QUICK SPINS: Dragonette, Morningwood, Flight Of The Conchords
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 29, 2009 6:40PM
In which we take a quick look at a few recent musical releases.
Dragonette
Fixin To Thrill
Morningwood
Diamonds & Studs
Dragonette and Morningwood are similar in that they're both fronted by strong, charismatic female singers and both traffic in blurring the line between mainstream dance music and rock and/or roll. Of the two, Dragonette's more connected to the electro. Morningwood seems more content in re-purposing a mixture of early '90s alterna-rock and blending it with new wave beats. The result is that both groups end up with scatter-shot output that would probably be better served as a collection of singles and b-sides instead of attempting a cohesive album.
Dragonette allows sequencers to dictate too much of their approach, causing the disc to blend into generic collection of songs that fail to really differentiate themselves from each other. As a background party album we suppose it does its job, but it doesn't really reward close attention.
Morningwood is slightly more successful because they do pay attention to the hooks. The result is often to heavily glossed up by too many studio effects, but we can't deny the craftsmanship within the composition of the songs. The delivery gets tired after a while, but it succeeds as something to occasionally pep up the mood on party shuffle.
If you're just looking for something fun to pop in, both albums succeed at various levels. Think of it as low-fat party pop.
Dragonette plays Saturday, October 31, at Sonotheque, 1444 W Chicago, 9 p.m., $10, 21+
Flight Of The Conchords
I Told You I Was Freaky
Flight Of The Conchords know they have a good formula -- expertly played parodies of a dizzzying array of genres delivered with such a straight face it qualifies the results as more than just a simple comedy album -- so they don't fuck with it on their second disc. I Told You I Was Freaky rounds up all the songs from the second season of their HBO comedy show so there's nothing unexpected here, and if you already like the show these will be familiar reminders for you. But even if you haven't seen the show the disc is worth checking out if for no other reason than to take in the genre hopping. There are a coupe clunkers, most obviously the heavy metal pastiche "Demon Woman," but songs like the Biz Markie homage "Hurt Feelings," and the R&B pop of "Sugalumps" and "Too Many Dicks (On The Dance Floor)" surprisingly hold their own as actual tunes. Hell, we admit to slipping into the occasional DJ set and no one knew the difference between it and "serious" pop.