Passion
Jukebox
So I'm busy for a few days and StEtienne are everywhere. Talk about small revolutions! Now, I personally loved the SET because they really recalled some lost disco melodies namely from the girlband The Flirts. The band, which changed their members more than the Sugababes, came straight outta New York and have dictated the sound of the city we commonly attribute to Cyndi Lauper, Blondie and now the Scissor Sisters. Before the Go-Go Girls, before Bananarama, before Toto Cuelo and before Strawberry Switchblade you had the Flirts. Their importance to the current pop music scene should never be underplayed. Put them up there with Pet Shop Boys, Blondie, Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode.
When I play their music I get stinking whiffs of the Meatpacking district with its backwash gay discos, fashion maestros strutting down some lost alley like it was the catwalks of Milan, the orgasmic cries of $2 crack whores and Madonna creeping in the background taking it all down in her notebook called "world dominination". This area of New York has since turned into the place to relocate to after most of the wasteland developed into trendy lofts. However I imagine the disco stiletto heels of The Flirts can still be heard clicking away behind some dumpster and their thumping electro baselines probably shape the air the second the clock hits midnight. As you can see they also created a certain performance that many put down as originating from drag queens...
The Flirts sound was hi-NRG/synth-pop that would soon be cheapened and stolen by the British girlband Bananarama. Not only did the knock-off "Flirts" consist of three girls with similar radical styles but they also had audacity to claim they were the pioneers of the hardbase girlpop attitude that we see all the time in acts of today such as Girls Aloud, Spice Girls and PussyCat Dolls. Well tonight its my job to piss on that myth.
Produced by Bobby Orlando, their music has been totally ripped off yet the copycats have never quite achieved the same brilliance of the originals. When they did cover other greats such as Dusty and Divine(yes him) they always improved on the original. The tracks picked hopefully illustrates their electropop/discoRock fierceness. Passion sounds like a cross between a Kylie/Scissor Sisters collaboration, a St Etienne demo and a Gwen Stefani no.1 single. JukeBox sounds somewhat like girlie tribute to the Swedish poprock band Melody Club, The Killers and Blondie.
THE FLIRTS JukeBox and Passion
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Gotta love The Flirts... Bobby O churned out some gems back in the day! Have you heard "DJ Girl" by Miss Kimberly?
Neil & Chris have always maintained that the PSBs wouldn't exist were it not for The Flirts... their love of Bobby O's music is what brought them together.
Also, did you ever notice how that keyboard part in "Passion" was lifted for the instrumental middle part of Real McCoy's "Another Night"?
ah rob(o)pop - this is the first time i've come across The Flirts (but not the first time i've come across a flirt, if ya know what i mean. I think you do!) - i am liking what i hear. Any other songs you recommend of theirs??
Pablo, you're like a blank slate with some of these awesome bands.... it's like turning your little brother on to cool music, except you're my age :)
Check out "Calling All Boys"... I think the video clip is up on YouTube... and "Helpless"....
While The Flirts were great, you cannot compare them to Bananarama's attitude towards pop at all.. The Flirts were a put together group who had no input in what they did. It was basically Bobby Orlando and 3 girls, who's names noone knows. They also started around the same time as Bananarama.
Post a Comment