Hi there. I am currently free from the burden of employment. As such I have lots of spare time, which I spend sat on a chair, with music blasting into my ears and radiation slowly burning my eyes away. From time to time I sip coffee, in an effort to prolong this behavior. As a consequence, I think I might have developed ADD. This prevents me from reading more than a few sentences in the span of 60 seconds and listening to songs longer than three minutes in a single session. Remember the ‘60s, when every song was at most three minutes long? Man, those were the days; too bad Bob Dylan went and ruined it for everyone with an awesome organ riff.
But, hark! I am in luck, for my playlist holds the debut album of three ladies who cater to the needs of my Internet-burned brain. When I first heard the Vivian Girls, I looked back to the time I first heard the Ramones. There I was: a teen-age metalhead prostrating myself at the well-dressed feet of Yngwie Malmsten, when out from my speakers came this fast, catchy, danceable music played without a hint of pretension. It was immature, sure, but therein lay its charm (I have since abandoned the growls of angry northern men and settled comfily into my Converse shoes and Beatles hairdo).
I, for one, can’t have fun with an album if I don’t feel that the musicians were having fun when they recorded it. This record gets top marks in that department, let me tell ya. Dance-y beats abound, there are a few surf riffs here and there, but most of the 21 minute playtime is bubblegum-y pop with distortion. The pretty vocals and lo-fi production go beautifully together, conjuring up in my mind a favorite party number – 52 Girls by the B-52s. Just as that seminal track, here the lyrics are less important – she could be singing about Russian foreign policy and I would still shake my ass. Oh yes. Anyway, what was I saying?
Err…. yeah. It took a tremendous effort (with liberal use of the backspace key) on my part to write these three paragraphs. Thankfully, Vivian Girls is really easy to listen to. So easy, in fact, that you may not notice it when it first flies by. Upon a second listen-through, you feel compelled to turn the speakers up. By the time you’re listening to the album for the third time, you’ve pushed your chair somewhere to the back of the room. Fourth play: “I BELIEVE IN I BELIEVE IN NOOOOTHING I BELIEVE IN I BELIEVE IN NOOOOOTHING NOOOOTHING NOOOOTHING” <- that’s you.
- moceanu
8.5/10
vivian girls @ myspace
moceanu
prowler
stiev
