The Pipettes - Earth vs. the Pipettes

Earth vs. the Pipettes (2010) ***1/2

Only one of the girls who'd sung on Meet the Pipettes is still on board, but that's not the major change: they've ditched the girl group sound.  No longer do they want to be the Shangri-La's, but are intent on vibing like they're Rose Royce at a car-wash disco circa 1978.  Only svengali Phil Spector-cum-Malcolm McLaren wannabe Monster Bobby is still masterminding the pretty marionettes behind the veil of sunglass shades.  The change in sound creates a major problem:  who the hell needs this?  Aren't there already a jillion Spice Girl wannabes riding the post-disco, post-Madonna slutwave that's dominated modern Top 40 since 1985?  One step forward into modernism equals a step forward into genericism.  Luckily, if you sadly resign yourself to what you're getting (and for anyone who was a fan of the first album, oh brother it's going to be a difficult transition to adjust to), what you get amounts to an excellent modern-day pop album.  The melodies are still intact, aren't they?  You can still sing along to all these tunes, and even get a few lodged in your head, right?  You can dance to it?  Decidedly yes.  What more should you expect from commercial pop product?  Some innovation?  A little emotional heft?  Oh shut up, my inner nagging naysayer grumpuss.

Problem #2:  the lyrics are nothing special, and considering that the lyrical content constituted half the hooks on the debut, the lack of edgy missives from the gender wars is a serious hobble.  Aside from some generic bitchy-isms like "Our love is history," and "You've been running around all over town," (yes, seriously, the lyrics are that cliched), there's no edge to their bite.  The songs all cover predictable romance'n'dance fare, the bubbleheaded discoapist travails of the modern high-heeled, plastic-jewelry encrusted, puffed-hair guidette.  Yeah, I know they don't have guidettes in England, but see, that's another problem, the Englishness is gone, too - you can still detect the accents from time to time, but there's another casualty of transatlantic generica. 

When people argue over whether lyrics or music are more important, they're making the mistake of looking at music-creating in far too binary of a manner.  Lyrics are certainly one element that's important in a well-constructed song in the popular music form, along with rhythm, arrangement, vocals, chord progression, melody, etc.  One element that is vital is the hook.  Now what is a hook?  A hook can be defined as something that makes you remember the song; a piece of the song that can occur once or several times that enables the song to lodge into your brain.  The point I'm making is that lyrics can equally serve as hooks just as well as melody lines or drum beats.  So, by downgrading the lyrics on their second album, the Pipettes have thrown out a massive databank of hooks, a source that served them so well on the first album.  Where are the twists and turns to these curves?  Have I mentioned that the girls look a lot uglier in their current incarnation?  Since they were hired mostly for their visual not musical appeal, it's fair game for sexist commentary.  And oh, how I miss the sexist commentary of the original girl-group Pipettes.  This is a catchy, solidly tuneful and danceable disco-pop album if you like that sort of thing.  Do I ever wish to hear it again?  No.  But I don't want to look like a snobbish hypocrite for completely writing it off just because it's in a genre I don't like.  In other words, the numerical rankings are just a rough, rough shorthand; actually read the reviews if you want to know what a record's about.

P.S.  One more point about how lyrics can ruin/elevate the music:  "Our Love Was Saved By a Spaceman," is by far the worst track, and guess why?



The Pipettes - We are the Pipettes

We are the Pipettes (2006) ****

(Originally I assigned this album a 5 star rating.  What the %$^# was I thinking?!)

One of the great discoveries of the post-feminist age is that men and women's desires and attitudes towards love and sex are not that dissimilar, that we share more in common than not in what we look for and want from the opposite sex.  If this review is going to focus more on the lyrics than the music, then so be it: the lyrical subject matter is the novelty hook of this record, not that there isn't plenty of meat in terms of top-notch tunes and groovy grooves found therein.  The concept is simple: update the Phil Spector girl-group sound with a contemporary post-rrriot grrrl, post-Sex and the City perspective.  Thus, the boys (and they are all boys) run the gamut from louts to buffoons, with specialized sneering at wimpy sensitive types ("he knows ABC but he doesn't know how to please me,"  which is actually the dumbest and weakest song on the disc), especially those who expect love in return after being just used for sex and callously tossed out onto the streets the morning after ("One Night Stand," is such a mean sentiment, and one that would have PC critics up in arms if sung by a guy).  In other words, the sound may be retro, but the attitude is pure 2006, and the music itself evades the fossilized stench of overly-retro by furnishing the songs with big, booming modern production values - it sounds like a record released in 2006, not 1966.

As you can see from the cover, there are three girls in the group, but since in girl group tradition they sing in unison or harmony, their individual voices aren't that important.  There are four boys in the group, too, playing all the instruments as the backing band called the Cassettes, but nobody cared who played the drum snares on the Ronettes' "Be My Little Baby," either.  Rumor has it that they were brought together by a behind the scenes svengali named Bobby Monster, who recruited the three frontwomen for their photogenic not musical qualities, and who may or may not have written all the tunes.  Who knows?, as all the songs are simply credited to 'The Pipettes'.  Never matter; criticism that they are calculated and manufactured may have merit, but is beside the point.  So were lots of great pop groups from Motown to the Sex Pistols, and this is great pop, which trumps all.  With the exception of "ABC" there aren't any misfires in this 14-strong batch; due to advancements in the modern assembly line of production of ready-made pop, this is much more consistent than any of the classic soul or disco albums that the Pipettes draw their inspiration from.  Heck, did the Marvellettes or Pointer Sisters ever record an album of all good songs that wasn't entitled Greatest Hits?  This was an actual hit album in their native U.K. (they don't bother to hide their accents, which sound exotically sexy to this Yank's ear but probably sound as unsexy as the bird down the corner shop to their countrymen), and best of all, it's performed in a style of mainstream pop that hasn't been mainstream in nearly half a century.  Is there some law that all modern Top 40 pop has to be performed in a post-disco, post-Madonna technodazzle groove?  Not that there's anything wrong with the style, but it's sort of fascist that all Top 40 for the past 30 years has to sound like the Black Eyed Peas and American Idol.  Bite it, Spice Girls.

OK, so I miscalculated - there are precisely two songs that don't work, as the opener is kind of annoyingly hectoring, but it's an easily ignored, campy throwaway.  The single, "Pull Shapes," is actually one of the lesser tunes. "Why Did You Stay?" answers the eternal question of will you still love me tomorrow - in the negative. "Dirty Mind" sounds too close to Maxine Nightingale's disco-era classic "Right Back Where We Started From" for comfort.  "It Hurts To See You Dance So Well," gets me out on the floor; "Judy," buries the hatchet with an alpha-female; "A Winter's Sky," is the obligatory heart-tugging slow-dance ballad; and "Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me," is more of a chant than a tune but it's a well-aimed chant.  "Tell Me What You Want," wounds me and probably a lot of other guys, since I've met eyes with a girl more than a few times and been overly hesitant; sung from the girl's point of view, she demands to know when the guy is going to stop dithering around and make his move.  "Because It's Not Love (But It's Still a Feeling)" - the title needs no further explication.  "Sex," is about getting straight to the point because I don't really care much for your boring conversation, just rest your pretty head and shut up, love.  Like I said, the claws would be out if the gender roles in some of these songs were reversed!  I've already mentioned "One Night Stand," and "ABC," and you know what?  Smart guys don't like dating dumb girls, either, so there!  "I Love You," ends the album on a self-consciously unironic, sincere note, the title of which spells out the banal but heartfelt sentiments enclosed.  There, that about covers it, all fourteen songs.  Sure, it's disposable froth with an edge, but so are cyanide-laced butterscotch milkshakes.