The Pigeon Detectives - 'Everybody Wants Me'
No matter how much guitar fans harp on about hip hop just being a man talking over a backing tape, it's not like it's massively hard to make indie either. Or at least, certain bands are possibly not trying as hard as perhaps the could. Take this, from a band who are - controversially - one of the big ticket indie-ticians of current times. What does a brief examination of their song's musical structure reveal? Well, it's not exactly complicated, is it? The same four note backbone, repeated for verses AND choruses, with a minor deviation for a middle eight, and even that feels a bit uninspired. It arrives, it gets rowdier, it gets quieter, it gets rowdier again, it leaves.
So the only measure of quality, seeing as inspiration is in such short supply, is in the way the song is performed. And here the band do managed to claw back some support. I mean they don't mind that their songs aren't clever, they're all about the delivery, the fiery axe-attack, the footie crowd chorus, and the sardonic lyrics, right? These are the things the Pigeon Detectives are good at.
And anyway, who needs clever when you can have spirited? Brains are for swots, and even though geeky old Radiohead try and try and re-invent the wheel and shake things up, people will always cheer loudest for 'Creep' and 'Fake Plastic Trees', over 'Treefingers' or '15 Step'...
Except the Pidges don't have a 'Creep' or a 'Fake Plastic Trees', or even a 'Flourescent Adolescent' or a 'Man I Hate Your Band'. They've got this. It's the song equivalent of a grape. It's nice, it's easy to digest, not too demanding, and utterly unsatisfying on its own. Nice with cheese though!
And no matter how catchy the chorus is - and this one is alright, y'know? - you still have to dock the band TWO STARS on behalf of the bass player's poor, bored hands. At least if they had backing tapes he could have a rest or something...
Download: Out now
CD Released: July 28th
(Fraser McAlpine)
Comment number 1.
At 24th Jul 2008, -RachelS- wrote:"It's the song equivalent of a grape."
On the ChartBlog-patented chocolate scale, that would probably be a Malteser: all the qualities of a grape apply... except for the crucial one of being nice with cheese...
(for anyone with no idea what I'm talking about - go here:
/blogs/chartblog/2008/06/new_methods_of_music_marking_t.shtml%29
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