Seems we don’t like nest eggs, n.b. The Singles Jukebox is not licensed to provide financial advice.
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[4]
Katherine St Asaph: OK, so I wouldn’t like Neon Jungle genderswapped.
[4]
Alfred Soto: “Mac McCaughan gone electro!” I said, delighted. From the guitar curlicues to the mad synth, the pneumatic hilarity gets old quick, especially when the singer won’t heed his own advice and “take a breath and calm down.” Then there’s the bit about the nest egg, repeated for emphasis. Nest eggs in 2013?
[4]
Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: 2007 blog-indie served its purpose, but c’mon, it’s 2013 and Phoenix still exist. They make songs with R Kelly and everything.
[3]
Patrick St. Michel: Passion Pit took cues from Japanese producer Yasutaka Nakata when they first started out, and now it appears Passion Pit have inspired (or led some new faces to rip them off) a new generation of electro-pop bands, like Smallpools. Yet what none of these groups got right about Nakata’s works with Perfume and Capsule was the vocals. He slathered his female vocalists’ voices with digital touches, which made them sound more natural in the maximalist electronic soundscapes he created for them. These bands, and especially Smallpools, ignore that and just let their vocalist’s natural voice hang out in all its ugly, yelpy glory. And it sounds horrible, especially over lazy synth programming. And that’s all before he even gets to the part about celebrating the trust funds.
[1]
Edward Okulicz: Stabs of synth, exhortations to “live it up, live it up!” and punchy, urgent choruses are things which when done well are so bulletproof that even a clenched yowl like Sean Scanlon’s can’t completely ruin it. “At least you’ve got your nest egg, your nest egg” tries its hardest to do so, though.
[6]
Iain Mew: Apparently Black Kids are still going, which came as a bit of a surprise, but new material doesn’t seem imminent so this still nicely fills a gap. The pleasant reminder is in the lovely crisp guitar but more so in the way that they stuff the song so full of hooks, with sugary synths everywhere keeping it on a constant high. “Please god tell me we’re dreaming” shouldn’t be a positive message, but it really does sound like an exuberant dream.
[7]
Will Adams: Sometimes when I dream, I trick myself into thinking that what my brain is conjuring is real. This happens on “Dreaming” in a literal sense. Most of it sounds so familiar and safe: there are fizzy synth stabs, a sprite of a guitar melody, and Sean Scanlon’s yelps (which are unconventional in a broad sense but standard for its genre). But then the lyrics come in, and the known world flips into something dystopian. “Oh no, please, God, tell me we’re dreaming,” wails Scanlon, giving the impression that on a normal day, he could be singing of something else, something better. But the world is a fucked up place, and it’s made more terrifying by how familiar it sounds.
[8]
Crystal Leww: This sounds literally the same as every other band that’s been chasing that sound that’s come out since Passion Pit except it has a lead singer with a voice just as grating. I guess if the world can handle the Passion Pit guy’s vocals, then we can deal with the Smallpools guy’s vocals.
[5]
Jonathan Bogart: It is so hard to be young, attractive, well-off, and popular in Los Angeles, you guys.
[2]
Brad Shoup: It’s got a nice, synth-striped groove that bests “Schoolin’ Life” on those terms. Too bad about that peewee singer and his Say Anything Jr. tale of a crashed treehouse tryst. The rhymes are bold-faced, the melodrama lightly held: might Rupert Holmes be responsible?
[6]