Are you ready for a piece of insipid melodic grunge rock? If so, go on and play the new (or the old, doesn’t matter) album by Puddle of Mudd and clap your hands. Sometimes it is interesting to hear impersonal records in order to appraise harder and with more love the good music born in a certain style… Taken by its own, “Famous” is not a weak album. Its problem is that it is most appropriate for rebellious American schoolgirls and angry introvert youngsters who have never listened to the strong alternative rock records. Yes, energetic teen hymns like the title song or “Livin’ on Borrowed Time” on which you could freely sing along with “la-la-la”; the common “Psycho” to which you could also add some “yeah-yeah”, or lyrical polished ballads about the bitch called love may sound totally adequate for the audience born in the nineties. However, the rest of the rock fans are pretty well acquainted with the much more notable creations of the grunge pioneers, as like the ones of some of the stronger bands of the following waves of the alternative rock scene like Silverchair or Bush. Figuratively, the band is with new musicians on the drums and one of the guitars, and for “Famous” - except for the singer Wesley Scantin - there works a team of famous and not that known names, among which appears the one of Jack Joseph Puig, who has recorded albums for Barbra Straisand, Dire Straits, No Doubt, Hole and many more. Correspondently, it comes out that the sugary sound flowing out of the record is such on purpose. So, if the teachers and your parents are driving you nuts, you could get angry and play “Famous” - even the “f”-word is mentioned there! But if these worries are only a blurry part of the past, you’d better dig out of the dust the CDs of some “ancient” Seattle bands.