3OH!3

This summer, Warped Tour has embraced more genre-bending/barf-inducing acts than ever, including crunkcore brats brokeNCYDE, the glam girls in Millionaires and gender-bender Jeffree Starr. It might be a good time to put one of these acts under the microscope and 3OH!3 are as deserving as any of them. Hailing from Boulder, CO, electronica punks 3OH!3 weave insincere trust fund rap lyrics over some actually solid electro beats that are equal parts Chromeo and Spank Rock. Second album Want has a few catchy club bangers, including the hit "Don't Trust Me," featured on MTV show The Hills. It's not impossible to see the appeal, since the songs are often catchy and the production slick (Matt Squire, the dude responsible for Panic at the Disco and Boys Like Girls, turned the knobs). Any chance this record had of being credible is ruined by the tasteless, affected vocals by Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte: "Shush girl, shush your lips/Do the Hellen Keller and talk with your hips." This album has listeners begging Foreman and Motte to shush their lips so the nasty beats can be fully appreciated. What about this band makes them punk? What is it about any of these genre benders on Warped that makes them work in the scope of a "punk" festival? Marketing, I guess. Man, that really bums me out.