Background: Andrew W.K. is an interesting character. He made quite a splash back in 2001 with his first album, I Get Wet. Songs like Party Hard and It's Time To Party were crafted to be as loud and as large as possible, the entire album stays in this vein, really. His brand of unironic joy caught on quickly and his flame burned bright. Andrew W.K. loves to party, and he wanted everyone to know it.
His followup album however, titled The Wolf, failed to capture the same zeitgeist, despite being a more accomplished album and actually selling quite well. It had the same humongous hooks and yelling about how awesome partying is, but America had moved on. Japan, on the other hand, totally dug it, so he catered to that market. Close Calls With Brick Walls, his next LP only came out in Japan for many years (it's since been released here). He even released an album of songs from the popular anime series Gundam, about people controlling giant robots and doing battle. Though not specifically about partying, it's actually a pretty logical step. He also, simultaneously, released the opposite album, 55 Cadillac, which is entirely piano instrumentals.
He continues to have success, though. Fans still love him, I know I do, and he has one of the most entertaining twitter feeds out there. He's also spent some time doing motivational speaking, and hosting the Cartoon Network show Destroy, Build, Destroy. This movie came out shortly after The Wolf, let's check it out, shall we?
Plot: This is mostly a concert movie, so there really isn't any plot to speak of. All the performances are taken from seemingly random parts of his career, even switching between certain performances within the same song. This uses a pretty neat process that stacks all the audio together and it makes a seamless thing. The audio quality is far from perfect, in fact it's not very good at all, and that might be a product of this stacking, but I'm not sure.
Audio issues aside though, watching Andrew W.K. on stage with his band is a damn blast. If you're watching this movie, chances are you know the music anyway. The band, for all their jumping around and energy, remains totally solid too. They don't drop notes because they're flailing too much and W.K. seemingly never gets winded. Even "Totally Stupid", which he performs in a wheelchair, doesn't fail to bring the party.
Now let's talk about the interstitial stuff. It's pretty damn strange. And that's awesome. A lot of it is narration over piecemeal concert footage. The narration is really deliberately paced, which stands in such stark contrast with the music that it ends up sounding downright insane. Also, throughout the movie, if you're paying attention, you get to pick up some great advice from the man himself, including "We don't have fans, we have friends" and "The only place that's impossible to go is nowhere".
Why Was It Forgotten? Andrew W.K.'s fanbase just isn't what it was when I Get Wet came out. A lot of people couldn't believe that someone could be as sincerely positive as he is.people saw his lack of irony and thought there must be a catch, but if you follow him on twitter and read more about him and watch this movie, you find there most definitely is no catch. He's just a totally cool, totally positive dude. Also, I'm sure some people will get turned off by the sound quality, but who cares? The music is still great.
What Went Right? The music. If you like Andrew W.K., you love Andrew W.K. Simple as that. I like Andrew W.K.
Verdict: PARTY TIP: Watch this movie.
Score: 85%
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