Send "The Pipettes " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 The 1960s girl groups went overlooked for so long in part because of their failure, often through no fault of their own, to establish successful long-term careers as album artists. We remember the young women featured on essential box sets like Phil Spector compilation Back to Mono or Rhino's more recent One Kiss Can Lead to Another not for their full-lengths or their larger-than-life exploits, but for their singles. In some cases, as with the Crystals, the artists you heard singing over your car's AM radio weren't even the same ones who came to town to perform.Initially dreamed up as a modern girl group, the Pipettes have defied this grim logic once before. On 2006 debut We Are the Pipettes, the Brighton, England-based indie-poppers improbably managed a full-length's worth of cheeky, refreshingly contemporary, and wholeheartedly catchy songs to match their polka-dot dresses and choreographed moves. They were "the prettiest girls you've ever met." Your kisses were wasted on them. They were playful, they were divisive, but they were memorable and, to many, instantly appealing. Four years later, the Pipettes are an almost entirely different group. Unfortunately, at least on Earth vs. the Pipettes, they're also a much, much worse one. It doesn't help that the rotating lineup of vocalists, now down to the sister act of Gwenno and Ani Saunders, trades the breezy, conversational singing style of the debut for a brassy, over-emotive approach that probably wouldn't make it far on a TV talent contest. It doesn't help, either, that what Pitchfork's Ryan Dombal called the "DIY-Spector flourishes" of We Are the Pipettes now give way to synths, disco-funk guitars, clattering bongos, and Miami Sound Machine horns, with plenty of strings and 60s sha-la-la backing vocals still there to clutter the over-crowded mix. It definitely doesn't help that the last few tracks tack on a vague interplanetary conceit, complete with robot vocals proving once and for all that T-Pain has a harder job than you might've thought....full text |
| Noizemakesenemies |
| The release of an album by a band like The Pipettes puts a listener like me (and maybe you) in a bit of a quandary. On the one hand, this is music that was probably played at my niece's primary school disco last week, so (the wisdom should go) it's bound to be awful, isn't it. On the other hand, who am I to judge a musical style just because I personally don?t like it as much as that Leisure Society album I bought last week? Surely, music should be judged on its own merits. It?s pointless slating a band because I don?t relate to their particular genre. That would be a sweeping discrimination. I?d probably be being music-ist - if that was a word. So, having considered the issue very carefully, I think I can say, without fear of conflict of musical interests and with as much impartiality as I can muster that The Pipettes Earth vs. The Pipettes is bland, boring and dull. The 2006 release of We Are The Pipettes was greeted with much enthusiasm. The Pipettes were seen as leading the way in reviving a pop phenomenon that was last heard in good health before the arrival of The Beatles. That particular record featured a retro late fifties/early sixties sound (You're kisses are wasted on me and Pull Shapes) merged with a style borrowed from The Waitresses (Dirty Mind). The sound was arch, knowing and ironic while showing genuine affection for a bygone era. By contrast, Earth vs. The Pipettes has put such hopes of reviving that era to bed. Instead the band (now a duo following a complicated change in line up) have decided to concentrate on resuscitating another style: late 80s pop. Flogging a dead horse might be a better way of putting it. From the Pop/Country and Western gallop of an introduction to Call Me, you know we're in for trouble. Stock, Aitken and Waterman's crimes were generally awful. However, with the exception of this year's Eurovision effort, they were thought to have been historic. The phrase never again may well have been first attributed to Winston Churchill, but it has been used countless times since to assess the careers of Sonia, Sinitta and Rick Astley. Now, in this new Pipettes album, we are coming to terms with the fallout as a second generation seem to be repeating the sins of their fathers....full text |
| Addictmusic |
| Just to clear this up, this is The Pipettes second album, their first with this all-new line-up. No, none of the original members are left. The formula is pretty straight forward here, the ’60s bubblegum pop and girl-group harmonies of the first album have been replaced with ’80s synth-pop, a la Bananarama with a bit of disco thrown in. There’s no let up either, from the starting klaxon on opening track ‘Call Me’ through to the last guitar jangle on ‘From Today’ the pace is frantic, the choruses are catchy and the songs all sound a little bit too familiar. Needless to say, there isn’t an ounce of originality about this record, and it seems to have come a bit too late for the ’80s synth revival which dominated 2009. Maybe if this had been released last summer it would have been a success, now it just seems a lazy attempt at an album, which is really just a handful of average songs, with the hope that one or two will make hit singles. ‘Ain’t No Talkin’ seems an obvious choice for a single, with it’s Ting-Tings esque guitar riff, but it’s been overlooked for the unimaginative ‘Stop The Music’ and ‘Our Love Was Saved By Spacemen’, while ‘Call Me’ understandably gets a release....full text |
The Pipettes lyrics
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