Word: albums
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Norwegian electropopper Annie released her debut album, “Anniemal,” to a wave of critical adoration back in 2004, and 5 years later it still garners praise. That album’s second single—a giddy, entrancing pop anthemcalled “Heartbeat”—celebrates the carefree joy of the dancefloor as effectively as any of the endless parade of disco songs on the subject. The rest of “Anniemal” almost lived up to that track: the angular, percussive “Chewing Gum?...
Five years later, Annie returns with “Don’t Stop,” an album that’s been plagued by repeated delays and tracklist changes. “I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me,” which was originally in the running to be the first single of the album, has since been relegated to a bonus disc (not such a tragedy, since it features a throbbing bassline and perfectly breathy vocals and still manages to be vaguely annoying). More inexplicably discarded is “Anthonio,” a trance...
What remains are 12 songs which range in topic from love to... well, love. This is a pop album, after all. And though the themes are less than original, the music is very much Annie’s own. Annie dubbed her debut album “pop with strange edges,” a description that quickly caught on in the press. While her influences have changed slightly on “Don’t Stop,” that moniker still applies...
...Heaven and Hell” also disappoints. A bouncy, whimsical number that recalls the lighter edges of 1990s indie pop, it also brandishes that genre’s worst impulses: childishness and condescension. The result is more than a little irritating, and closes the album on a distinctly sour note...
...aside from these exceptions, “Don’t Stop” provides pitch-perfect tunes that never feel formulaic, though album highlight “Songs Remind Me of You” is the only song on “Don’t Stop” that approaches the sheer euphoria of “Heartbeat.” Despite the melancholy lyrical theme—“Every song I hear reminds me of you / Doesn’t make me feel the same as I do”—the beguiling...