Andrew W.K. Keeps the Focus on Fun With ‘Party’ Songs

Headbanging pop-rocker Andrew W.K. pushed streamers of long, sweat-drenched brown hair from his face and grinned devilishly at his House of Blues audience on Friday. “There’s nothing wrong with having fun,” he bellowed, as his quintet launched into another song fusing the dopiest elements of metal, punk and new wave.

The statement pretty much summed up the possibly tongue-in-cheek--possibly not--philosophy of this Michigan-raised singer-songwriter, 22, whose debut album, “I Get Wet,” has garnered attention in mainstream publications as well as the music press.

Indeed, so long as your definition of fun included such anti-pretentious tunes as “Party Til You Puke,” “It’s Time to Party” and “Party Hard,” the 50-minute set was a bracing blast of dumb pleasure anthems (interspersed with such lunkheaded sensitivity as the shy-guy lament “She Is Beautiful”).

With their lowest-common-denominator abandon and melodic (but mostly recorded) keyboard riffs, the songs evoked a super-aggro Cars or a modern Twisted Sister. Yet they were also rendered nearly indistinguishable from one another by the combination of three blustering guitars turned up to 11 and the lack of keyboard spontaneity.

Whiffs of rebellion made it possible to view A.W.K. as a populist subversive, but more likely the defiant bits simply plugged into the formula for “what’ve-you-got?” rock ‘n’ roll insouciance. At their deepest, these tunes gleefully advocated diving into life, which was a noble enough effort on behalf of rock’s eternal spirit. But if this is 21st century idiot genius, then please pass the Slade.