Alphabeat to America

Some Stray Thoughts
For someone who pays a little too much attention to the music in television commercials, it's distressing to see so many self-consciously "indie" ads modeled on the hottest trends of 3 years ago. And unlike the bad old days when a young Daniel Faraday told us that a Subaru was "just like punk rock, except it's a car," it's easier to sell consumer goods with twee posturing and cramming in all the whistling, ukeleles, and handclaps that your 25-49 demo can handle. Gerber: forward-thinking that's pre-approved by the bourgeoisie! (Also: fuck, they market baby food for preschoolers now?)



Advil also has a new ad using the exact same gimmick with fully-grown humans and a simpatico soundtrack (though I couldn't find video of it on the Internet, just the song). Peter Bjorn and John wannabes from the cradle to the grave...such is life in Ad America.


Alphabeat
Of course, there's nothing wrong with cute if you can pull it off like Alphabeat does on their self-titled debut. When you're front-loading a sunny pop album, you can't do much better than the depression-leavening "10,000 Nights of Thunder," four minutes of pure uplift.



Suspiciously cheap-looking videos, classic boy-girl vocals, and a song titled "Fascination" - are we sure this isn't a long lost Human League record? Well, probably not. Alphabeat is more versatile than its first 10 minutes might lead one to believe, notching a Britpop opus about condoms and/or raincoats ("Rubber Boots/Mackintosh") and a Nordic-accented country ballad ("Nothing But My Baby") before playing us out with a "hidden" 10-second piano instrumental. The album is all the exhilarating wonder and vigor of youth, a properly noncommittal debut with a charming let's-try-everything quality.

For The Beat Is..., Alphabeat's second album, the band commits hard. To electronica. Such dedication is admirable in theory but in practice it's like returning from a global culinary tour to nothing but Hot Pockets. The line "I need something I can dance to" repeats throughout "DJ" and is the album's keystone. I'm not sure where the imperative comes from. Alphabeat was plenty danceable, whereas The Beat Is... is like Ace of Base discovering auto-tune. The results are horrible, by the way.

But an acoustic cover of "Digital Love"? That's as unhorrible as you can get.




Alphaville - "Forever Young"
Surprise pop standard, unlikely hip-hop bedrock, and forever a reminder of the school dance thanks to the Saturn Ion and Napoleon Dynamite and the sentiment of the song itself. Do not confuse it with an inferior Rod Stewart song of the same name.




Amanda Blank - I Love You
Amanda Blank is part of the new wave of female rappers that has stormed hip-hop's boys club over the past few years in a movement that is as cyclical as the tides and fickle as pop music success. There are probably a dozen Amanda Blanks for every Queen Latifah or M.I.A.

I Love You boasts a few distinguished party songs such as "Might Like You Better" and "Make It Take It" and energetic production from the likes of Diplo. As a whole, though, it's not built to last. Part of that's to blame on Blank's attempts to show us the softer side of Sears, culminating in a risible "interpolation" (the new synonym for "rip-off") of LL Cool J in "A Love Song." It's schizophrenic at best. I guess I should give her credit for at least attempting to break up the monotony of sex-and-sports braggadocio, but a party rapper's music is only as valuable inasmuch as it instructs us on how to release our inhibitions in relaxed and informal social settings. This record lasts longer than a quickie should.




America
Far too pretentious a name for actual Americans, though they did do us all a service by preventing U2 from claiming it (you know it could happen). "Horse With No Name" is the gateway despite its labored rhymes and even more labored storytelling (crying at a dry riverbed - really?). "Ventura Highway" is just as sweet and mellow with better polish; "Sister Golden Hair" is the group's true opus, a tour de force of romantic détente spoken in layman's terms: "meet me in the middle."