Girl Group Sounds.

A few weeks back a band called The Pipettes released their first album. This is great news as The Pipettes write wonderfully fun and flirty pop songs. Sadly however, they do not seem to have set the charts alight. I have hardly helped matters by not buying a copy myself but then I can barely afford food right now so I am exempt.

So, I am telling you to buy The Pipettes album with a very much do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do-attitude. Honestly, you won't regret it. Let me describe them a little better for you, that'll win you over. You see, The Pipettes are three girls who write songs inspired by the fifties girl groups famously produced by Phil Spector. You know the stuff; The Crystals, The Ronettes, Be My Baby, Then He Kissed Her. The Pipettes work on the slightly slapdash conceit that their music is how pop would sound if only The Beatles hadn't come along and ruined everything with all their boys'n'guitar rock shennanigens.

It's a stupid idea but that's ok because the music is funny and vibrant and full of lusty but tough lyrics. Live, the band are supported by a bunch of scruffy musicians called The Tapes or The Cassettes, or something equally dusty and analogue. This leaves the girls free to wear polka dot outfits and perform silly, hand jiving dance routines without losing out on the full live band sound. The highlight of their set is the jerky Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me, a cool, no nonsense rejection of some useless bloke set to a riff out of a cornball monster movie. Seek it out!

Another glamourous, female fronted pop band currently making waves are The Long Blondes. Like The Pipettes they make cool, sexy sounding, joyful pop records with attitude filled lyrics. Unlike The Pipettes they take their influence more from Seventies punk/new wave stuff like Blondie etc. Which is no less revivalist than The Pippettes but somehow sounds more modern because [i]everyone[/i] is ripping off the Seventies.
While I'm not sure if that's a good thing I do think the Long Blondes should be considered a [b]very good thing[/b]. Especially their song 'Giddy Stratospheres'. Especially the bit where the lead singer sings, "She'll never take you to giddy stratospheres/I come from your fears," and makes you wish really quite hard that you were kissing her drunkenly in the corner at a party somewhere. They don't have an album out yet but it's on the horizon somewhere, jostling with ever other record approaching a release date. Keep an eye out for it. You've wasted money on worse!