{"id":903,"date":"2010-06-03T09:27:44","date_gmt":"2010-06-03T15:27:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stylusmagazine.ca\/?p=903"},"modified":"2010-06-03T09:27:44","modified_gmt":"2010-06-03T15:27:44","slug":"review-happy-birthday-happy-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2010\/06\/03\/review-happy-birthday-happy-birthday\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Happy Birthday &#8211; Happy Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" title=\"Happy Birthday\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/_riO6MiGJAnc\/S5_rQX1o4hI\/AAAAAAAAA6Y\/Y2JkBqvSLAM\/s320\/happy-birthday-aa.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"320\" height=\"320\" \/><br \/>\nSnotty, lo-fi rock and roll styled after the British invasion of the \u201960s\u00a0 may not seem as refreshing as it did a decade ago, and with bands like Girls currently enjoying massive success, the self-titled debut from Vermont\u2019s Happy Birthday is unlikely to evoke many strong reactions from critics. It\u2019s really too bad, because Happy Birthday have made one hell of a summer record. Taking his cue from Apples in Stereo, frontman Kyle Thomas has crafted a seemingly endless supply of tight pop hooks that borrow from pretty much everyone. \u201cI Want to Stay (I Run Away)\u201d is a perfect mash of late-\u201980s goth-rock and California surf-pop. Thomas has the perfect voice for this sort of reckless abandon: immature, obnoxious and whiney. Opener \u201cGirls FM\u201d is a carefree jingle that perfectly parodies radio schlock, while the oddly affecting \u201cFun\u201d ends the album by breaking through all the irony, and sees Thomas admitting \u201call I really need is love\/ And I won\u2019t fade away.\u201d Let\u2019s hope he finds it. (Sub Pop, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.subpop.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">www.subpop.com<\/a>) <strong>Jonathan Dyck<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Snotty, lo-fi rock and roll styled after the British invasion of the \u201960s\u00a0 may not seem as refreshing as it did a decade ago, and with bands like Girls currently enjoying massive success, the self-titled debut from Vermont\u2019s Happy Birthday is unlikely to evoke many strong reactions from critics. It\u2019s really too bad, because Happy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[418],"class_list":["post-903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-happy-birthday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}