Month: August 2015

180. The Pipettes, We Are the Pipettes (2007)

Posted on by andrewsratliff

There’s a song burning up the pop charts right now called “Marvin Gaye”. It’s a duet between Charlie Puth and Meghan Trainor, and it’s terrible, an empty, soulless classic-pop pastiche that understands neither its subject or that homages should evoke without Xeroxing.

The Pipettes, a UK-bred Ronettes-style girl-group one-off, could teach Mr. Puth a lot about repurposing the Phil Spector vibe he inexplicably goes for (read: staples a workaday melody to the “Stand By Me” bassline and calls it a day). Backed by The Cassettes, the adorable Brit trio peels off hit after glorious pop hit on their sole true album, We Are the Pipettes (the name and concept resurfaced a few years later with an entirely reformed line-up, and an uncomfortable Spice Girls vibe). Winding, serpentine vocals wrap around each other before dovetailing in perfect three-part harmony; The Pipettes are true heirs to the long-vacant girl-group throne, introducing modern themes into a style while exploiting the sort of sugar-rush, doe-eyed sentiment that made that style so potent in the first place.

Swirling string-section trills and briskly arpeggiated guitars are the order of the day. “Tell Me What You Want” incorporates all this to perfection, sounding like a fantastic “Grease” outtake, while “It Hurts to See You Dance So Well” ramps up the tempo and the emotion, like Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own” run through a time machine.

And yet, nothing’s quite as perfect as “Pull Shapes”, which ties everything great about The Pipettes into a tight little package and wraps it with a bow; it’s not just the greatest pop song on this album, it might be one of the greatest pop songs ever written, the most infectious and genuine thing I’ve ever heard.

For this reason, the rest of this review will not feature words. Instead, I’d like you, dear reader, to take a moment to allow the Pipettes to take you to pop nirvana with “Pull Shapes”. Listen to it once for the sugar rush, and then listen to it again and wonder why we’ve allowed Meghan Trainor to happen as a culture when others are making her shtick sound good.

181. Michael Franti & Spearhead, Everyone Deserves Music (2003)

Posted on by andrewsratliff

September, 2003. I’m wandering around Boston, and it’s raining. I’m a withdrawn college freshman, painfully shy, recently broken up with, and just looking for… activities. My high school friends are scattered across the country and my college friends don’t really exist yet, but I have a chintzy backpack, a few T tokens, and a Walkman with big gaudy earphones that says that there’s a new Outkast record out and that’s likely to make it all better.

I duck out of the rain — I have not brought an umbrella because I’m 18 years old and seem physically unable to do anything right — into an alley, down a winding staircase to the closest music store I could find. (Sounds like science fiction in 2015, the notion that big cities were so populated with music stores that I was forced to make an actual choice. Kids, put this review in your time capsules, which I assume are completely digital now.) Several feet underground, this music seller’s music cellar is heavenly to me, warm and packed tight with racks upon racks of used and new CDs. Outkast is mine, I know that, so I tuck the crispest copy of Speakerboxxx/The Love Below under my armpit without another thought and move down the rows. Rhino’s slow-rolling two-disc Elvis Costello reissues, so I add Armed Forces and Get Happy!! to the ranks. An on-the-cheap De La Soul greatest hits is on sale for five bucks, so that’s going home with me. And there’s a listening booth — a pair of sweaty headphones dangling from a display of Michael Franti’s Everyone Deserves Music record — so I shrug, and give it a go. What else am I gonna do, go hang out with my friends? Go on a date? Please.

The Spearhead comes home with me, too. It’s too good not to. I confess, I’m swayed by the Gift of Gab feature advertised by the album’s packaging — I’ve been greedily devouring Blackalicious’s discography for the better part of a year at this point — but I’m kept around by Franti’s lovely, slightly off-kilter baritone, and the sheer versatility of his music and his message. He raps along with Gift of Gab on “We Don’t Stop,” sings a potent, slow-burn power ballad in “Love, Why Did You Go Away?”, belts a sweet, simplistic message of positivity on the title track; it’s everything I love in music, it’s soul and hip-hop and rock and pop and disco meeting in the park for a jam session followed by a hugfest. It’s kinda beautiful, actually.

It soundtracks my walk back to the subway, where I immediately switch to Outkast and Franti is given the short end of the stick. (I love this record, I truly do, but… I mean… have you heard Speakerboxxx?) I never really forget that moment, in the rain, with Michael Franti.

2007: I’m out of college for good now, and working at a chain restaurant in New Jersey. Eventually, they’ll cancel their XM subscription and install a TouchTunes jukebox so the locals can proudly show us how bad their music tastes are, but for now it’s a curious combination of indie rock and ’80s hits, peppered with weird little ’90s flourishes like Eagle Eye Cherry and Cathy Dennis. There’s lots of INXS and The Decemberists, and The Jayhawks and late-period Bowie, and one night I groove really hard to a song I don’t recognize. It turns out to be “Feelin’ Free,” from Everyone Deserves Music. Upon Googling the lyrics and realizing that I just forgot it existed, I rediscover Everyone Deserves Music one late night, dusting off the record for a post-work drive through the state’s back roads.

March 2008: I’m excited to pick her up; we’re going to drive around and listen to music, which is only boring if you’re boring. She lives down a wooded side street, and as my headlights crest her driveway she bounds out, triumphantly thrusting a CD into the air. She’s made a mix for the occasion, as have I. Both have custom artwork, liner notes, hand-designed discs, and sleek jewel cases. The first voice on her mix is familiar, but the song isn’t; it’s Franti again, with a beguiling, dusky acoustic number called “Oh My God”. I laugh and point out that Franti’s on my disc, too, but with the reggae-flecked Everyone Deserves Music cut “Pray For Grace”. We continue to make each other mixes, long after we get married.

June 2015: I’ve assembled a ragtag little website that nobody really reads and am counting down my favorite albums of the 2000s, one by one. As I cross the Dresden Dolls off my master list, I realize that I don’t remember much of the Atmosphere album I’ve scheduled myself to write about next. I listen to it and realize that while it’s a perfectly enjoyable record, it’s position is arbitrary, and I’m not intimately connected to it in any way. I lazily scroll through the rest of the master list to see if I’ve forgotten anything, and upon not seeing Everyone Deserves Music, decide to write about it immediately.

Once again, I’ve given Franti’s record the short end, and once again, it’s reared up to remind me that I love it. I sit down to type and fear that the review will be too short.

Playlist track: The title track. “Even our worst enemies, they deserve music”; it’s somehow a tough pill to swallow and a sweet, inarguable sentiment all at once.