- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Alternative PressThis Is For Real is the album Aerosmith might make if they were back on the sauce. [Jul 2004, p.146]
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SpinLike running full-tilt through a fun house with smoke machines, tinsel-covered ceilings and a super-size disco ball. [Aug 2004, p.108]
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For all of its forays into bluesy rock and glittery glam, though, "Real" draws heavily from New Wave's danceable side.
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If there’s a problem with ‘This Is For Real’ and you’ll have to really look, it’s the fact that it’s a tad too shiny. Not much, but, at times, it’s lost a bit of that dirtiness that made the Grease so appealing.
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UncutPuts welcome top-spin on a genre fixated on Suicide by reviving Devo, adding the glamour and flamboyance of The New York Dolls, Ziggy-era Bowie and Roxy Music, then whipping the lot along with the Glitter Band's ludicrous stomp. [Jul 2004, p.112]
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Even if it's not quite as strong a debut album as Pink Grease's prior work suggested it might be, This Is for Real really does have a lot of hedonistic, cleverly mindless kicks to offer.
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So even if, like me, you find the lyrics and Elton John-style coda to “Superfool” annoying, you’ll probably also find yourself singing along; this is the sort of record whose vices, if you give it a chance, slowly become virtues.
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This Is for Real has its moments, but it's not the sex-punk triumph these Sheffield-based narcissistic debaucherists seem to believe it is.
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The problem is, it all feels a bit contrived.
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MagnetThe occaisonally infectious hooks keep the shtick from falling into one-dimensional parody. [#64, p.104]
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Q MagazineFulfill[s] glam's promise of tasty geezers in make-up playing shrill, sleazy punk sounds. [Jul 2004, p.121]
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Feels a little bit contrived, at times, an elaborate game of dress-ups unleashed under the unlikely title This Is for Real -- a claim which, if not deliberately ironic, sure seems the complete opposite of the fabricated fashion-conscious compilation-of-quotations that the album actually is.
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New Musical Express (NME)A total car-crash of excess enthusiasm. [12 Jun 2004, p.49]
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Under The RadarThe band betrays itself on the album as a one-trick glam rock pony. [#7]
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Oddly, nothing about This Is for Real feels sincere.