The chorus... a notoriously difficult part of a band’s success, done wrong and it sounds like a droning lullaby, a completely obnoxious, pointless set of words, done right and it sounds like The Pipettes.
Armed with a set that is blended with such choruses, The Pipettes visited Liverpool Academy 2 with hooks that Peter Pan’s nemesis would have been proud of – and continuing the J.M Barrie theme of Neverland, they seem to sing them with an eternally youthful feel – barely stopping for thought and constantly grooving to their backing bands cape of sound.
Since their formation, The Pipettes have endured a significant amount of regeneration, leading to this point in 2010 where the original lead singers are nowhere to be found in the current line-up.
It is a strange sight for a band to be completely without its first main components (kind of like four scouse lads claiming they were The Beatles or a flamboyant redhead passing himself off as Elton John) and for many would be an instant turn-off.
However, it is not a turn-off for various critics who are hailing their return to existence “under new management” as it were, as a smart move for pop music and the evolution of Pippete-ville.
With this line-up change, there has been a definite and deliberate step in a new direction, one previewed live before the release of their 2nd album (though it will surely feel like a first for the girls).
It remains all swinging hips, rehearsed dance moves and Ronette style mirroring but the chants of girl-meets-boy 50’s and 60’s idealism has been replaced with a girl-gets annoyed by-boy 80’s sound – shifting quite dramatically from Shangri La to Ooh La La.
Still, despite this movement into unchartered territory, a move that I personally see a little contrived whilst ultimately wonderful, the Pipettes have still retained the un-nerving ability to write splendid pop songs.
They can rhyme love with above, walk with talk and bad with sad, they can talk about parks and birds, dancing and spacemen and yet somehow through harmonies of nostalgic familiarity they seem poetic expressions and researched snippets of lovely intelligence, rounded off with a content and curious glow of glitter.
On a night when Diana Vickers A.K.A “Little Diana from Blackburn with the claw who appeared on the X Factor and came 4th...yes 4th and she still has a recording deal”, practiced her strained vocals chords to shamelessly predictable music and an embarrassingly fickle public upstairs and Rhianna A.K.A “Ouch, We Didn’t See that coming” sang about the merits and demerits of a popular rain-stopping device in the Echo Arena, it was the Pipettes who won the battle of the divas.
Almost two albums in and still not receiving the exposure they deserve, they manage to bring polka-dots and stripes, broken heels and borrowed heels, self-conscious male hips and excitable female ankles to a musical Mecca in which fun and laughter can be had by all; for the simple price of £8, your nimble soul and the balls of your feet.
Cologne Girls Choir to join girl choristers from both Liverpool Cathedrals for unique concert
(Tue 22/05)
Liverpool Music Awards 2012 Launches
(Tue 22/05)
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