co-wrote all these little ditties along with Bell and Michael Cocoran. You would think that with three of them working on songwriting one would have had something to say. “Up Periscope” is the first track, and when the music started, I thought I had popped in one of my eight-year-old nephew’s CDs. Not only does Bell come to us from Nickelodeon, so does his music. “Up Periscope,” like all the songs, is super upbeat and “happy-happy.” It’s the type of music that makes me angry. Angry that anyone would spend money on making bad music like this when there are kids starving on the streets of America as we speak.

This whole CD sounds like it was made for a pre-teen, after-church TV special. “The entire world is beautiful and I love you” is the theme on It’s Only Time and that course is never strayed from. If Bell is trying to break from his youthful ties, he best get off the set of Nickelodeon and go into the word on his own. The songs are contrived and the melodies bounce around like odd jams by The Beatles on bad acid. Like all sugarcoated pop artists, Bell has the illusion of being brokenhearted and blue, but there’s no feeling to it. No soul or spirit and nothing that catches the listener’s attention.

Even when I read the liner notes and the song lyrics, there wasn’t anything I could relate to. Some of his words were so out of whack, I had to refer to my buddy Ferg to see if he could make heads or tales of what Bell was saying. For example, in track number eight, “Fallen For You,” the song opens with “The first time I saw you, I thought you were barefoot. Your hair pulled back, your jelly shoes. Should I lie about my age? Your Buddy Holly glasses on a Betty Davis negative.” As these lifeless words are being spewed out, the music is moving at a Sesame Street-pace. Words like that with children’s music backing it up make my brain feel like it’s going to have an aneurysm. The fourth line in the title track states “I’m more refined in my recent years.” Yeah, that’s a big jump from eighteen to twenty, a coming of age so to say.

The worst thing to say about this CD is that it probably won’t be Bell’s last. But if he does come out with another one, I hope he lives more of life than what lays within the studio compound of Nickelodeon and The Amanda Show.

About Gordon S. Miller

Gordon S. Miller is the artist formerly known as El Bicho, the nom de plume he used when he first began reviewing movies online for The Masked Movie Snobs in 2003. Before the year was out, he became that site's publisher. Over the years, he has also contributed to a number of other sites as a writer and editor, such as FilmRadar, Film School Rejects, High Def Digest, and Blogcritics. He is the Founder and Publisher of Cinema Sentries. Some of his random thoughts can be found at twitter.com/GordonMiller_CS

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21 comments

  1. angry drakester

    hahahahah no this album was fantastic and so was his first. stop being jealous lol and actually he does put feelings into his music so just stop

  2. Okay, I’m a 14 year-old girl, and still smarter than you. First of all, The song “Up Periscope” is practically about sex. And since you implied that “Up Periscope” is “Nick-themed” then it makes you wonder what Nickelodeon is showing these days. Secondly, not all the songs on the album are happy. Upbeat, yes. But happy? No. And even they were there’s nothing wrong with that. Some songs of Drake’s that are not on this album aren’t upbeat or happy. Take “Telegraph” (the title track of his first album) for example. there is plenty of feeling and emotion in that song. There is nothing wrong with writing happy music, and you can’t judge an artist based on one album. Thirdly, you’re going to criticize a song just because the lyrics don’t make sense to you? Just because the lyrics confuse you, doesn’t mean it’s a bad song. Put your own meaning into them instead of saying it in your review or getting a friend to help you. This whole idea about the album targeting younger kids is a load of fucking bullshit, considering Drake usually targets an audience his age with his Beatles-influence music. If this wasn’t written 7 years ago, I would say you’re just a butthurt Bieber-supporter, because there’s really no legit reason to dislike this music. And save your fucking comments about how this review was written seven years ago, or about how i swear too much, because frankly, I just don’t give a fuck. Have a good day.

  3. May I also add: Just because YOU can’t relate to any of the lyrics, that doesn’t mean there’s no emotion or talent within the music. His songs are very good, and a lot of them involve Drake just pouring his emotions out. His song “Everything is Gonna Be Okay” from album “The Nashville Sessions” is a song that everyone can relate to. He wrote it about the wreck he was in in 2005. Anyone, no matter what they are going through can relate to it. I also seriously don’t see how the song “Fool The World” fits the theme “The entire world is beautiful and I love you”. Same with “Rusted Silhouette” as well as ”Beak me Down” and ”I Know”.

  4. Aria Martinez XX

    I disagree with most of what you just said. I don’t think the ”theme” you decided to come up with fit all of his songs. It might work for maybe half of them, but most of them don’t really fit that description.

  5. YOU ARE SO DUMB. YOU PROBABLY DON’T EVEN ACTUALLY LISTEN TO HIS MUSIC. IT IS AMAZING AND HE WORKS HARD ON IT. I DON’T THINK OPINIONS ARE USUALLY RIGHT OR WRONG, BUT IN THIS CASE YOUR OPINION IS DEFINITELY WRONG. YOU SHOULD SERIOUSLY GO SLAM YOUR HEAD IN A DOOR. YOU ARE THE MOST IDIOTIC PERSON. YOU MAKE ME SO ANGRY.

  6. It would be appreciated if you reply to my arguments, which contain more logic and reasoning and valid points than your entire life seems to

  7. The music is a heck of a lot better than the poppy mainstream shit like Justin Bieber and One Direction. And there;s nothing wrong with having submarine noises at the beginning of a song. It makes him unique, because I can’t think of one single other artisit that would do that. In his song Hollywood Girl (Telegraph) and The Spin (The Nashville Sessions) have voices at the beginning. I really don’t see anything wrong with it. Also, the fact that one of your tags is “children” is just pathetic and proves you don’t have the slightest ounce of a brain under that thick skull of yours.

  8. If the music doesn’t appeal to you, then fine we all have our opinions. But this review is full of statements that you are implying are “facts” when in reality, they’re just dumb assumptions. Check your brain, bro

  9. lol @ the fact that none of the comments are positive

  10. Considering all the comments come from one person, Lizzy, no surprise they are all in the same vein

    • they come from different people ……..wtf

      • right. that’s why you all showed up at the same time and share an IP

        • we all showed up at the same time because when I found this I told other people about it. not sure about that IP thing though, kinda weird, [edited]. we all had some valid points, so if someone did make all the comments, whoever it supposedly was did a great job. and instead of having valid arguments, you think “Oh these people are pretty smart, but I can’t think of any arguments to counter that, so I’m gonna [edited] assume it was all the same person, and waste time tracking IP’s”

        • Another fact crossed my mind, that I spaced on mentioning previously: tracking IP’s as such is illegal. [edited]

          • It took 8 days for that to cross your mind? [personal attack deleted by comments editor]

          • Oh what’s this? Another informal fallacy, i see. *applause*. You sir, are a pathetic nimrod. At least I replied. You shut up, because you realized I made valid points. that you had no legitimate arguments for. Are you a fan of Justin Bieber? Because you’re demonstrating typical belieber behavior. [edited]

          • No, didn’t bother to respond because I didn’t care. I didn’t review the album; Fumo Verde did as it clearly says above, so it’s safe to say reading comprehension isn’t your strong suit. [edited]

          • Oh I’m sorry, did I say you reviewed the album? hm? No I didn’t, so what’s your point?

  11. Don't worry about it

    that um….those were some dumbass assumptions you just made, good sir