The Pipettes

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i wish this band and thread would just shrivel up and die

oops, I just refreshed it
fuck

― boonah (boonah), Sunday, 2 July 2006 04:06 (nineteen years ago)

They're nothing special, are they? Sounds to me like Tracy Ullman's 50s pastiche songs. I can't understand how anyone could feel strongly about the Pippettes either way; they're just so nothingy.

― David Orton (scarlet), Sunday, 2 July 2006 15:02 (nineteen years ago)

I am slightly sheepish to announce that I actually really like the Pipettes - well, based on the first half of the record anyway. Lex is right in saying the concept is brilliant but the execution is wrong, but I like the way they think they're trying to be all 60s girl group but are incapable of executing the sound in anything other than a route-one indie-pop way. Those big crashing drums in particular and utter lack of regard for the subtleties of the genre. It's hamfistedness is endearing to me, and proof that it's the approach, not the arrangements, that determine what style of music you actually are.

I'm not at all bothered by their voices, they add no more or no less to their songs than Girls Aloud, Rachel Stevens or any of the other several ILM-feted pop ciphers you could name. Also IT DOESN'T MATTER that they can't sing - male vocalists who can't sing get a free pass these days (unless you're Lex of course), it's very rare that female vocalists are afforded that luxury. Doesn't mean I'd want to see them live though, if only for the dodgy harmonies.

Still not as good as GA of course.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Sunday, 2 July 2006 20:36 (nineteen years ago)

Maybe it would matter if they couldn't sing (or maybe they'd still manage to be endearing anyway), but the lead singer's voice sounds fine on the new song.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 2 July 2006 20:46 (nineteen years ago)

The album is really fun and I don't think it's badly sung at all. I suspect that many people just think estuary accents = bad singing. Rose in particular sounds very poised and is capable of subtelty too. Sure, they're not amazing singers, but that only adds to the endearingly wonky quality of the whole thing.
They're great fun live. If you don't go and see 'em live you miss half the fun. The moves are great, as are the outfits. The boys have matching tank tops and sweaters, depending on the season.

― Stew (stew s), Sunday, 2 July 2006 20:53 (nineteen years ago)

I agree with Matt DC after listening a few more times. The CD is frontloaded with the best songs (which are generally the older ones), only to decline into nothingness after the halfway point.

I'd still go see them live.

― mike a (mike a), Sunday, 2 July 2006 21:08 (nineteen years ago)

Isn't the album autotuned, though?

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Sunday, 2 July 2006 21:09 (nineteen years ago)

Who cares? Isn't ILM coving over a bit rockist with this obsession with the Pipettes' vocal ability?

― Stew (stew s), Sunday, 2 July 2006 21:25 (nineteen years ago)

I'm just asking because some people are questioning their vocal ability and others are replying with "the record sounds fine." I'm saying that the two things (lack of vocal ability and a fine-sounding record) are not mutually exclusive.

Who cares about vocal ability and autotune generally? Well, myself and Neko Case, to name two off the top of my head, but that's not really here nor there. I don't think there needs to be a rockism debate here.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Sunday, 2 July 2006 21:46 (nineteen years ago)

Heh, I was being slightly facetious with the rockism thing. You're right, we don't need a rockism debate here!

― Stew (stew s), Sunday, 2 July 2006 21:49 (nineteen years ago)

Ha, gotcha. It's hard to tell sometimes.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Sunday, 2 July 2006 22:01 (nineteen years ago)

if you're going for ultra-formalist girl group stylings, "endearingly wonky" is a BAD THING. Indie versions of 60s girl groups - oh great just what the world needs.

They sound better on the record so I presume it's been autotuned.

― The Lex (The Lex), Monday, 3 July 2006 06:18 (nineteen years ago)

Lex did counter with the irrefutable Britney argument the last time I moaned about Autotune so even I have to admit it has its uses.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 3 July 2006 06:58 (nineteen years ago)

> Isn't the album autotuned, though?

the live session on radcliffe sounded very close to the single fwiw.

― koogy wonderland (koogs), Monday, 3 July 2006 08:24 (nineteen years ago)

I think Autotuning matters when it's Nerina Marti Pellow or whatever her name is bleating "I don't WAA-NT TO-OO DOIIII-EEEE."

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 3 July 2006 08:30 (nineteen years ago)

what a load of shite.

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 3 July 2006 09:55 (nineteen years ago)

i mean the band.

― jed_ (jed), Monday, 3 July 2006 09:55 (nineteen years ago)

thereby scuppering my "Yes I know but Radio 2 keep playing it because it's a 'deep and meaningful anti-war song' tag line :-(

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 3 July 2006 10:00 (nineteen years ago)

I heard both their Radcliffe sessions. And the second one, recently, was so much worse than the first! It was swamped by crass drums in the background, etc - all wrong.

Like Konal, I liked Carlin's line about the future.

Like others, I am not sure it's wrong to be nostalgic, or to like things from the past.

Ewing's line about the 1980s was good - incisive, original, convincing: it's a Fascinating Aida revival, not Spector at all.

― the pinefox (the pinefox), Monday, 3 July 2006 13:12 (nineteen years ago)

They did a session for Huw Stevens once (if it wasn't him it was Rob da Bank) where they sounded fine, but the production on the CD is head-hurting.

― Curt Wastor (Curt Soda), Monday, 3 July 2006 13:43 (nineteen years ago)

Is it even possible to do early-60s revivial, when they've already tried/done it in the 80s?

― pleased to mitya (mitya), Monday, 3 July 2006 14:40 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah it is - for instance if some old-tech fetishist like Jack White decided that being a Girl Group Svengali was his latest hobby project, I bet the resulting discs would indeed sound 'authentically' early-60s.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 3 July 2006 14:47 (nineteen years ago)

I kinda like the Pipettes, but I gotta say everytime I open up this thread and am faced with:

There is a traditional historiography of popular music which in some way or another always seems to come back to the Beatles; and Lonnie Donegan who begat The Beatles, and Elvis who begat Lonnie Donegan, John Lee Hooker who begat Elvis and Robert Johnson who begat John Lee Hooker etc etc. But that is not what we are interested in here.

...I cringe and cringe and cringe.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Monday, 3 July 2006 19:06 (nineteen years ago)

Which "80s girl group revival" is this?

― Pessimist (Pessimist), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 02:18 (nineteen years ago)

The Belle Stars one.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 05:38 (nineteen years ago)

Yes, well, press releases, you can't rely on those, can you?

(xpost x 2)

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 4 July 2006 05:39 (nineteen years ago)

three weeks pass...

In other news, the Pitchfork review of the record is far and away the worst thing that site has ever produced.

― Sean Braud1s (Sean Braudis), Thursday, 27 July 2006 02:06 (nineteen years ago)

it is?

― electric sound of jim [and why not] (electricsound), Thursday, 27 July 2006 04:17 (nineteen years ago)

uh, byrds review.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Thursday, 27 July 2006 06:34 (nineteen years ago)

apparently Ken Bruce has been taking the piss out of them. referring to Sheila's Wheels and everything!

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Thursday, 27 July 2006 08:49 (nineteen years ago)

link?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 July 2006 09:50 (nineteen years ago)

Are Pitchfork just giving bad albums 8.4/10 on principle these days or what?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:00 (nineteen years ago)

hahaha sheila's wheels zing OTM!

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:02 (nineteen years ago)

what a load of shite.
-- jed_ (colin_o_har...), July 3rd, 2006.

in a nutshell.

i thought they were a joke or something.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:21 (nineteen years ago)

anyway here is the pdork review.

unfinishable.

"not so much retro as they are post-retro, the product of an age in which progression in pop music has all but been replaced by cultivation and fusion"

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:30 (nineteen years ago)

Taking too long to load. You want readers, make your writing accessible immediately. This is the age of the broadband, not the sundial.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:35 (nineteen years ago)

How about,

"That the Pipettes are doing Shangri-La's impersonations on stage is almost a moot point."

"The twist is meant to be that these three are sexually aggressive, have read their French feminism, own some riot grrrl records, and have distinct, unique personalities in a sort of Spice Girls way."

I could also swear that there was a line in the review early yesterday morning that has since been removed about how The Arcade Fire and Band of Horses should be playing arenas but have to settle for just being indie bands because there is no justice!!

― Sean Braud1s (Sean Braudis), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:40 (nineteen years ago)

it amazes me that people think a pitchfork review is such a talking point that they have to bump a thread because of it! pitchfork = not a talking point, irrelevant to people outside usa, BOTHERD. if you think the writing is so bad don't read the damn site and leave the indie kids to fester in their own language-mangling.

― The Lex (The Lex), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:41 (nineteen years ago)

"I Like A Boy In Uniform (School Uniform)." So they're promoting paedophilia, right?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:56 (nineteen years ago)

I've just read the "Why We Hate Indie Kids" thing on FT. "Infantilism is endemic to indie kids"...

Not a bad article, that, except they missed out the stripy French fisherman's jumper.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 July 2006 11:38 (nineteen years ago)

i knew this would get BNM it's just the kind of pap Amy Philipps creams herself over

horrid

― kevin barking (arghargh), Thursday, 27 July 2006 11:56 (nineteen years ago)

It's not actually a very good album.
They've fallen into the same trap as the Belle Stars, Strawberry Switchblade and Fuzzbox before them - their music suffocated and blanded into searing nothingness by a third-rate producer who fancies himself as Trevor Horn.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:09 (nineteen years ago)

x-post to the Lex:

I actually think Pitchfork writing is pretty decent at times, and while I didn't express it (it was late and I was hoping others would start some discussion) the review should be a talking point because it 1) apologizes for faux-retro irony in the lamest possible terms, 2) gives them feminism shoutouts while glossing over the four boys who play the music, and 3) hilariously attempts to give indie-pop some kind of big-scheme importance or cultural weight.

And I know it's irrelevant outside the USA. Do you think that I care? Ignore the topic, brotha. It's easy, there are plenty more.

― Sean Braud1s (Sean Braudis), Thursday, 27 July 2006 21:13 (nineteen years ago)

Am I alone in thinking that the "third-rate producer who fancies himself as Trevor Horn" is the virtue?

I find them trying for this big 60s girl group sound and getting it so badly wrong actually endearing (big crashing drums etc). If they'd been a faithful facsimile of their influences I doubt I'd find them anywhere NEAR as entertaining.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 27 July 2006 21:26 (nineteen years ago)

Haven't heard the album, but liked some of their singles. There's nothing that needs to be apologized with regard to their retro aspects and there's nothing faux or ironic about these aspects. Try making sense.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 27 July 2006 21:47 (nineteen years ago)

"nothing that needs to be apologized FOR"

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 27 July 2006 21:48 (nineteen years ago)

There's nothing that needs to be apologized with regard to their retro aspects

agreed

and there's nothing faux

ahem

or ironic

HAHAHA

about these aspects.

― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 27 July 2006 21:58 (nineteen years ago)

What is ironic about it? I suppose they're slightly cartoonish, so I GUESS you could call that "faux." If you wanted to, anyway. I guess. (Strikes me as a bit of an unnecessary pejorative.)

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 27 July 2006 22:05 (nineteen years ago)

I suppose it is in reference to this definition:

2.
a. Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs: "Hyde noted the irony of Ireland's copying the nation she most hated" Richard Kain.
b. An occurrence, result, or circumstance notable for such incongruity.

I mean, you could MAYBE argue that there was incongruity when SHA NA NA first appeared on the scene, but I would think retroisms have become established as fairly commonplace over the last couple of decades.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 27 July 2006 22:12 (nineteen years ago)

So haha yourself, fule!

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 27 July 2006 22:14 (nineteen years ago)

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