Telepathic Beautiful Creature

In the finger-wagging arms race that is British Girl Group Pop, the Sugababes throw down the haute couture gauntlet against arch rivals Girls Aloud with the fashion forward video for their new single “Denial”–the best song off their recent LP Change.

The clip sees veteran Babe and group Queen Bee Keisha leading colleagues Amelle and Heidi through a series of elaborately costumed poses that reveal–despite their own efforts, affectations and delusions to the contrary–them to be in love..with themselves possibly. You will be too.

The Bard of Stockholm

I felt a bit guilty after that last post. While it’s true I think Norway is the future of Europop, Sweden still has much to offer pop music fans, even if an ABBA reunion will never see the light of the day-despite the $1 billion offers.

Much of Sweden’s continued domination in the Europop hegemony is due to Alexander Bard. Bard is the mastermind behind three of the greatest Swedish pop groups of the past two decades, each combining simple, thunderous dance music hooks with baroque, camp-as-tits visuals to stunning, overwhelming effect.

It’s difficult to find a more intriguing pop music svengali than Bard. How many others have worked as male prostitutes in Amsterdam, are economists who have penned books titled “Netocracy: The New Power Elite & Life After Capitalism” and politically advocate against drug laws and for sexual liberation? Kind of makes Phil Spector look a bit lazy, what with just shooting the odd wife now and again.

Rather than reviewing Bard’s work chronologically, let’s proceed from least to most camp. For the past three years, Bard’s focus has been helming outre synthpop outfit, BWO (Bodies Without Organs).

Fronted by vocalist and twink-icon Martin Rolinski and supported ably and haughtily by keyboardist Marina Schiptjenko, BWO has dominated the Scandinavian and Eastern European charts, racking up a baker’s dozen of hits in no time flat.

While the quality of BWO’s musical and video output has been scatter-shot, the group’s latest circus-themed clip for “Give Me the Night”–off their new LP Fabricator–is the perfect distillation of the Bard aesthetic: nonsensical, animalistic, outrageously costumed, highly sexualized and catchy as all hell.

Prior to forming BWO, Bard wrote songs for, but was not a member, of Sweden’s most popular group since four kids named Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha and Frida made the scene. Yes, Alcazar!

More disco oriented than BWO, the currently on hiatus Alacazar specialized in big, gay dancefloor beats and mashing up 80s American pop hits to form new, ultimately better songs i.e. Genesis “Land of Confusion” + Diana Ross’ “Upside Down” = Alcazar’s “This Is the World We Live In.” Still their finest single to date is the Bard-penned “Crying at the Discotheque”–the video for which takes camp absurdism to new, dizzying, booty bumping heights. Watch for the mustachioed Bard’s cameo in the clip. He’s like Hitchcock!

Of course Bard got his start a decade earlier in the aptly named Army of Lovers-an all conquering pop trio of ambisexual ne’er do wells who turned out swoony, trashy dancefloor anthems as rich, baroque and unnecessary as a delicately baked artisinal Mille Feuille.

Their biggest and most enduring hit is “Crucify,” from their debut LP Massive Luxury Overdose. It is a song about the inevitable martyrdom that must follow hedonism; a song so over the top it tests even my well-developed and oft-tested camp gag reflex. Listen and watch, if you dare. If you’re truly ready. Like the song reminds you and as Joan of Arc implored on the cross you’ll cry, you’ll pray… “Mon Dieu!”

Lift your head up high, girl

Earlier in the week, I posted about some of the best girl pop emerging from the U.K. Today, ahead of the weekend, let’s jump the North Sea and explore the leading ladies dominating mainland Europe’s greatest popular music country: Norway!

Yes, Norway. While Sweden may have had its day, what with giving us ABBA, Ace of Base, and, er, the A*Teens, the future of Scandinavian pop belongs to Norway. We should have seen it coming really, I mean after all, this is the same country that brought us A-HA!

Yet the brightest northern pop lights of Norway are quite distinct from their Swedish sisters and those haircut boys who did “Take on Me.” Equally blond and no less hook-oriented, somehow they cut a darker, more menacing pose, their sugar-coated pop-melodies and lush choruses sweetening harsh tablets of romantic disappointment and revenge. Maybe it’s those long, dark Northern nights, a bad batch of smoked salmon or too much aquavit–whatever the cause, we and pop music are the better for it.

Leading the pack is singer-songwriter Bertine Zetlitz. Over the course of five albums, Zetlitz has become a specialist in dark, angst-ridden, mid-tempo electronic pop. Whether taking delight in ruining an ex-boyfriend’s life on “For Fun” or charting the twilight of her own emotional abyss in “Midnight,” Zetlitz is a quirky figure on the pop landscape, both cognizant and celebratory of her own character flaws.

The video for “Twisted Little Star”–a song title that could easily describe Zetlitz herself–sees her mapping out the self-destructive nature of her not too-healthy approach toward relationships with customary intelligence, self-deprecation and matchless pop sensibilities.

Boy bloggers fave Annie (dubbed the “Indie Kylie”) made a splash amongst the Pitchfork crowd with 2004’s Anniemal–an amazingly well-produced and startlingly emotional album full of mournful love songs and defiantly upbeat kiss-off anthems–all the more remarkable given the slight range of Annie’s rice-paper thin voice.

The video for the Richard X-produced two-ton sass bomb “Chewing Gum” finds Annie destroying her man’s ego with the now classic rejoinders “You think you’re chocolate, but you’re chewing gum” and “I’ll spit you out when the flavor’s all gone.” Perhaps because her voice is not of diva- proportions, the video finds’ Annie replicating herself, as if raising an army for the coming romantic wars ahead.

Duplication may just be a recurrent theme (or requirement) in Norwegian girl pop. Margaret Berger, a runner-up on that country’s version of American Idol, clones herself–in space–in the video for her chin-up, pep talk as nu-disco anthem, sung to a newly single friend “Samantha.” Taken from Berger’s excellent Pretty Scary Silver Fairy LP, it’s not unlike hearing comforting words from a girlfriend while moving forward on that most dangerous of battlegrounds : the dancefloor. Where old demons are laid to rest, emotional emancipation is celebrated and possibly, just possibly, new love is found. As, Berger, notes, about the decision that lies before her friend, or possibly, it’s herself: “this will make you stronger.” Cool arm bracelet in the video too.

So there you have it. Or don’t as the case may be. Zetlitz is temporarily retired raising her first child and Berger’s LPs have failed to get much notice outside her native country. But in the good news department, Annie returns this spring with a Richard X double-produced A-side featuring a sure-to-be-fucked-with (in a good way) and long overdue version of Stacey Q’s “Two of Hearts” and a new track, tipped to be amazing, called “Songs Remind Me of You.” Just like strong Scandinavian liquor, expect it to be smooth and sleek with a strong, glowing afterburn.

Who’s afraid of electropop?

Boys. Straight boys, mostly. Perhaps it’s the fear that merely hearing a synth stab will turn them gay. The fear of accidentally humming along to the same song their girlfriend likes. The fear of having to dance. The fear of wanting to dance. The fear of Not Rocking Out. Whatever the reason, it suppresses good pop music in favor of bad and keeps amazing music out of our ears and off the charts.

Things were so dire music wise in their native country, where Nickelback (ugh) rule the airwaves, that Canadian electropop outfit Dragonette moved to England to launch their bid for stardom. Despite releasing a corking debut album–2007’s Galore–brimming with top-shelf, hook-filled pop cocktails, their two singles–strutting slut anthem “I Get Around” and the salacious “Take It Like A Man” both tanked.

It’s downright inexplicable. Lead singer Martina is a hot, star-ready, camera-fucking bitch who oozes personality and sexuality. Their videos,–especially the stylishly clever, beefcake filled, Boogie Nights-referencing, tongue-in-cheek (and elsewhere) clip for “Take It Like A Man”–are miles ahead of their peers. Christ on a bike–they even play guitars!

The real problem though is not just the synths–which are production-added–but the ambiguous sexuality they suggest and that Dragonette doesn’t shy away from in their visuals. Three dudes with guitars and a drummer in slim suits and $300 haircuts is a rock band. Throw in a keyboard and a hot female singer and suddenly you’re not legitimate or real music. Or you’re Blondie.

Oh hell. Here’s Martina and company sexing it up, 70s porno style in “Take It Like A Man”

And in “I Get Around,” she’s so hot she fucks herself.

If you’re in London or, god forbid, Saskatoon, pick up a copy of Galore. Doing so is a vote for chicks with balls, having the courage to dance and liking good pop. And as Martina sings, “I want you for the cause…”

Dollar for Dollar, Pound for Pound

It’s no secret that the value of the American dollar is pretty worthless. A walk down Fifth Avenue during the holiday season bears this out as one hears accented tourists, seemingly, mostly British, laden with shopping bags from high-end luxury stores, relishing in the largesse that the strength of the British pound has afforded them.

Before you get all Colonial and start dumping Burberry raincoats into the Hudson, do remember that just as in the dollar-pound ratio, in pop music currency, the UK pop scene has no equal in its style, innovation and complete and utter peerlessness. And it is something that any Yank, via glorious YouTube, can enjoy free of charge–for now.

A trio of female-fronted videos from the UK, released last year, diagram vividly the strength, vitality and sheer audacity of the British pop music scene.

Veteran, posher than Posh popstrel, Sophie Ellis-Bextor released (in my opinion) the year’s best pop single–the Cathy Dennis penned stalker anthem “Catch You.” Ellis-Bextor’s regal, haughty voice rides the song’s speeding chainsaw guitar-etched chorus as if the best weapons for securing a wayward lover’s heart were manners, good breeding and excellent diction.

The Sophie Muller-directed clip sees former model Sophie hunting her love down the streets and canals of Venice “Don’t Look Now“-style. Run to where you want, there’s no escaping this one:

Like a kid with a chemistry set, Ireland-born but Manchester-bred, Roisin Murphy enjoys playing with juxtapositions in pop to see what will react and explode. Contrasting soulful vocals with space-age electronic beats, Murphy, drags avant-garde pop kicking and screaming to the dancefloor.

Her 2007 full-length Overpowered is one of the finest female pop albums in recent memory. The video for its second single, the Groove Armada-helmed “Let Me Know”–a full-on Eighties dancefloor flashback–finds Roisin bringing high kicks, bizarro fashion and disco irony to bear on the denizens of her local chip shop to very little effect on them, but leaving the viewer with a sense of the possibility of pop in the high heels and strobe-lighted profile of one of its most innovative purveyors.

Twenty-three year old Siobhan Donaghy, suffering from stylistic differences (i.e. nervous breakdown), left pop-behemoths the Sugababes five years ago just as the group went nuclear. Over the course of two albums since then–2003’s Revolution in Me and last year’s Ghosts–Donaghy has carved out a small, but emerging path as a singer, songwriter and girl-group survivor.

Donaghy’s music is ethereal and pastoral, but never incoherent, always keeping an eye focused and a ear tuned for the pop fan. The clip for Ghosts’ Kate Bush-esque second single “So You Say” makes Siobhan run the gautlent of an Inland Empire-inspired emotional maze as she tries to separate herself from her addictive relationship to an alcoholic lover named Adam. The video’s last 30 seconds are the most startling and beautiful in a pop video that I’ve ever seen.

So you British, please do proceed with your invasion of the weakened American economy. On one condition. Please bring these ladies with you. And leave this one at home.

So, turn it up!

It’s funny the way a word enters your life suddenly, and through repeated, often ridiculously illustrated use, becomes not only an instant part of the lexicon, but also transformed. Such a word came to me several months ago via a friend of a friend who was trying to describe a characteristic of, in her impression, the indolent just don’t-give-a-fuck African Americans in her new Brooklyn neighborhood.

That word is blaze. As first used by her, the word was a contraction of black and lazy. Take from this what you will. But somehow when trying to work the word into my own vocabulary, I really couldn’t get the lazy part to fit.

Blaze to me suggests a fire raging out of control; heat, light, movement, danger. Somehow, in my admittedly gay mind, this word came to represent the apex of outrageous–often black, but not necessarily–sassy sauciness. In fact the word mutated and did a 180 degree cabbage patch if you will, turning the definition into a badge of pride–the ultimate compliment. It’s about willing yourself into being the best you can be, no matter what you have or don’t have; no matter what others think or say. It is noun, adjective, adverb–a way of living and living it up.

Rather than use it in a sentence. I’ll give you a visual aid. One of my favorite pop discoveries of the past year is the improbably, yet inevitably, named UK duo BootyLuv. Veterans of R&B hip-hop group Big Brovaz, Nadia and Cherise twirled out their own and released the year’s best dance-pop album, Boogie2nite, somehow managing to contain 12 finger-wagging, sass-bomb tracks.

The highlight on an an LP that includes song titles like “Don’t Mess With My Man” and “(Shut Your Mouth) A Little Bit” is a epic, four-on-the-floor, hands-in-the air disco blaze-athon called “Some Kinda Rush”
The video, clearly made for about 12 quid, illustrates the blaze concept perfectly. BootyLuv know they don’t have Destiny’s Child’s stylist or video budget, nor do they have Alicia Keys “talent,” but that doesn’t stop them from giving it their all and having a fuck-you good time while doing so, ultimately burning the disco down. Their energy, optimism and spunk puts their overrated peers and highbrow critics to shame. Blaze on girls.

So I don’t look back…

So 2008. Day 3. From past experience this is the day you decide to make good on your promises/threats to yourself (i.e. resolutions) to change things that aren’t working. Day 1 you’re recovering from the previous year’s last gasps. Day 2 is the first tentative step forward into the fresh 12 months ahead. But Day 3 is the day you decide whether to get serious about dropping dead weight; whether it be your rapidly expanding muffin top, mountainous credit card debt or a relationship without possibility or hope.

Breaking up, as some guy once wailed, is hard to do. Harder still is finding a proper pop song that marries the angst of separating from someone who once brought you joy and comfort with the promise of something better ahead that can’t yet be seen.

Swedish pop star Robyn-who scored hits here in the States a decade ago with pre-Britney and Kelly Max Martin-produced tracks “Show Me Love” and “Do You Know (What It Takes)”-reinvented herself in 2005 with a self-titled and self-penned LP that deftly blended self-boasting and deprecation over futurist, modernist electropop beats and sparkling synth ballads.

“With Every Heartbeat,” Robyn’s collaboration with dance music producer Kleerup topped the UK charts last year and with good reason: it’s a shimmering orb of propulsive heartbreak. The lyrics play out Robyn’s dilemma: wanting to keep hanging on (“Maybe we could make it alright)”, but needing to let go (“Things will never change”), no matter how much it hurts (“Still I’m dying with every step I take”).

The video sees Robyn walking amongst floating geometric shapes, hinting perhaps at the hard-angled, chaotic romantic future ahead for her.

In a true act of a wrong needing righting, one of the best break-up pop songs of this decade has never even been released as a single. UK starlet Rachel Stevens survived a stint in an embarrassingly dodgy, but wildly successful British teen-pop band (S Club 7), a terribly ill-advised cover of the Andrea True Connection disco “nugget” “More, More, More” and still, improbably, went on to release one of the finest pop albums of the decade, the criminally ignored, Come and Get It.

The centerpiece of that LP–a.k.a. the best 12 songs Kylie never recorded–is “Nothing Good About This Goodbye” written by UK super-producers Xenomania and singer/songwriter Alexis Strum, who first recorded it. “Goodbye” is that rare pop song that finely walks the line between, simultaneously, being a dance song and a ballad: its tempo changes hinting at the underlying ambiguity about the choice being made (“Snap decisions cause you so much pain”), where to turn for advice (“I watch the sky above for a sign”) and the prospect of being remembered (“Will you miss me, when I’m in your history?”). With its decidedly country song title and Rachel’s crystalline delivery, “Goodbye” is surely a future hit for someone, anyone. Though it is perfect as is. Since it was never released, and hence never got a proper video treatment, here is Rachel miming it on British morning television.

I want to like Gwen Stefani. But everytime I start to, she pisses me off by shamelessly sucking up to the R&B market, using Japanese girls as accessories or, worse, yodeling. But when she gets it right, she can be very, very good. “Early Winter,” the last single from her latest LP, The Sweet Escape, finds Mrs. Rossdale pairing up with British alt/soft-rock superheroes Keane to produce a mature, soaring electro-rock ballad about the premature death of a relationship. “Early Winter” is arguably her finest vocal performance to date–with a bridge that oozes anger and sadness. It’s pretty glossy–and wholly out of “character” for her i.e. acting like a Sanrio character stuck in a Soul Train rerun–but Stefani’s signature style lyrically creeps in : “Why do you act so stupid?” A question she should ask herself perhaps, when she could instead, be releasing quality pop music befitting a woman her age. Here’s Gwen in the clip, in Old World mansions, being snowed upon by rose petals, and roaming the streets of Prague in honor of Europop triumph.

International Dateline

Looking back on a year, inevitably, brings on the “best of” list. You know–the top 10, 20, 50 (!), songs or albums that rocked one’s world or iPod in the space of 12 months.

When I look back on 2007 and my year of pop, I can’t help but think of how much it’s been shaped by my travels and my desire to see new places and hear what folks outside the US are listening to–that is when they’re not listening to generic R&B, hip hop crunk from the States.

I went to three foreign countries last year (Canada, Iceland, Argentina) and discovered a new pop sensation in each, which gives hope that someone, somewhere, is not listening to bloody Timbaland.

Bubbling up from the volcanic rock in Iceland, comedian, turned mad fictional TV-talk show host, and failed Eurovision contestant Silvia Night released her first LP Goldmine, which successfully imitates/mocks the American pop-tart starlet archetype, completely and thoroughly, including an ace cover of Madonna’s “Material Girl”. The LP’s finest moment is its first and only single, the breathy, innocuously catchy and bottom-heavy “Thank You Baby.” The video–the year’s finest from any country, in my opinion– sends up Spanish telenovelas so deliciously that it kind of makes you sad for the state of television satire at the moment. If records were sold on personality, Silvia Night would be triple platinum.

A hemisphere away in Argentina, electropop outfit Miranda!–in shorthand–are pretty much the South American Scissor Sisters, but without the New York gay hipster baggage. I fell in love with the Giorgio Moroder-influenced “Prisonero” the first time I saw the video for it on Argentine television. The song, the first single from the band’s excellent “El Disco De Tu Corazon” LP, loops, gurgles and coos before bursting into a monstrously addictive chorus. The clip is not so exceptional, but lead singer Juliana looks marvy on her roller skates. If a macho country like Argentina can put this into their top 10, why can’t we?

Finally, from our great Neighbor to the North comes, no, not Celine,–who I secretly still love, sort of–but Francophonic punk-rock outfit Les Breastfeeders. In truth, I must thank a very special someone for picking up their CD on our last trip to Quebec. There was no greater performance moment for me in 2007 then accidentally happening upon this 5-piece rabidly tearing the shit up in a hole in the wall bar in 20-degree below Quebec City amongst the spirited activities of Winter Carnaval. Resident band wacko/star/badass Johnny Malador literally banged his tambourine on his naked fur-vested chest until he bled. This video performance of “Chanson Pour Destinee”–taken from their amazing Les Matins De Grand Soirs is the closest thing to being there.

Three Minutes, Thirty Seconds

One of my New Year’s Resolutions–for the past several years–has been to start a little blog about pop music. It’s hard to know what one can say that’s different or additive to a music genre that’s been declared DOA so many times.

I’m not a music expert. I barely know my bridge from my middle eight. I do know that a good pop song can be from any genre (alt, disco, punk–even country) and any nation (as I can and will prove.) And more and most importantly it can change your life. No really. It can. More efficiently, more quickly than any other art form. A movie takes 90 minutes at least. A book, for me lately, can take weeks. A good, quality pop song though, can, in the space of one chorus, make you quit your job, dump your boyfriend, stop your heart, make you change your mind, make you go back, make you say–even sing–the things you didn’t think you ever could–in just three minutes, thirty seconds.

My goal in the year ahead is to do here what I do for patient, tolerant, but mostly eager friends every day: share with them small treasures from my sometimes all-consuming hobby as pop librarian and music archaeologist. Hope you enjoy.