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Song of the day – 417: Dum Dum Girls

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Dum Dum Girls

They’ve blindsided me again. Just when I thought it was becoming possible to sort through some of this wonderful post-Vivian Girls sound, separate the sensational from the merely inspirational, along comes the second Dum Dum Girls album

As Tamsin wrote in her recent Veronica Falls review:

A lot has happened since those two [Veronica Falls] singles were released. There’s been an EXPLOSION of bands claiming similar influences to Veronica Falls. We are living in a golden age of lo-fi indie pop and I love it. One day we woke up and, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers style, the Shop Assistants had taken over the body of every single musician who didn’t have a beard and quite a few who did. In the current popistocracy – I’m going to name it nufuzzwurld – the uniform is polka dots and the faces on the coins are Nico and Stephen Pastel. Which is obviously, obviously a good thing.

Trouble is, even the best things can get boring when you hear them all the time. Call me shallow but I’m starting to tire of nufuzzwurld. I sense a rebellion brewing; blood on the indietracks and moptop heads on spikes.

And yet, this song is so great I cannot (and do not want to) find it in my heart to resist it. Even with the rather odd Robert Palmer influence in the video.

Why do I always find it necessary to draw a line? Why can’t I embrace everything thrown at me, shiver with delight at the overload? Why the need to separate Primitives (bad) from Shop Assistants (wonderful), Best Coast (dubious) from Vivian Girls (awesome)? Surely, we’re talking the slightest nuances of sound here … but on these slightest of nuances, kingdoms can turn and fall. How deep is your love? I’ve been asked to write a press release for the new La Sera album, and I love it and I love it and I love it, and yet I’m totally in agreement with Tamsin, especially when she writes stuff like:

I do like this [Veronica Falls] album, I really do. I’m just not quite as enthusiastic as I thought I would be. I’ve a feeling that in 20 years time, future pop archivists will search out records from these years in the same way that Nuggets collectors unearthed lost garage classics – finding song after song that’s an absolute winner, not quite being able to believe just how much good stuff there was around, all quite similar but all quite marvellous. But right now, I want something more. Something not so pretty, not so retro, not so resigned to its fate. Something new?

What’s not to love? The Dum Dum Girls song I’ve linked to reminds me of the Greatest Song Of The 80s and … wait, you think even the least distant of echoes of that wouldn’t make me fall capriciously in love over again? (Something about the tremor in the voice, the jangle of the guitars, the “whoa-oh” of the harmonies.) Shove this on a mix-tape and I guarantee you’ll be checking the track-listing each time it plays.

Beautiful.

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