The Wombats - Let's Dance To Joy Division

Music: Fast-Track Graduate Scheme Rock In The Contemporary Style. Jack Panate not enough of a dumb-headed posho for you? The Hoosiers not sickeningly desperate enough for mainstream Jo Whiley sponsored faux-indie success for you? Do you find Scouting For Girls just don't appeal to Sports Science students enough? Try The Wombats! They've got a crazeee name! They probably claim they make 'intelligent pop music'! But actually they hate pop music! It's post-modern double-thinkery of the most irritatingly pretentious kind! If they really liked pop music they'd be making exciting, fizzy, dance floor slaying records that sound like Girls Aloud instead of this wonky, humdrum, watered down sub-Young Knives chart alt. rock, and we'd all thank 'em for it! Climaxes in the deployment of a school choir, a pop music tactic which has become something of a cliche of late (see Jamie T), apparently thrown in because the air raid sirens, crowd sfx and kitchen sink couldn't be located.

Lyrics: The real kicker. Chorus: "Let's dance to Joy Division, and celebrate the i-ron-y." There are so many things wrong with this lyric that the mind reels at the kaleidoscopic awfulness of it all. I don't really care what point The Womats are making, I dunno if they're berating clueless hipsters for jiving to Joy Div, or applauding the recontexualisation of Joy Div as indie disco music, whatever, it's all pretty confused and of absolutely of no value to anyone either way. Referencing Joy Division is simply an act of artless clever-cleverness. I mean, come on guys! Joy Division? Is that the best canonised post-punk doomapalooza act you could come up with? Why not Gang Of Four? Caberet Voltaire? Aren't we all sorta over the whole Joy Div thing by now? Even The Killers don't care about 'em anymore! And word to the wise: when you're producing a song as drenched in irony as this, DON'T ACTUALLY USE THE WORD 'IRONY' IN THE LYRICS! It's sorta unnecessary don't ya think? It's like, WE GET IT! You're CONCEPTUAL!

Oh, and anuvva thang: you're from Liverpool. You should sound like The Las. That's the rule. If you don't like it, be from somewhere else.

Labels: Indie Rock 'n' Roll

¶ 10:57 AM