The Pipettes - We Are The Pipettes (Memphis Industries)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
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Let's get this straight from the off - this is not about post feminist, ironic, tongue in cheek anything, OK? It's not even just about mincing around in polka dot dresses and looking fabulous (who's your favourite? Yeah, mine's Rose...) for the fun of it - it's about loving pop music. And this is THE pop record of the year. Really, how many other CDs do you own where the longest track is 3.03? And, more importantly, where each track is this much fun?
'We Are The Pipettes' isn't birthed from any form of cynicism or hidden agenda, it's arrived simply out of a love of old fashioned, good songs, from a time, as they've so amusingly put it in the past, before The Beatles came along and ruined everything. And the thing about a good song is that it is in fact never old fashioned, when you think of it. 'Crazy In Love' was a tune. But it's not a patch on 'Baby Love'. The Pippettes know this. They want to write 'Baby Love'.
Ok, so nobody in four decades has done that. But in aiming so high, they've landed on some cracking tunes. Hundreds of them. That's right, a fourteen track album with hundreds of good tracks on it. Whatever, maths boy - that's how it feels. The first real corker of the slew is 'Pull Shapes', and it's also the earliest moment when it dawns just how much these girls' sound has developed since their first step on to our consciousness. Gone are the cute keyboards and tambourine taps, replaced with mammoth orchestras, the huge-sounding track in question being the best example of their use. Whilst you might worry that the sound would drown the girls, they utilise it marvelously, creating really meaty, mysterious pop tunes out of the hands of many a cellist. Ambitious bunch.
But of course, it's not their knack with an orchestra that wins people over but their ability to pluck painfully cute ditties out of the ether, douse them with just enough sass, sex and humour to make them a product of these times and not some other, and throw them down for our feet to dance to. Such things are everywhere, no filler, but these are some real standouts - 'Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me' as delicious as the day you first heard it, 'Because It's Not Love (But It's Still a Feeling) arriving with on a delightful breeze, and 'Tell Me What You Want' showcasing song writing depth and suggesting life in the project yet.
The Pippettes are influential already. They influence people who might not have even heard their music - noticed how polka dots are absolutely everywhere these sunny months? Their rise paralleling that of the career of this lot is not a coincidence. But musically, inevitably, there will be bands who sound like the Pippettes, who look like the Pipettes, but crap, cropping up all over the (Top) shop very soon. It's their genuine love of great pop that makes these three girls different from the lesser clones that will follow. It's what makes 'We Are The Pipettes' a real cracker.
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