Band:	Zebrahead
Album:	Playmate Of The Year
Style:	Pop Punk, Rap rock
Release date:	2000
Guest review by:	iaberis

01. I Am
02. Playmate Of The Year
03. Now Or Never
04. Wasted
05. I'm Money
06. Go
07. What's Going On?
08. Subtract You
09. The Hell That Is My Life
10. E-Generation
11. Livin' Libido Loco
12. In My Room
13. All I Need [Japanese bonus]
14. Deck The Halls (I Hate Christmas) [Japanese bonus]

I remember first listening to Zebrahead around 2005, during my first year at the University. I met this guy who was a huge fan of pop punk and I was huge fan of metal. I was trying to get him into metal and he was trying to get me into his music. Anyway, among various bands he recommended to me back then, Zebrahead was one of them and the songs he gave me to listen to, were from this particular album, Playmate Of The Year.

Just yesterday I found this album in a record store under the left-over CDs tag, a huge pile of albums that didn't manage to get sold and they were giving them away for 4.90 euros. I seized the offer and decided to give the band and their genre another try.

Well, actually, Zebrahead is not exactly what you'd call pure pop punk music. It has various elements of rap rock and you'll get this just from the very beginning and the first song "I Am". Even from the front cover you get the idea of what audience it focuses on - there's a bikini girl cutting the grass. The rest of the artwork follows this principle, half naked girls doing the yard work. Obviously their main target group is teenage kids and freshmen guys in college.

Most of the songs here have a comic approach of life, and if you count all the rapcore stuff, it reminds me a lot of The Bloodhound Gang songs, a band that gained mainstream success around the time this album was written (1999-2000), so I guess these guys were a big influence on the band. The album in general has an uplifting mood, like most pop punk stuff out there, so their music would most probably sound appealing to people that are into bands like Blink-182 and Sum 41, or even Linkin Park.

Vocals sometimes sound too annoying but in general they're rather good, fitting the songs' attitude. Guitar work is OK too, reaching a peek with songs like "Playmate of the Year" and "Now or Never" which are the top tracks of the record. Most of the songs are either too mainstream or too typical pop punk tunes, which leaves me with a not so good taste. The band lacks a distinct sound, at least in this release. I guess it would fit well in the soundtrack of another teen movie.

All in all, it's not that bad, but it's not something special either. I guess the average pop punk guy could give it a try and see for himself. Apart from that, I don't wonder why it was left in the unsold CDs, but for its price, it was a good deal I guess.