The Pipettes
The recent return of kitschy-quirky old-fashioned pop is making me quite happy. There's Mika, of course, there's stuff like Lily Allen (not a huge fan, but she goes in this category), but the latest thing I listened to that I really enjoyed was "We Are The Pipettes," by, well, The Pipettes. Hook-crazy songs that recall the girl groups of the 60s, complete with the return of harmonizing melodies and do-whoop type backing vocals? Yes please.
Oh, I quite like my folk rock, my psychedelia, my indie rock and weird experimental mixes of all three or more, but I am unabashedly a pop fan. Before David Bowie showed me what else music could be, the only stuff I listened to was the oldies station, and my love for it never went away. (Sadly, the station did, and now they play 70s pop rather than Motown and 50s do-whop.) So I'm quite, quite thrilled to see groups like The Pipettes revamp the old style with a modern twist. Are their songs more than ear candy? No, not really. Do they need to be? Not at all.
I especially love that The Pipettes seem to be the girls' answer to The Fratellis. I love the Fratellis' songs (they are catchy as hell), but they also happen to be rather annoyingly misogynistic, with lyrics like:
Lay yourself down by the side of the bed...
You look so dumb and you sound so twee
And you can only wish that you was married to me
Well, that's what you get
Oh don't get upset
Ridiculous you
Waiting in the queue oh whoopee doo
And pretty much all the songs go like that. You know, "rah rah rah, we're hot stuff rock guys, women are disposable groupies who follow us around."
The Pipettes also proclaim a less-than gallant approach to suitors and lovers, but the fact that it's women occupying the "we're rock stars, we go through a new lover a day" space, especially in the context of the 50s/60s girl pop sound makes it all rather a clever send-up. Even their look is like a direct answer to the Fratellis, with The Pipettes being a rather saucier version of the Fratellis cover girls/background cheesecake.
Whereas the Fratellis chose these three random 50s pin-up styled girls to grace their cover art:
The Pipettes put themselves on the cover, in their own version of 50s pin-up drag:
To the Fratellis' macho bluster, and strangely channeling the sci-fi arrogance of Robin Black and the Intergalactic Rock Stars, on the album's opening number they proclaim:
Take us, Take us to your planet...
We are the Pipettes
And we've got no regrets
If you haven't noticed yet
We're the prettiest girls you've ever met!
The album is full of songs with titles like "Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me," "Why Did You Stay (When I Treated You That Way?)" and "One Night Stand," with lyrics that would come across as completely bitchy if they weren't also so fittingly ironic. Really, it makes a brilliant Fratellis companion album.
The best encapsulation of it comes in "One Night Stand," which is hilarious as a commentary on the original lyrical content of the pop they are re-appropriating. "One Night Stand" starts with soft melodic chimes and a girl's voice singing longingly, a la Sandy in Grease, "I left you alone, at four in the morning..." and it sounds just like any of the 50-60s, "You hurt me, now I'm leaving to cry my eyes out" songs, until the next part comes in: "not a stitch to wear, 'cause you ignored my warning!" A break, and then over a chorus of "ooh sha la la la la, ooh sha la la" the singer proclaims tauntingly:
I don't love you, I don't want you
If you think that this is cruel--
Then you should see what my friends do!
I don't love you, I don't want you,
Leave me alone, you’re just a one night stand!
The song flashes back to the evening prior:
I saw you across a crowded room.
You smiled at me and made my heart go boom
Did the scoresheet, and saw a seven
So I walked up to you and said:
“Baby did it hurt when you fell from heaven?”
Having a girl sing these lyrics over the pitch-perfect emulation of a 50s soundtrack number is tremendous kitschy fun.
I kinda want them to tour with the Fratellis and stomp over them with their high heels.
Including the inexhaustible supply of polka dot.
Oh, I quite like my folk rock, my psychedelia, my indie rock and weird experimental mixes of all three or more, but I am unabashedly a pop fan. Before David Bowie showed me what else music could be, the only stuff I listened to was the oldies station, and my love for it never went away. (Sadly, the station did, and now they play 70s pop rather than Motown and 50s do-whop.) So I'm quite, quite thrilled to see groups like The Pipettes revamp the old style with a modern twist. Are their songs more than ear candy? No, not really. Do they need to be? Not at all.
I especially love that The Pipettes seem to be the girls' answer to The Fratellis. I love the Fratellis' songs (they are catchy as hell), but they also happen to be rather annoyingly misogynistic, with lyrics like:
Lay yourself down by the side of the bed...
You look so dumb and you sound so twee
And you can only wish that you was married to me
Well, that's what you get
Oh don't get upset
Ridiculous you
Waiting in the queue oh whoopee doo
And pretty much all the songs go like that. You know, "rah rah rah, we're hot stuff rock guys, women are disposable groupies who follow us around."
The Pipettes also proclaim a less-than gallant approach to suitors and lovers, but the fact that it's women occupying the "we're rock stars, we go through a new lover a day" space, especially in the context of the 50s/60s girl pop sound makes it all rather a clever send-up. Even their look is like a direct answer to the Fratellis, with The Pipettes being a rather saucier version of the Fratellis cover girls/background cheesecake.
Whereas the Fratellis chose these three random 50s pin-up styled girls to grace their cover art:
The Pipettes put themselves on the cover, in their own version of 50s pin-up drag:
To the Fratellis' macho bluster, and strangely channeling the sci-fi arrogance of Robin Black and the Intergalactic Rock Stars, on the album's opening number they proclaim:
Take us, Take us to your planet...
We are the Pipettes
And we've got no regrets
If you haven't noticed yet
We're the prettiest girls you've ever met!
The album is full of songs with titles like "Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me," "Why Did You Stay (When I Treated You That Way?)" and "One Night Stand," with lyrics that would come across as completely bitchy if they weren't also so fittingly ironic. Really, it makes a brilliant Fratellis companion album.
The best encapsulation of it comes in "One Night Stand," which is hilarious as a commentary on the original lyrical content of the pop they are re-appropriating. "One Night Stand" starts with soft melodic chimes and a girl's voice singing longingly, a la Sandy in Grease, "I left you alone, at four in the morning..." and it sounds just like any of the 50-60s, "You hurt me, now I'm leaving to cry my eyes out" songs, until the next part comes in: "not a stitch to wear, 'cause you ignored my warning!" A break, and then over a chorus of "ooh sha la la la la, ooh sha la la" the singer proclaims tauntingly:
I don't love you, I don't want you
If you think that this is cruel--
Then you should see what my friends do!
I don't love you, I don't want you,
Leave me alone, you’re just a one night stand!
The song flashes back to the evening prior:
I saw you across a crowded room.
You smiled at me and made my heart go boom
Did the scoresheet, and saw a seven
So I walked up to you and said:
“Baby did it hurt when you fell from heaven?”
Having a girl sing these lyrics over the pitch-perfect emulation of a 50s soundtrack number is tremendous kitschy fun.
I kinda want them to tour with the Fratellis and stomp over them with their high heels.
Including the inexhaustible supply of polka dot.