Gym Class Heroes

Drunk texting and Daryl Hall may seem like strange bedfellows, but somehow, Gym Class Heroes seamlessly cram them both into the same album. That's why The Quilt is one of the most refreshing major label pop records to come out in 2008. Instead of simply capitalizing on the massive success of their last album 2006's As Cruel As School Children and making a sequel, Gym Class Heroes raised a middle finger to the easy route and crafted a very rewarding and layered offering.

Unpredictability reigns supreme across The Quilt's funky landscape. The album kicks off pairing Travis McCoy's easy-breezy flow and Estelle's soulful croon on "Guilty As Charged." It bounces with the theatricality of an Andrew Lloyd Webber composition, but at the same time, both singers brush up against the song's funky instrumentals. There's a fun push-and-pull to the track, and it's the perfect opening for an album with no boundaries. That theatricality gives way to a hilarious rumination on modern dating, "Drunk Txt Romeo." Travis rhymes about text message addiction in hilarious four-bar measures that paint a picture of dating in the digital age. "Peace Sign/Index Down" is an infectious "F-You" chant that sees Gym Class paired up with Busta Rhymes, who brings down the house on his verse. First single, "Cookie Jar," is a club-bumping track with a hard-not-to-shake-it-to chorus by The-Dream.

Then the album gets serious. "Like Father, Like Son (Papa's Song)" creates a vivid picture of a father and son relationship, tugging at the heartstrings through some smart little rhymes. Then there's the band's phenomenal, seven-minute collaboration with Daryl Hall, "Live Forever (Fly With Me)." It transforms the album's early theatrical panache into epic rock bombast. Travis and Daryl trade melodies that feel both pained and poignant. The song segues from dark to light, and it really warrants more than just a few listens. It's one of the record's standouts and a new place for Gym Class Heroes. "Coming Clean" is a soft, terse closer that also serves the album's anything-goes vibe well.

It seems like a lot of "serious music fans" disregard Gym Class Heroes as another act from the Fall Out Boy stable. However, they're much more than that. They bridge the gap between rock and hip hop, more seamlessly than most have, and they do it with a big smile. When you can drunk text Daryl Hall on your record, you're doing something right.

—Rick Florino
09.18.08

The Quilt is as good a name as any for Gym Class Heroes' post-hip-hop pop collage, as they weave together discarded strands of junk culture into something new yet naggingly familiar. More than most of their peers, they embody all the glorious and maddening contradictions of their generation. Raised in the heyday of hip-hop while steeped in the irony of '90s alt-rock, persistent nostalgia for '70s kitsch, and '80s new wave, Gym Class Heroes see no borders between any era or style, mixing and matching the parts to create funky Frankensteins that feel as pop as they do rap. On The Quilt, Travis McCoy and crew attempt to amp up the urban and hip-hop just a bit, working with Cool & Dre -- producers with the Game and Lil Wayne to their credit -- and having Rihanna associate the Dream in for the single "Cookie Jar," but they do all this without abandoning longtime running-partner Fall Out Boy Patrick Stump, or their love of syrupy soft rock hooks, a love that manifests in a duet with Daryl Hall, and choruses that feel borrowed from Ben Folds, or maybe Jack's Mannequin. All this stylistic hopscotch winds up unwittingly emphasizing just how much Gym Class Heroes are indebted to OutKast's -- or perhaps more specifically André 3000 -- genre-bending, as the best moments here float on the same kind of giddy, infectious choruses that fueled "Roses." That Gym Class Heroes get a little lax on their verses points out that they're better in broad strokes than details, just like how they deliver clever concepts that call out for a bit more wit than McCoy manages to muster. And that's also how Gym Class Heroes' Quilt is very, very much of its time: it skates by on the surface, which is appealing for a while, but in large doses it can seem like too much empty style. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide