Ehh... It's alright. Review on Satellite - P.O.D.

P.O.D. technically first appeared on the map in the early 1990’s. The band was formed in 1992 when Marcos and Wuv wanted to show off their guitar and drum skills through the form of rock music. That same year, Marcos’s cousin Sonny decided joined the rockers. Finally, in 1993, Traa joined the trio and formed the Christian rock group which is now known as P.O.D. (which is short for “Payable On Death”).

The Christian rockers from San Diego released a number of homemade EP’s and played tons of shows across the country at the beginning of their career. It wasn’t until the 1999 release of The Fundamental Elements of Southtown that this group finally started to get some real recognition. P.O.D. had a couple of hits on this album, such as “Southtown” (which didn’t really impress me). The Fundamental Elements of Southtown was criticized for being too many different things all at once (different styles, that is); however, some praised the album for the exact same thing. The Fundamental Elements of Southtown eventually went platinum and told people one thing: P.O.D. wasn't going anywhere.

It wasn’t until September 11, 2001 that these rockers released the album that would take them to the highest point of their career (I don’t think there were many records being sold on the release date… for obvious reasons). The album released was called Satellite.

| ^ | Who’s in the Band? | ^ |

I mentioned the names of P.O.D. above, but now it’s time to give you individual info on these guys.

• Sonny- lead vocals

• Marcos- guitar, vocals

• Traa- bass, vocals

• Wuv- drums, vocals

Even though all these guys sing, it’s clear throughout the album that Sonny should take all (or at least most) credit for the singing/vocals of P.O.D..

| ^ | Songs | ^ |

Satellite kicks off with the song entitled Set it Off. And that’s exactly what this track does… sets the album off with an “in your face,” uptempo, loud song. P.O.D. is telling us (through Set it Off) that they are back and better than ever. My own feelings are that this is a great introductory track and sets the mood for pretty much all the tracks.

And then come the major hits… Alive, Boom, and Youth of the Nation. Alive always puts me in a good mood. Something about the beat of the song just makes me feel…well… alive! Lyrically, the song is nothing special. Useless Fact: The song Alive was used in the previews (on television) of the summer movie, Blue Crush. Next comes the most recent hit from these rockers, Boom. Like Set it Off, Boom lets the listener know that these guys have some skills when it comes to making music. The song itself is loud and very catchy. I swear you’ll be saying Boom! Here comes the boom!/ Ready or not here comes the boys from the South in your sleep- it’s that catchy. And that brings us to Youth of the Nation. This song, in my opinion, is the best when it comes to https://lyrics. The song speaks of all the struggles the youth of our nation are going through—suicide, abandonment, murder, etc. The song is not as fast in tempo as some of the others, but I think that’s how it was intended to be. My favorite part of the song is when the teenagers sing the chorus… I thought that part added a lot to the song (hearing the youth sing it rather than have some adult rant about issue that doesn’t really have to do with him was brilliant).

Masterpiece Conspiracy has definite potential to become the next single. The beat changes throughout the song and the lyrics are all there. Masterpiece Conspiracy has some good vocals- Sonny's voice sounds superb on this song and the screaming in the backround doesn't bother me in this song (probably cause it's pretty subtle). The words are easy to understand and all these reasons explain why I think Masterpiece Conspiracy should be P.O.D.'s next single.

Celestial and Guitarras de Amor are only instrumental pieces; however, I do recommend you listen to them. Celestial sounds pretty much like what a slow P.O.D. track would sound like without the words. I personally like Guitarras de Amor better than Celestial. Guitarras de Amor really sets a different pace than the other songs with its Spanish-sounding guitar…. Very different.

The slowest songs on the album are Anything Right and Thinking About Forever. Anything Right features Christian of blindlside (whoever the hell that is!?). Somehow (I don’t know how, but it works) the blending of Sonny and Christian’s voices somehow seem to blend almost perfectly. Despite these songs being the slowest, they both have their loud moments. Thinking About Forever is much better than Anything Right-- lyrically. Thinking About Forever talks about how important it is to stay strong in a relationship. It talks about even though their being struggles and hardships, there are definitely more positives than negatives when it comes to being with that special someone.

The only song I really cannot stand is Without Jah, Nothin’. I cannot even decipher most of the words of this song (it’s that loud and most of the song is just pure noise) and H.R. (the musical guest on this song) sounds like a mouse/cartoon character. This is song is horrible.

| ^ | Lyrics() | ^ |

Honesty, some of the lyrics on Satellite are better than others. We have some tracks such as Youth of the Nation and Thinking About Forever that have some true meaning, whereas others such as Without Jah, Nothin have no meaning and is just a bunch of jibber-jabber.

Three stars for the https://lyrics.

| ^ | Style() | ^ |

The style of Satellite and P.O.D. for that matter is loud and upbeat. I know this is a good thing (if you are in the right mood), but does that make them very original? No, not really. Let’s see… Lit, Limp Bizkit, and Jimmy Eat World are loud and upbeat also. Hmmm...

Let’s talk about the whole Christian band thing. Even though the rockers of P.O.D. are Christian, it’s not very evident on the album. The only songs that show that these guys are indeed Christian are Thinking About Forever and Youth of the Nation. And none of the songs are sung in a way that sounds like it would be pleasing to God, lol. So what I’m getting at here is that even though they are known as the “Christian Rockers,” it’s not very evident on this album.

Three stars for P.O.D.’s style.

| ^ | Track Listing | ^ |

1. Set if Off

   
   




2. Alive.

   
   




3. Boom

   
   




4. Youth of the Nation

   
   




5. Celestial

   
   




6. Satellite

   
   




7. Ridiculous (featuring Eek-A-Mouse)

   
   




8. The Messenjah

   
   




9. Guitarras de Amor

   
   




10. Anything Right (featuring Christian of blindslide)

    
    




11. Ghetto

    
    




12. Masterpiece Conspiracy

    
    




13. Without Jah, Nothin' (featuring H.R.)

    
    




14. Thinking About Forever

    
    




15. Portrait

    
    

| ^ | Overall | ^ |

Overall, I thought Satellite was a pretty average album. The singles and hits that these guys released are pretty good (and I'll recommend the album for that reason), but some of the other material on the album isn’t so great. P.O.D. may think they are original and everything, but they really aren’t. I can compare them to lots of other mainstream bands out there (as I did above). And why are they classified as being a Christian band when (a)some lyrics in their songs do not sound very Christian-like (b)the way they sing and the music played doesn't sound like it would be very pleasing to God (although that one is not that big of a deal... I guess we can praise God in whatever way we like. This is just my opinion). I guess we'll never know...

Thanks for reading.

Final Rating- 3.5 Stars