Monday, September 20, 2010

Foster The People: Pumped Up Kicks

Pumped Up Kicks may have been the song of the summer for those who downloaded it months ago; vinyl fetishists can enjoy an Indian summer this week with its 12” release. Calling it 2010’s Young Folks is a fair shout – it’s catchy, it’s got whistling – but its chances as a crossover hit probably lie more in the tradition of Drinking in LA and Scooby Snacks than they do in the indie novelty genre. That and a vague similarity to the strutting bass of Billie Jean won’t do it any harm.

Mark Foster probably grew up listening to the ho-hum-shake-your-bum hip hop of A Tribe Called Quest and Arrested Development. He may even have watched The Virgin Suicides and thought ‘Air’s soundtrack is pretty good, but, hey, one day I’m gonna write a song about abuse and murderous vengeance and totally own those French dudes’. And he did.

3 comments:

SUPERGOODMUSIC said...

Honestly, this song was cool initially, but it is played out. This band was supposed to be indie catch, but they went with a major. They sold their souls. #weak ....

Plus the lyrics to the song change tense and are not that good.

Fire Escape said...

Hey, every great song loses its initial appeal after the first few dozen plays. There's always something new to replace it.

I don't remember FTP ever saying "we're indie and we'll never sign to a major". I can't imagine that a major would splash the cash to make the band they think have crossover appeal be any different; they'll just get more people to hear their music. I don't see the problem.

Anonymous said...

So every band that goes major is selling out?...stupid hipster