Send "Eliza Doolittle " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 The youthful Eliza Doolittle doesn’t just have an old fashioned name, she performs old fashioned music. Or maybe it’s better to use the plural of old fashioned as in the British singer uses old fashioned language (such as moneyboxes instead of ATMs or cash registers), a variety of old fashioned styles (e.g., cha cha cha, ‘50s doo wop), and even incorporates old fashioned material (e.g. The Fleetwoods’ “Come Softly to Me”, the World War I marching tune, “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag, and Smile, Smile, Smile”) into new compositions. Doolittle sings of paperback novels instead of electronic readers, letters (licking stamps on envelopes) instead of emails, and when she goes “tweet, tweet, tweet,” she evokes Bobby Day’s “Rockin’ Robin” instead of social media. I guess she’s just an old-fashioned girl.By using the term old-fashioned so frequently, I’ve run the risk of making it sound as meaningless as the word “English” in Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano, but that’s the overriding theme of her eponymously named debut disc. The 23 year old artist plays with the past to create some fun pop music for the present day. She mostly succeeds. The baker’s dozen worth of tracks here are delightfully sweet, if maybe a bit light in content. This is ear candy that’s meant to be pleasing rather than personal, and avoids political or controversial topics. That does not make it boring. In fact, just the opposite is true. There are many charms to be found within. Just like when a child plays dress-up in her parents’ clothes, the juxtaposition between what the different elements presented reveals much about our attitudes toward youth and age, the present and the past. When Doolittle criticizes a peer repeatedly with the dis, “That’s so original” on the cut “A Smokey Room”, the implicit irony is Doolittle affronts in a borrowed style and even uses an insult from the past that makes the dig that much deeper. Doolittle may imply that it takes one to know one, but she can see right through the other girl’s pretensions. That makes the nastiness just a bit more delicious and catty....full text |
| Guardian |
| It's a minor miracle that Eliza Doolittle, the 22-year-old Camdenista, has managed to make such a coherent and effortless-sounding debut album. Although she has co-written every song, she's done so alongside 11 other writers, with additional credits going to the Fleetwoods for the sample of their 1959 song Come Softly to Me, and to George and Felix Powell for lifting their chorus to Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag. The vintage of those steals indicates the musical tone: retro-modern, a collage of familiar summery styles – a little ska here, some Cuban rhythms there – simmered into something unmistakably of this age. It's a delicious soufflé – the hooks of Moneybox, Skinny Genes, Pack Up and Missing are irresistible – that feels as light as air, melting on your tongue. Admittedly, that also means that as soon as it is over it has disappeared without a trace, but do picnic soundtracks really need to be weighed down with pretensions to significance?...full text |
| Contactmusic |
| British singer Eliza Doolittle has shown off her creative side by designing a fake tattoo for charity. The Pack Up hitmaker has teamed up with WaterAid, an organisation offering safe water and sanitation to poor countries, to sell off the body art accessory at this weekend's (ends19Jun11) Glastonbury festival in Somerset, south-west England. She says, "I hope lots of people enjoy wearing it. I drew lots of water droplets in and around my tattoo design. Where would we be without water?...full text |
Eliza Doolittle lyrics
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