Totally Dublin

Never mind the Brit schoolers and the reality TV contestants, the arty wing of British pop has a lot to offer.

After Felt Mountain (the chilly, alpine “imaginary soundtrack” years), Supernature (The glam dominatrix years) and Seventh Tree (the wispy woodland sprite years), you’d expect Goldfrapp would be done with taking 90 degree career turns, right? WRONG! Next on the agenda is – wait for it – a collaboration with Christina Aguilera and a full-on, whack-you-round-the-bonce power-synthpop epic called Head First. Lest the point be lost, remember that Goldfrapp released the quietly prophetic Black Cherry album in June 2003, when Lady Gaga was still learning to play Alanis Morissette songs on a piano, and Little Boots was eyeing up a career in a useless going-nowhere indie band. Once Black Cherry had picked up the baton of synthpop from the electroclashers and run with it, people slowly started to come round to the idea that you could dress up and be interesting and ditch the guitars and still make blinding pop records. Madonna became a fan, Kylie’s Body Language album was an early post-Goldfrapp pop record (and sounded a bit “me too”), and Rachel Stevens’ collaborations with Richard X, Some Girls and I Said Never Again (But Here We Are), out-Goldfrapped Goldfrapp by cramming references to, respectively, blow-jobs and bumming into a big electroglam mash up. Who says pop is all clean cut blandness?

Hot Chip’s One Life Stand, out later this week, sees the return of another driving force behind late noughties pop. Hot Chip aren’t afraid to invite Todd Rundgren onto their record for that odd “interlude moment”, or to make the sort of imaginative videos you can’t take your eyes off. What both Goldfrapp and Hot Chip have in common is they straddle the exciting margin that separates the mainstream from the alternative. Operating on the periphery of pop, they nevertheless both tap into something that was integral to the recent pop renaissance – that is pop as art form, so these people emphasised the art, and the pop flowed naturally. They understand that the most exciting pop is made by outsiders; Britain has a great tradition in producing pop eccentrics, from Joe Meek to Adam Ant, from Kevin Rowland to Morrissey. Alison Goldfrapp is noteworthy for coming from an art-school background, and the story about her milking a cow while yodelling for a performance art piece in the 90s is the stuff of legend. Now she oversses Goldfrapp’s artwork - and this isn’t some minor detail, the band’s artwork is always spot-on, every bit as thoughtful and considered as their precise music. Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard of Hot Chip met at college, and it shows through their spoddy approach to music. These arty/college-y tendencies haven’t hamstrung these acts, although on occasion Hot Chip’s last album Made In The Dark was a little bit too wacky and smartarse for its own good. Yet for all its flaws, its highpoints were sublime (wouldn’t you take Ready For The Floor or We’re Looking For A Lot Of Love over The Fratellis’ Chelsea Dagger or Razorlight’s America any day of the week? Think carefully now…), and fans will be delighted to hear that the band’s new LP One Life Stand, which is currently streaming online, is a belter. You can trace a direct line from these swotty types back to Wire, Roxy Music and Pink Floyd. They inject the pop world with panache and verve, and in keeping in mind the importance of pop music being fun and escapist they somehow strike a chord during these gloomy recessionary times. Today it was announced the UK has officially exited the recession – is this the beginning of a new epoch for popular culture in Britain? If so, Goldfrapp’s new single Rocket – all Morodery tunefulness – and Hot Chip’s new album could surf that wave of newfound exuberance and sail into the top ten. Well, you would hope so.

Hot Chip’s One Life Stand is out on January 29.
Goldfrapp’s Head First is out in March.

Tags: art pop, Goldfrapp, Hot Chip, Rachel Stevens

Posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 5:32 pm under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.