Ok that worked pretty well so I am sticking to this format
Genre/Home Town: Britpop although you wouldn’t know it. When
I purchased the album I figured that they were some kind of wanna be J-pop
band, as the front cover looks like something drawn by a person who bought one
of those “draw your own manga!” books but who only read half of it. My first
thought when I heard them was that they sounded like a weird, British version
of Five Iron Frenzy, except without horns or Jesus. Essentially they sound like
a kids-bop rendition of Op-Ivy. They are from Glasgow.
Why would I have heard of them: Uh. They had some minor hits in Australia and
they had some notoriety in the late 90s as the first unsigned band on The Top
of the Pops since the 70s which is guess is nice and interesting if you live in
England. They are one of those bands that were famous to famous people.
Apparently they toured with every good band that formed between 1994 and 2001.
Their big break in the US was writing the closing credits of the Powerpuff
Girls. They had a bizarrely long, self made career which amounted to nothing in
terms of the US market. Which is rather
admirable and also tragic.
Anything of note: They seem to have pulled something into
their music from everywhere they went, and they went everywhere.
Are they good: Man I have no idea and I've been listening to
this album for months. They are fucking fascinating though. They are a Britpop
band with serious ska influences, and avid proponents of a DIY ethos and scene
loyalty. The results are unfortunately subdued. In line with second wave Ska’s emphasis
on rejecting the barbarous antics of the punk scene and embracing intelligence,
and in line with their desire to remain true to the scene and “the youth,” they
don’t curse and maintain a positive attitude. Outside the listed influences one
should add J-pop, Eurotrash/house. Given their influences they stick to
up-tempo, well produced music. The result is overly slick, but behind the bland
production there is some really good writing. They make good use of the Britpop
tool kit and add some tricks of their own, including dual male female vocals to
give a energetic feeling of crowd participation.
Unfortunately the result
sounds oddly Nickelodeon. The sad thing is that this is a band that did things
their own way, worked really hard, toured incessantly, and made some good music
that just happens to sound like kids-bob. Essentially my problems with them are
the result of the things that happened to rock and pop after they broke up,
which is hardly fair. On the other hand the production on the album is obnoxiously
smooth, and the emphasis on youth power throughout the album is really dated
for someone who grew up to that kind of sloganeering as a marketing tool on
Nick.
As a side note I've decided that 90s nostalgia is dead for
me, backdated to when I started listening to this album in September. I still
hold a fondness for Ren and Stimpy but most of Nickelodeon can kiss my ass. Presumably
as soon as I post this a child will emerge from my wife fully formed, and I will
spend the next 10 years of my life subjected to incessant children’s programming
as karmic retribution for that ugly incident with the nun and the boll weevil. I
suppose I should get it over with.
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