dragonette – i get around
mercury records got into trouble with their last 80s glamorous dayglo electro-rock-n-pop experiment,the modern, for rigging the charts or something. have the record label people learnt their lesson ? early indications regarding a certain promo article implies maybe not, however, only time will tell as this band are a virtual perfect replacement for the modern. all sqeaky clean polished girl fronted electro styled pop music with massive radio friendly choruses, skinny synths, and lots of power chords. nothing too special it has to be said, but the band are getting attention from all the right corners, and apparently the live show is rather special. so no doubt this band will storm the charts and be able to afford taxis as opposed to taking risks on the dragonette hating london underground system.
more detail : here
calvin harris – the girls
oh look, more electro. more dayglo graphix. hmmm. are record labels getting lazy and just soaking up anyone who mentions amiga computers in their blurb ? being honest, i wasn’t overly taken by calvins debut release, there was something uneasy about the vocals that didn’t work for me, but this is a little better. with lyrical content that just harps on about the fact calvin like girls of all shapes and sizes, it’s not exactly deep, howevef, it does have serious pop appeal and will be the soundtrack to this seasons 18-30 holidays.
for all my negativity (i think i’m just getting a little worn down with all these casio sounds!), it must be said that the remixes by groove armada and micky slim are brilliant.
groove armarda take it back to old school bleep-n-rave and will have people of a certain age rooting around for their old warp 12″ singles, which is quite a revelation considering that the new groove armada album aint all that hot, then the supposedly up and coming micky slim gives it the bouncey electro-techno makeover with an excess of sci-fi sound effects and jittery synth action for people to ge jiggy to.
like i said, the 18-30 track of the summer.
more detail : here
shiny toy guns – you are the one
on the cover the band look as if they are playing a gig in biohazard protecting white outfits, fear not this is not a slipknot styled return of grisly nu-metal. instead the music is a blast of unashamed 80s pop, and yes there are lots of synths, (especially on the more understated b-side weather girl). there are times during the lead track the vocals instigate unfair concerns that the band have desires to be the new aha, but things never get quite that scary.
instead the result of some hard tour action is fm radio sanctioned electro-rock pop with dual action girl-boy vocals and is actually not that bad despite the bands obvious desire to be this years the killers.
more detail : here