"Music is my beach house": Brazilian Dance Pop Shoots From The Hip
Written: May 08 '07 (Updated May 10 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Never a dull moment.
Cons: Mamacita please.
The Bottom Line: Sexy and colourful, CSS paint a party palette strictly for the light of heart and free of hip.
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| kookytree's Full Review: Cansei De Ser Sexy [7/11] by Cansei De Ser Sexy |
Silliness is a very difficult tone to pitch in music. Not enough spark and you're left with meritless eargum wankery; too asinine and your pop hit collapses like a souffle. Consider Gwen Stefani's most notorious hits, Hollaback Girl and Wind It Up. Equal in their ridiculousness, the middle school neck snap of the first clicked just as completely as the feather headed idiocy of the latter flounders. Why is impossible to pinpoint.
Sextet CSS are therefore shimmying on dangerous ground. All young and boisterous and Brazilian and as exuberant as all that sounds, these cats make hooks from proclamations like, "I'm off the hook, baby!" and named themselves, with trademark blitheness, after a Beyonce quote ("I'm tired of being sexy").
This all sounds like classic irono-hipster asshattery, but Cansei De Ser Sexy is a surprisingly tight set of dance pop entertainment. With almost every song clocking in at three minutes or under, it zips along at breakneck pace and with steadfast dedication to its disco punk groove. You can stick this on at a party and just watch it sail.
They hit the ground running with Patins, an atypically anguished exercise in insecurity ("Whenever you talk to me/I don't know what is true/Tell me what to believe") offset by insurgent, Strokes-esque guitars and ringleader Lovefoxxx's blundering broken English. It's a sadly fraudulent opening -you won't hear anything resembling an emotion hereafter- but kinetic and listenable, buoyed by offkey yelps reminiscent of a Powerpuff Girl Johnny Rotten.
The bang-bang electro of Alala snarls like a panther, Lovefoxxx scowling out monosyllabisms with the sardonic insouciance of a malnourished Balkan supermodel. "I'm so worried," she intones glassily. "I bought the posh clothing/But it still looks ugly". The robot-pop result is not unlike a less aloof Ladytron, or well remixed Le Tigre.
Sometimes the band are too 'fashion' to take seriously. Meeting Paris Hilton has a steamy lo-tech buzz but its posed vacancy ("The b.itch said yeeeeeah, the b.itch said yeah, the b.itch said oh yeah, hell yeah damn yeah") wears thin. The malevolent crackle of Art B.itch is more successful, with its acerbic skewering of a certain type of style mag meta-lifestyle neatly doubling as self parody ("I am an artist! I am a narcissist!"). The lyrics are certainly...diverting ("Lick lick lick my art t.it! Suck suck suck my art hole!") but the overall feel is choppy and insubstantial- you just want them to stop messing about and crack on with the tunes.
Praise Yahweh, then, for Let's Make Love & Listen To Death From Above, an irresistable pout of coquette funk that dominated dancefloors for much of last year. Lovefoxxx purrs and prowls around pillows of bubbly synth like a kitten aching to be scratched, and the lazy-hipped tropical groove is pretty much impossible to dislike.
Off The Hook is another discotheque destroyer, a giddy, fizzy shot of indie-pop serotonin that sits in the ears like cola pop in the throat. The hamfisted stabs at English ("Why is that we stand so still?") only enhance its wonky, playful charm. This is the most out-and-out fun song on the record, with lyrics that seem to flatly confess a one dimensional mission to create a little island of childish frivolity in the face of everyday tedium ("Yeah you were right this is really fun/I never got this dumb before").
Alcohol is so treacly and merry it's almost too much, like scoffing down a continent of sweets. Dippy exclamations of tipsiness ("Am I a horse!? Am I on fiiiyah!?") just skim the bounds of inanity but are nicely balanced by some amusingly nonchalant violence ("I have just...broken your nose"). Tinny Nintendo keyboards, handclaps and jubilant harmonica all create a sense of knees-up spontaneity; it's like witnessing drunkenly improvised, accidentally brilliant kareoke in a Sao Paulo cocktail bar.
The same could be said of the record as a whole. In just over half an hour CSS pull no punches and unleash their vision of worldwide elation with character and chutzpah, whilst ramming home some digs at the artsy club crowd they inhabit in the process. The kitsch aesthetic and lighthearted outlook might suggest disposability, but the cooking pot of euphoric electro, scuzzy punk and finely honed pop antics proves an addictive recipe.
Recommended:
Yes
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kookytree
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Reviews written: 52
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mais lindo que michael jackson!
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