Word: popped
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...spaces, of ethics, and so on is rather highfalutin, even for me; all I can say is that the record justifies it. The Raincoats' self-conscious amateurism was inseparable from the sounds they made, and the sounds they made, in turn, laid down paths the rest of the pop world has only begun to follow. (Some beginners: Australia's Cannanes, Scotland/Holland's Dog-Faced Hermans, and Boston's own High Risk Group.) And lest you think this is an album of instrumentals I've been reviewing, I ought to add that the lyrics are cool. "In Love" takes the Ifeel...
Most of their new--wave neighbors did-and created a hole, a missed opportunity, from which the 90s' amateur indie--pop world is still trying to extricate itself. The Raincoats were different. Their interest in a music that would be primarily about, and for, women's experience may have been HOW they came by their sound, but it's the sound, and the songs, themselves that will catch and hold your attention on the first or the fiftieth listen-just as they have held Mr. Cobain...
...about nine years. After sowing their whimsical tunes all over the English--speaking world and Belgium, the Dentists have finally reaped a major--label contract. To my mild and delighted surprise, their big label hasn't changed them a bit: they're still making small-scale pop gems on the scale of five or six to a record...
...coal into diamonds. The Dentists' powers aren't dissimilar; they are using the normal musical fuels-four boys, no girls, two guitars, verse/ chorus/ verse/ chorus/ bridge/ verse/ chorus, two or three riffs per song, and one memorable line to provide the title--raw materials more common in the pop music "underground" than coal under the real ground. And their lyrical and emotional raw materials are equally commonplace; lead guy and stripedshirt collector Mick Murphy sings about wanting to escape his friends for a while ("Mr. Spaceman"); about not understanding why his girlfriend left him ("Gas," "Tremendous many"); about crushes...
...inch bored with most of the songs; the undulating opening riff of the first song, "This Is Not My Flag," ought to follow you out the door and down the street if you, or your roommates, have any appreciation at all for well-made, unpretentious, unoriginal melody-driven guitar pop, of which this is as good a specimen as any label--major or not-is likely to come up with this year. With the Possible exception of the next Tommy Keene record. (Tommy Keene, whom regular readers of this space may remember from last fall, will be playing...