BlackPlastic doesn't cover as much pop as we would like but there are two recent releases that deserve a mention. Both of these releases have been out for a little bit - one for quite some time, albeit in another form - yet they are both too interesting to skip over. BlackPlastic will tackle one now and the other in a few days.
Dragonette's sophomore album Fixin' To Thrill is a bag o' nails pop record that jostles along at a pace that makes it quite evident that it doesn't much care what you think. BlackPlastic first warmed to the Aussie four-piece after hearing their snarky cover of Calvin Harris' 'Girls' (re-titled 'Boys') and the killer track 'I Get Around' (the Van She Tech remix of which remains BlackPlastic's favourite Van She remix).
And Fixin' To Thrill easily live up to those expectations. This is pop music turbo charged. Keep Madonna. Keep La Roux. Keep Boots. Keep Gaga. Dragonette manage to outshine them all, particularly on the muted but slinky 'Easy' or the perfectly infectious 'Pick Up The Phone'.
This is a taste of pop music not as it often is (insipid, watered-down) and not the mass-produced, stamped-out from a cut-out template type affair. In the UK we now have a famous Facebook group campaigning to get Rage Against The Machine to number one for Christmas in an attempt to disrupt the usual dominance of the charts that 'talent' show juggernaut X Factor holds at this time of year. BlackPlastic says forget that - vote for pop at Christmas, just make sure it's good: Vote for Dragonette.
BP x
Fixin' To Thrill is out now, available on MP3 at Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link].