Winnipeg music & culture since 1989
This album poses, to me, an existential question—which is really ironic because this is the most over-produced album I’ve heard thus far this year. If I were to take every moment in my life that I had turned on Top 40 radio before boy bands and Spice Girls, it would vaguely sound like this album. The instrumentation is really distinct, Dee Dee’s vocals are blissfully ignorant and wrapped in notably less reverb than I Will Be, and Richard Gottehrer of the Strangeloves (who wrote “I Want Candy,” among others) produced this album, as he did Dum Dum Girls’ full-length. And to top it all off, it ends with a cover of “There is a Light that Never Goes Out.” Seriously. So, if this EP is pop perfection—the holy ghost of pop music, if you will, and I’m at the pearly gates, listening to this thing, how could it possibly be too perfect? (Sub Pop, www.subpop.com) Taylor Burgess
The great thing about I Will Be is that there isn’t anything wrong with it. Basically, it’s full of Shangri-Las-style harmonies sung at the Ramones’ speed, with band leader Dee Dee singing lyrics almost always including the word “baby.” Perfect. This debut album from the L.A. librarian is another home-recording-project-gone-big, like Little Girls’ Concepts or Wavves’ Wavvves, but whereas those two albums sometimes got too caught up in their own self-importance or post-punk influences (Joy Division and Wipers respectively), I Will Be is just ten tracks of straight-ahead pop, and one ballad cover of Sonny Bono to finish off the disc. The not-so-great thing about I Will Be is that if there are any songs to be called ‘stand-out tracks,’ they only stand out incrementally from the others. “Jail La La” and “Blank Girl” are two of the catchiest in the bunch, but they’ve got the same basic drumbeat and the same chords as every other song. But if you like music like ’70s punk bands and ’60s girl groups is that really going to deter you anyways? (Sub Pop Records, www.subpop.com) Taylor Burgess