We Are the Pipettes

Being attractive definitely helps in the music business, for better or worse. I checked out this new girl group because I saw their pictures in one of my latest issues of Spin, which had all these accolades littered around their polka-dot dresses and sexy poses. Good decision! (This wasn't the first time I've found a musician I've liked based on their looks, but hey, you've got to sort through all the music out there somehow, right?)

Anyway The Pipettes are Riot Becki, Gwenno, and Rosay. They are backed by a four-piece band called The Casettes, and hail from the UK. Unfortunately I won't be able to see them in Chicago in a couple weeks, but if you have the chance I hear they put on quite the show, complete with coordinated outfits and dance moves.

Okay, their music. Apparently these girls (who write, sing, and switch off on the keyboards) / the band (led and managed by the guitarist Monster Bobby) thought that the music scene in the UK the last few years sucked (I wonder if the local radios over there are any worse than most of the garbage on ours...), and when Bobby was DJing / promoting all over the place he realized that whenever he put on 60's girl band records people just started dancing, and reacted more enthusiastically than with all the other stuff that he'd play. So they came up with the idea of going back to that sound and putting a modern spin on it. They wanted to go back to a time before the Beatles changed everything.

"We Are the Pipettes is a modern indie pop album, and a classic one at that," raves Pitchfork. The U.S. version of the album (the yellow cover) has two additional songs and has been completely remixed so the tracks sound cleaner. It's a short album, with an average track length of about 2:30, but it's a really fun album to listen to, and the variety throughout is surprising. I suppose with music like this the only drawback would be getting sick of it, but the songs are so damn catchy that they'll be in your head for weeks. The songs' subjects suggest that these girls are very confident, and like Lily Allen show their independence and their disdain for clingy guys, as well as their somewhat insatiable sexuality..."Pull Shapes" is definitely my favorite track, because it just makes you want to dance and be happy (I just want to move / I don't care what the song's about)-and who the hell knows what it means to "pull shapes" anyway? Also check out "Judy," "Because It's Not Love" and the rest, streamed at their official website. This is very fresh, inventive stuff that fills a much-needed niche in one's listening repertoire.