Boston's Boy

Album Review

Amping up Asher Roth’s college kid rap with more macho and less irony, Sam Adams — and that’s his real first and middle name — was accused of faking the numbers when this debut EP topped digital hip-hop charts. Adams soon produced the sales figures to prove the haters wrong, but what everyone seemed to forget was that the pop-rapper’s Roth-like style was extremely hot in early 2010, and if you can skillfully blend in some of Ke$ha’s attitude, some Shwayze-like beats, and 3OH!3’s lack of shame, the charts are bound to be yours. Boston's Boy isn’t the perfect blend, but it is close enough that the gum-snapping teens will understand and likely dance with brew in the air as Adams suggests on the party time highlight “Swang Your Drank.” While the track is hip-hop by way of Flo Rida, “Driving Me Crazy” is almost entirely dance-pop, and infectious dance-pop at that. The feel-good “Coast to Coast” falls somewhere in the middle, although “Girl problems, you think you have some/Hit the beach, you won’t have one” like most of his lyrics, is straight out of suburbia. Put it all together, and Boston’s Boy ends up a worthy soundtrack for rocking the cul de sac, and it's short enough to finish before the cops show up threatening to call their parents.