Send "Ladytron " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Early on, Pitchfork contributor Stephen Troussé off-handedly described Ladytron as the second coming of Elastica. It was a good enough comparison for me to remember it a decade later. Like Elastica, Ladytron are a co-ed band built on detachment, androgyny, black clothing, and tons of hooks. Also like Elastica, they were dogged at the start as being vacant fashionistas photocopying the past. A few blinks of the eye later, and Ladytron have been around for a dozen years, and the requisite 17-track Best of 00-10 compilation feels earned. (An expanded version adds 16 more tracks and a huge booklet of photos; depending on your interest in the group, one or the other will certainly qualify as all the Ladytron you'll need.)Out of the gate, Ladytron dovetailed with and were lumped in with electroclash. They certainly preceded the term, but the group benefited from it and earned quite a bit early attention on the back of it. At the time, they got by on charm, low-rent production, and a few winks. Songs like "Paco!" and "He Took Her to a Movie" feel like defining electroclash documents-- the deadpan vocals, the fairly rudimentary comments on consumerism and sexual politics. Part of the goal, and this was an epidemic in electroclash, was to coat everything in a layer of irony. Trying hard, ambition, giving a shit-- these weren't desired qualities. Cheapness, disposability, peacocking-- these were in style. By that measurement, Ladytron succeeded-- only two tracks from their debut LP, 604, are featured here: "Discotraxx" and "Playgirl", a couple of gossipy girltalk songs, observational character sketches that draw different conclusions about young women growing up quickly. (Compilers: "Commodore Rock" was jobbed.) It came as a surprise when Ladytron went right out and grew up. Stepping up their tempos, sharpening their rhythms and low-ends, and acquiring a sheen of professionalism, they took a step toward longevity on their next record, Light & Magic (2002). The results weren't as strong as 604, but they carved a way out of what looked like a trendy dead-end. Darkening the tone of their songs and providing more muscle to their sound, Ladytron graduated from a concept into a band. And yet from the record only "Seventeen"-- a lament that could have been penned for the girls who grew up too fast on 604-- is truly first-tier. The band itself may have gotten that message: Evolve or risk being left out. They evolved: The leap on their next album, Witching Hour, was stark. Bottle service and velvet ropes are entirely absent; a confident, poised blend of goth, shoegaze, and rock instead characterizes the album-- by far their career peak. It's no surprise that five of the 17 tracks here, including arguably its three best ("Destroy Everything You Touch", "Soft Power", "International Dateline"), are from that album. Ladytron continued their morphing into theater-rock on 2008's Velocifero; the three singles included here-- "Ghosts", "Tomorrow", and "Runaway"-- find them perilously close to Killers territory, but they're talked down from the ledge by Helen Marnie's vocals. With a more demonstrative or earnest singer in tow, the band may have been tempted to graft itself to songs that aim for scope over subtlety. A sense of humor and keying in on specific images or lyrical ideas have always suited Ladytron, so a drift toward more big-tent songs would be unlikely to yield anything other than vague plaudits....full text |
| Bbc |
| Hearing Ladytron for the first time was a beautiful shock. It was way back in the late 90s; a single, on a tiny label, called He Took Her to a Movie. This was a time when every British band wanted to be a third-rate Oasis and electronic music was consigned to a techno ghetto and was proudly digital. Then, out of the blue, a coldly witty, sexually ambiguous synth-pop record made with ancient analogue machines. The female vocal was detached and Krafterkian, the atmosphere soaked in sci-fi sensuality and a very early 80s, deadpan, art-pop existentialism. The most bizarre twist was that this group didn’t come from Düsseldorf or Sheffield, but Beatles and La’s-obsessed Liverpool. For once, the cliché ‘ahead of their time’ fits absolutely. But although Ladytron have had to look on as the likes of Lady Gaga and La Roux stole their best moves and went supernova, Mira Aroyo, Daniel Hunt, Reuben Wu and Helen Marnie have done just fine on their own terms, overcoming endless record label problems and becoming a worldwide cult band, playing festivals and DJ sets until pop classicists from unfashionable places finally found their dark and sultry electro nuggets. They’ve worked with Christina Aguilera. They got name-checked on the Lost TV show. And they’ve earned this fabulous Greatest Misses collection in which the only flaw is the baffling omission of He Took Her to a Movie. At their best – Destroy Everything You Touch, International Dateline, Seventeen, Discotraxx, Playgirl, Blue Jeans – Ladytron fit unforgettable melodies and doleful post-modern rock lyrics in a Bryan Ferry tradition to shimmering revivals of Giorgio Moroder disco and the melodramatically bleak end of 80s synth-pop defined by Visage and late-period ABBA. The two new tracks here – Little Black Angel and Ace of Hz – show an admirable refusal to change tack. In truth, none of their four albums has been consistently great, so this immersive and evocative no-filler collection immediately becomes Ladytron’s best album – at least until their Gravity the Seducer set arrives later this year....full text |
| Contactmusic |
| One question that won't come up in any music quizzes of the foreseeable future is the bafflingly unanswerable "Why aren't Ladytron one of the biggest bands in the world?" Nevertheless, as bemusing facts go, it really is quite scandalous that one of the most innovative outfits to grace these shores this past decade still never have a top forty hit single amongst their hugely impressive back catalogue. Formed in 1999 through a shared love of electronic pop and Roxy Music, the four-piece of Helen Marnie, Reuben Wu, Mira Aroyo and Daniel Hunt arrived like a breath of fresh air amidst a squalid stench of acoustic dullards and Yanks in big shorts. In any other era, their pristine, elaborately executed pop would have set the accountants running to the hills counting their sales figures along the way, and yet for some reason Joe Public at large failed to catch on. Maybe by some quirk of fate Ladytron were actually ahead of the game? Certainly the commercial success of peers like Simian Mobile Disco and La Roux suggests there is a market out there for such wares after all, yet none of those who've followed suit can boast to having matched the consistency album-for-album, single-for-single, that Ladytron have achieved so effortlessly throughout their eleven year existence. While most 'Best Of' compilations tend to be little more than chronological history lessons from start to finish of a band's career, 'Best Of 00-10' veers off the traditional beaten track somewhat. Comprising seventeen tracks in all, two of which are previously unreleased until now, the main facet of such a collection is the staggering level of quality on display throughout the entire record. Even the band's earliest forays into recording, 'Playgirl' and 'Discotraxx', the only two songs culled from 2001's debut long player '604', still sound as fresh and invigorating as when first released. In fact, taking in the entire contents of 'Best Of 00-10' its difficult to pinpoint a weak link. 'Destroy Everything You Touch' and 'Tomorrow' could both quite easily take first and second place were there an award bestowed on the great-lost pop song of the past decade. Similarly the futuristic 'International Dateline', pervasive 'Seventeen' and pre-GaGa pomp of 'Runaway' all deserve accolades of their own for bringing intelligence and nuance into a genre seemingly lost at the hands of an endless stream of Syco and Ark Music puppets....full text |
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