Singles Of The Year (so far)

Brilliant Colors
This sounds familiar
Oh, do keep up. The Vivian Girls were so last year. Like fellow Californians Dum Dum Girls, they’re much better. This is the sound of 2009.
2009! Are you sure?
Yeah, like many American bands at the moment they revere the Shop Assistants as a deity.
Do they like anyone else?
Their debut ep would’ve fitted right in on the Narodnik or 53rd and 3rd rosters over 20 years ago next to The Fizzbombs, Beat Happening, Baby Lemonade, Talulah Gosh…and, yes, the Shop Assistants.
What’s their best song?
Should I Tell You is a discordant rumble through the VU back catalogue via the Modern Lovers’ proto-punk angst with thrift store fx pedals and a ten-dollar recording budget. It’s worth its weight in blood diamonds.












Help Stamp Out Loneliness
They’re the best new band in Britain, aren’t they?
Fuck yeah!
Why are they so good?
Irresistible pop tunes matched with Teutonic iciness, Serge Gainsbourg’s insouciant sauciness and Stereolab’s bewitching electronic riffs.
Sauciness, you say?
Record Shop is a hymn to booze and oral sex:
“Baby are you all alone tonight
I could come around and eat you up
Have you got some wine to wash it down with?”
What’s their best song?
The b-side, Record Shop, is a darkly theatrical invocation to a pop star from an obsessive fan.
B-side?
Fair point. They write nothing but a-sides.
So they’ll be massive?
The clever money’s on them being number one in Germany and France this Christmas. Not sure if they’ll be taken to their homeland’s hearts quite as much, but they’re worth starting a civil war over.