As unlikely as it seemed three years ago, they've actually achieved their synthesis of the Dixie Cups and the Electric Prunes--their third is as close to God as pop-rock albums ever get, or got. Closer, actually--even on side two every song generates its own unique, scintillating glitz. What seems at first like a big bright box of hard candy turns out to have guts, feeling, a chewy center, and Deborah Harry's vocal gloss reveals nooks of compassion and sheer physical give that makes the protagonists of these too-too modern fragments seem as tragic (or untragic) as those of any other epoch. Plus the band really New Yawks it up--try the chorus of "Just Go Away." A
>>129802726It is a great album.
>>129802726I like how she looked in the telephone video
>>129802768Gif didn't work. SAD!
>>129802768>>129802782not very hot...
>>129802726>Plus the band really New Yawks it up>ATracks
>not very hot...
>>129802726I feel if they were from LA the album would get a C plus.
>>129802791idk about you zoomers but back in the day music tribalism and supporting your local scene was a lot bigger thing than now
>>129802980wtf is a "local scene," never heard of this before.
>>129803195>>129802980I am refuse to leave the house and proud… my local scene is walmart… sorry im not hardcore enough to be cool
>>129802726Harry's got the cheekbones and the deadpan and the whole downtown-girl-as-product schtick down cold, which is exactly the problem; it's so down cold its lips are blue. Chapman polishes everything so diligently that the grime that made Plastic Letters interesting is utterly absent here. "Heart of Glass" is a disco conceit that works because it doesn't try to be anything else, and fine, credit where it's due. "Fade Away and Radiate" mistakes Robert Fripp's guitar cameo for depth. Stein knows his way around a hook, and the hooks are here, but hooks in service of what, exactly? Product. Smart product, New York product, product with good hair. The irony these kids trafficked in on the Bowery has curdled into something more sinister: sincerity-free professionalism. They wanted to be a pop group and they got their wish. B−
that's why Chris Ott overrates a lot of bands from the local Boston scene
