All The Hype That Money Can Buy | Five Iron Frenzy
Part of growing up in the KERA era of Kentucky public education meant writing portfolio pieces every year. The bulk of my formative years were spent writing – which, come to think of it, may be why I’m still writing today. At any rate, our teachers would prod us to write poems, informative pieces, persuasive essays and, of course, the personal narrative. We hated every minute of it.
A few months ago I was spending some time at my parents’ house in Danville when I came across a ratty folder, stuffed with my old writings. The majority of them were songs and poems, penned from the utter depths of despair: unrequited youth group crushes. It was painful to read, not because of the heartache, but because it was bad. I mean really, really bad. Like I should use the bulk of it as litter box liners – that bad. Among the tear stained poems, I did manage to find a few school assignments, one of which was a personal narrative for my 8th grade portfolio. It started something like this: “The lead singer took the stage shouting, ‘this is a new song. I hope you hate it!’ The band behind him started into a song about Canada. This was Five Iron Frenzy, my favorite band.”
Standing there in my old room, I began to wonder what my middle school teacher really thought of it. Of course, as an 8th grade student, I didn’t have many life experiences that would have made for a compelling personal narrative, but I’m sure my teacher scratched her head as she read about an eight-piece band from Denver who sang both about issues of faith and odes to lost combs. Looking back at it now, though, my choice seems a perfect fit. Nothing quite defines my life in both middle and high school as the music of Five Iron Frenzy.
By accident, I came across Five Iron in a Christian bookstore as a sixth grader. Later that same year I would see the band live at the Ichthus Music Festival – back in the old days when it was held during the rainy (and oftentimes cold) Kentucky spring. They were my very first taste of ska music – a style that can best be described as the illegitimate child of punk rock and swing – rock and roll with a horn section. The music of Five Iron, though, rises far above any type of classification, incorporating elements of reggae, heavy metal, and salsa. To be honest, I’m not sure I can do it justice with words – it’s just something that has to be experienced.
Even more than their distinctive music, though, I fell in love with Five Iron’s lyrics, which span the spectrum from questioning and introspective to down right hilarious. The bands third full-length release, All The Hype That Money Can Buy, is classic Five Iron Frenzy – a split between the serious and the silly.
Long before Derek Webb was questioning how Christians treat homosexuals, Reese Roper, lead singer and principal lyricist for Five Iron was owning up to, and mourning, his judgmental attitude toward Freddie Mercury, lead singer of rock icons Queen in the song Fahrenheit. The band questions the lack of unity among Christ’s followers in Solidarity and finds hope among the ruins of the Columbine school shooting in A New Hope.
There is, however, also plenty of silliness to go around. The Phantom Mullet is an homage to all those brave souls who are “cutting [their] hair like Billy Ray Cyrus.” You Probably Shouldn’t Move Here extols the virtues of living in Colorado instead of California, while All The Hype, from which the name of the album is taken, is a tongue-in-cheek reflection of how musicians are put onto god-like pedestals. Near the end of the song, Reese admits, “its all wrong, so far from true, in secret, I’m just like you.”
In February, when I started this ridiculous attempt to listen to, and then write a blog about each album on my iPod, I noted that I wanted to “rediscover the music that has shaped me and, perhaps, even rediscover myself.” Five Iron Frenzy disbanded in 2003 – as a college freshmen, I drove to Wilmore to see them on their final tour. For whatever reason, perhaps I was in mourning or disbelief, I all but quit listening to Five Iron Frenzy soon thereafter. Years passed without even the thought of Five Iron, and then, about a week ago, I re-listened to All The Hype That Money Can Buy. I fell in love again. I’ll be honest, I’ve been on a Five Iron Frenzy bender ever since. It’s a strange feeling – rediscovering something that you already know you love – but at this point in time, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Fifteen albums into the quest to conquer my iPod, I’d have to say that this experiment has already been a success; the rediscovery of a band that has meant so much to me proves it to be so.
For more information about the worst corporate human rights violators, visit the global exchange.
Want to know how a brand or corporation rates in terms of human rights or environmental stewardship? Look it up on this outstanding website: the better world shopper.
release date: 2000 record label: 5 Minute Walk
track listing: 0) What’s Up
1) The Greatest Story Ever Told
2) Me Oh My
3) Solidarity
4) The Phantom Mullet
5) Ugly Day
6) Fahrenheit
7) Four-Fifty-One
8) You Probably Shouldn’t Move Here
9) Hurricanes
10) Giants
11) I Still Like Larry
12) All The Hype
13) It’s Not Unusual
14) A New Hope
15) World Without End
“Giants roam the land today,
Gaining dominance with every stride…”
The whole nation had dreamed of this moment for hundred of years. As slaves, their hearts had always been somewhere else, far away – a land that flowed with milk and honey. They raised their children on stories of this so-called Promised Land; pledged to their ancestor Abraham hundreds of years earlier, still they waited. Naturally, as the years passed, doubt and unbelief spread; the nation began to worry that they would never reach their happy home, that they would never know freedom, peace, and the blessings of God. And then Moses was raised up, and the nation found reason, once more, to hope for their homeland.
Rescued from Egypt, taken through the sea and then led by God through the desert, the entire nation stood on the edge of all they had ever hoped for – a land to call their own. Instead of rushing in, they sent twelve spies to scout out the land, size up their enemies, and bring back a report. Forty days later, they did just that.
Reporting to Moses, the spies agreed “the land to which you sent us… does flow with milk and honey!” Two of the spies, Caleb and Joshua, full of faith in their God, insisted on taking the land immediately. The other spies, however, were less confident. They took their report to the nation as a whole, stoking the flames of fear as they spoke: “the land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants.”
For most of the nation, this would be as close to the Promised Land as they would get. Up in arms, the people went to Moses, weeping and crying, their hopes of a homeland dashed by the reports of giants in the land. Some Israelites suggested traveling back to Egypt and submitting themselves once again to slavery; others advised killing Moses and electing new leadership.
As can be imagined, God was none too pleased with the lack of faith displayed by His people. Because of their disobedience and unbelief, God commanded Moses to lead the people back into the desert. There they would wander for forty years. Every Israelite over twenty years of age, save Caleb and Joshua, would die in the shadow of the Promised Land, having never tasted of her milk and honey. Fear robbed them of what they had always longed for.
track listing: 0) What’s Up
1) The Greatest Story Ever Told
2) Me Oh My
3) Solidarity
4) The Phantom Mullet
5) Ugly Day
6) Fahrenheit
7) Four-Fifty-One
8) You Probably Shouldn’t Move Here
9) Hurricanes
10) Giants
11) I Still Like Larry
12) All The Hype
13) It’s Not Unusual
14) A New Hope
15) World Without End
“Giants roam the land today,
Gaining dominance with every stride…”
The whole nation had dreamed of this moment for hundred of years. As slaves, their hearts had always been somewhere else, far away – a land that flowed with milk and honey. They raised their children on stories of this so-called Promised Land; pledged to their ancestor Abraham hundreds of years earlier, still they waited. Naturally, as the years passed, doubt and unbelief spread; the nation began to worry that they would never reach their happy home, that they would never know freedom, peace, and the blessings of God. And then Moses was raised up, and the nation found reason, once more, to hope for their homeland.
Rescued from Egypt, taken through the sea and then led by God through the desert, the entire nation stood on the edge of all they had ever hoped for – a land to call their own. Instead of rushing in, they sent twelve spies to scout out the land, size up their enemies, and bring back a report. Forty days later, they did just that.
Reporting to Moses, the spies agreed “the land to which you sent us… does flow with milk and honey!” Two of the spies, Caleb and Joshua, full of faith in their God, insisted on taking the land immediately. The other spies, however, were less confident. They took their report to the nation as a whole, stoking the flames of fear as they spoke: “the land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants.”
For most of the nation, this would be as close to the Promised Land as they would get. Up in arms, the people went to Moses, weeping and crying, their hopes of a homeland dashed by the reports of giants in the land. Some Israelites suggested traveling back to Egypt and submitting themselves once again to slavery; others advised killing Moses and electing new leadership.
As can be imagined, God was none too pleased with the lack of faith displayed by His people. Because of their disobedience and unbelief, God commanded Moses to lead the people back into the desert. There they would wander for forty years. Every Israelite over twenty years of age, save Caleb and Joshua, would die in the shadow of the Promised Land, having never tasted of her milk and honey. Fear robbed them of what they had always longed for.
Part of growing up in the KERA era of Kentucky public education meant writing portfolio pieces every year. The bulk of my formative years were spent writing – which, come to think of it, may be why I’m still writing today. At any rate, our teachers would prod us to write poems, informative pieces, persuasive essays and, of course, the personal narrative. We hated every minute of it.
A few months ago I was spending some time at my parents’ house in Danville when I came across a ratty folder, stuffed with my old writings. The majority of them were songs and poems, penned from the utter depths of despair: unrequited youth group crushes. It was painful to read, not because of the heartache, but because it was bad. I mean really, really bad. Like I should use the bulk of it as litter box liners – that bad. Among the tear stained poems, I did manage to find a few school assignments, one of which was a personal narrative for my 8th grade portfolio. It started something like this: “The lead singer took the stage shouting, ‘this is a new song. I hope you hate it!’ The band behind him started into a song about Canada. This was Five Iron Frenzy, my favorite band.”
Standing there in my old room, I began to wonder what my middle school teacher really thought of it. Of course, as an 8th grade student, I didn’t have many life experiences that would have made for a compelling personal narrative, but I’m sure my teacher scratched her head as she read about an eight-piece band from Denver who sang both about issues of faith and odes to lost combs. Looking back at it now, though, my choice seems a perfect fit. Nothing quite defines my life in both middle and high school as the music of Five Iron Frenzy.
By accident, I came across Five Iron in a Christian bookstore as a sixth grader. Later that same year I would see the band live at the Ichthus Music Festival – back in the old days when it was held during the rainy (and oftentimes cold) Kentucky spring. They were my very first taste of ska music – a style that can best be described as the illegitimate child of punk rock and swing – rock and roll with a horn section. The music of Five Iron, though, rises far above any type of classification, incorporating elements of reggae, heavy metal, and salsa. To be honest, I’m not sure I can do it justice with words – it’s just something that has to be experienced.
Even more than their distinctive music, though, I fell in love with Five Iron’s lyrics, which span the spectrum from questioning and introspective to down right hilarious. The bands third full-length release, All The Hype That Money Can Buy, is classic Five Iron Frenzy – a split between the serious and the silly.
Long before Derek Webb was questioning how Christians treat homosexuals, Reese Roper, lead singer and principal lyricist for Five Iron was owning up to, and mourning, his judgmental attitude toward Freddie Mercury, lead singer of rock icons Queen in the song Fahrenheit. The band questions the lack of unity among Christ’s followers in Solidarity and finds hope among the ruins of the Columbine school shooting in A New Hope.
There is, however, also plenty of silliness to go around. The Phantom Mullet is an homage to all those brave souls who are “cutting [their] hair like Billy Ray Cyrus.” You Probably Shouldn’t Move Here extols the virtues of living in Colorado instead of California, while All The Hype, from which the name of the album is taken, is a tongue-in-cheek reflection of how musicians are put onto god-like pedestals. Near the end of the song, Reese admits, “its all wrong, so far from true, in secret, I’m just like you.”
In February, when I started this ridiculous attempt to listen to, and then write a blog about each album on my iPod, I noted that I wanted to “rediscover the music that has shaped me and, perhaps, even rediscover myself.” Five Iron Frenzy disbanded in 2003 – as a college freshmen, I drove to Wilmore to see them on their final tour. For whatever reason, perhaps I was in mourning or disbelief, I all but quit listening to Five Iron Frenzy soon thereafter. Years passed without even the thought of Five Iron, and then, about a week ago, I re-listened to All The Hype That Money Can Buy. I fell in love again. I’ll be honest, I’ve been on a Five Iron Frenzy bender ever since. It’s a strange feeling – rediscovering something that you already know you love – but at this point in time, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Fifteen albums into the quest to conquer my iPod, I’d have to say that this experiment has already been a success; the rediscovery of a band that has meant so much to me proves it to be so.
Of course, listening to All The Hype That Money Can Buy as a twenty-six year old man was a much different experience than the days I spent listening to it as a teenager. Back then, I identified with Five Iron’s outsider status and the lighthearted fun they created. Today, I find myself drawn in by their honesty, questions and insight. Eleven years after its initial release, this album remains widely relevant – almost prophetic. This time around, one song, in particular, grabbed a hold of me and wouldn’t let go – Giants.
I’ve never taken a class on economics, so I don’t claim to have any real understanding of money and markets. But as I’ve grown from a boy into a man, I have learned that our world is made up of two types of people (at least, in terms of finances): the haves and the have-nots. In fact, at its root, that’s what this whole Occupy Wall Street movement seems to be about: to the self-identified have-nots, corporations and too-big-to-fail-banks (the haves) are running our country in a self-serving manner. The rich get richer at the expense of the poor and middle-class. This looks like thousands upon thousands of foreclosed homes and record unemployment while CEO salaries continue to rise. According to the AFL-CIO, in 2010, chief executives at some of the nation’s largest companies earned 343 times more than a typical American worker. That statistic, and many more like them, fuels the fire of Occupy Wall Street.
With Giants, Five Iron tackles a topic that is rarely, if ever, discussed among Christ followers – ethical economics. This song, which bemoans the role corporations have taken in our everyday lives, compares them to giants roaming our land, “gaining dominance with every stride.” The song continues, “don’t you cry for the mom and pops / nothing but dry eyes for integrity’s demise / hulking machines grind as whistles blow / Corporate Darwinism crushes everything below / advances in efficiency increasing productivity / are narrowing the margins for liberty.”
The band doesn’t take this lying down – in the chorus, the question the entire system: “who’s behind the curtain anyway / who pulls the levers and tells the lies?” What do corporations have to lie about, to cover up? In short: plenty. For instance, Nestle would hate for you to learn that, as one of the world’s largest corporations, they routinely use oppressive child labor (even slaves) to harvest the cocoa used in their chocolate bars. Likewise, Coca-Cola would never want you to learn that, in order to produce their bottled water brand Dasani, they drain underground aquifers in impoverished Indian communities such as Kerala, leaving entire towns water starved. They’d never broadcast that fact that, between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from their bottling plant in Colombia died under mysterious circumstances, each after leading protests against the corporations labor practices. And that’s saying nothing about Wal-Mart’s uncanny talent of destroying local business, Monsanto’s abuse of hardworking farmers or Nike’s sweatshop labor.
In America, corporations are treated as individuals – this practice is known as corporate personhood. Yet it seems quite obvious that many of them lack something that actual humans have: a conscience. As followers of Christ, we cannot blissfully spend our money any way our hearts desire. Because our Savior has commanded us to “love our neighbors as ourselves,” we must be informed about the companies and corporations that we support. Every purchase is a vote. When I buy a Nestle chocolate bar, I am voting in favor of child labor. When I spend money on a Coca-Cola product, I vote in confidence alongside their decisions to rob impoverished communities of the one of the most basic human needs: clean water. When I shop at WalMart, I support a future in which locally owned businesses – Mom and Pop stores – do not exist.
I’m still learning about what it means to embrace ethical economics – to attempt to serve Christ in everything, even with the purchases I make. I’ll be honest, it’s not easy, but I am motivated by a desire to avoid the mistake of the ancient Israelites – a fear of giants. Compared to transnational corporations, a movement of Christians choosing to shop wisely may appear insignificant, but I know that my God is in the business of bringing low what stands tall.
Forty years after their first attempt, the Israelites once more found themselves on the cusp of the Promised Land. This time, though, they learned from their mistakes. Through faith in God, the nation conquered the giants and moved into the land promised to their ancestors ages before. Today, giants are again attempting to co-opt what belongs to the Father, making a mockery of His people and His creation. As they were in the time of Joshua, these giants shall too be brought low. But until that day, may Christ’s followers not even give them a dollar to stand on.
I’ve never taken a class on economics, so I don’t claim to have any real understanding of money and markets. But as I’ve grown from a boy into a man, I have learned that our world is made up of two types of people (at least, in terms of finances): the haves and the have-nots. In fact, at its root, that’s what this whole Occupy Wall Street movement seems to be about: to the self-identified have-nots, corporations and too-big-to-fail-banks (the haves) are running our country in a self-serving manner. The rich get richer at the expense of the poor and middle-class. This looks like thousands upon thousands of foreclosed homes and record unemployment while CEO salaries continue to rise. According to the AFL-CIO, in 2010, chief executives at some of the nation’s largest companies earned 343 times more than a typical American worker. That statistic, and many more like them, fuels the fire of Occupy Wall Street.
With Giants, Five Iron tackles a topic that is rarely, if ever, discussed among Christ followers – ethical economics. This song, which bemoans the role corporations have taken in our everyday lives, compares them to giants roaming our land, “gaining dominance with every stride.” The song continues, “don’t you cry for the mom and pops / nothing but dry eyes for integrity’s demise / hulking machines grind as whistles blow / Corporate Darwinism crushes everything below / advances in efficiency increasing productivity / are narrowing the margins for liberty.”
The band doesn’t take this lying down – in the chorus, the question the entire system: “who’s behind the curtain anyway / who pulls the levers and tells the lies?” What do corporations have to lie about, to cover up? In short: plenty. For instance, Nestle would hate for you to learn that, as one of the world’s largest corporations, they routinely use oppressive child labor (even slaves) to harvest the cocoa used in their chocolate bars. Likewise, Coca-Cola would never want you to learn that, in order to produce their bottled water brand Dasani, they drain underground aquifers in impoverished Indian communities such as Kerala, leaving entire towns water starved. They’d never broadcast that fact that, between 1989 and 2002, eight union leaders from their bottling plant in Colombia died under mysterious circumstances, each after leading protests against the corporations labor practices. And that’s saying nothing about Wal-Mart’s uncanny talent of destroying local business, Monsanto’s abuse of hardworking farmers or Nike’s sweatshop labor.
In America, corporations are treated as individuals – this practice is known as corporate personhood. Yet it seems quite obvious that many of them lack something that actual humans have: a conscience. As followers of Christ, we cannot blissfully spend our money any way our hearts desire. Because our Savior has commanded us to “love our neighbors as ourselves,” we must be informed about the companies and corporations that we support. Every purchase is a vote. When I buy a Nestle chocolate bar, I am voting in favor of child labor. When I spend money on a Coca-Cola product, I vote in confidence alongside their decisions to rob impoverished communities of the one of the most basic human needs: clean water. When I shop at WalMart, I support a future in which locally owned businesses – Mom and Pop stores – do not exist.
I’m still learning about what it means to embrace ethical economics – to attempt to serve Christ in everything, even with the purchases I make. I’ll be honest, it’s not easy, but I am motivated by a desire to avoid the mistake of the ancient Israelites – a fear of giants. Compared to transnational corporations, a movement of Christians choosing to shop wisely may appear insignificant, but I know that my God is in the business of bringing low what stands tall.
Forty years after their first attempt, the Israelites once more found themselves on the cusp of the Promised Land. This time, though, they learned from their mistakes. Through faith in God, the nation conquered the giants and moved into the land promised to their ancestors ages before. Today, giants are again attempting to co-opt what belongs to the Father, making a mockery of His people and His creation. As they were in the time of Joshua, these giants shall too be brought low. But until that day, may Christ’s followers not even give them a dollar to stand on.
For more information about the worst corporate human rights violators, visit the global exchange.
Want to know how a brand or corporation rates in terms of human rights or environmental stewardship? Look it up on this outstanding website: the better world shopper.
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