Writer/comedian/performer/podcaster PENNY BROADHURST's infatuation with popular culture not only appreciates the etymology of words like gamut - it positively demands that the musical origin of the very word is given breath. So, she does pop music on top of all her other accomplishments. She does it very thoroughly too.
Not "pop" in a strummalong teacher/curate/Uncle Norman kind of way: pop in a thoroughly immersed, obsessive, self-consciously bangled and beaded way. I've never really got pop. I could never forget the cultural cholesterol it was piling up in my otherwise fibrous auricular zones. But Penny's right there with her breathless excitement at synths and guitars and drum machine un-coolisms. And as long she's in charge, I'm enjoying the trip.
"Give It Up" has an early 80's feel - some kind of aerobics-team dance track with nostalgically precise synth stabs and drum patterns. I have an image of Penny as KELLY MARIE. The hook is convincing, the harmony vocals are bang on and there's even a short, ripping guitar solo. Stay awake for the lyrics though - this is PENNY BROADHURST after all, and you're not going to escape without a bit of a tongue lashing "bring your own bodybag and do yourself in" isn't quite the welcome you’d expect from the tweenie-friendly backing track.
"Chemist Goods" starts with a guitar evocation of THREE DOG NIGHT'S "Mama Told Me Not To Come" and then swerves off into a double-bluff-calling of liberated sexual ethics. "At the close of business it’s a fluid transaction/I can’t get satisfaction from a liar" are the best put-down lines I've heard this year - all the deadlier for being dropped in to what could pass as hypernormal radio pop.
|
"LJaded" is edgier and just as confrontational - a male voice being added to increase the tension of the nether life in Live Journal and its progeny. Penny raps lightning fast - more in the style of her spoken word gigs. The content bubbles its cauldron with internal rhyming like "lurkin' in chatrooms, messenger pervin'. The soundtrack has some great 80s arcade game noises.
"London"(Klar Mix) has a big mainstream power vibe in the sound with a tightly nailed exposition of Northern independence and weary Londonphobia. The tune's mocknified punctuation from a set of East Enders' descending drum machine notes is gloriously trumped, flattened and driven off the cliff by a magnificent (northern) brass section in the last chorus. What a sweet way to say "sod off yer daft southern bastards".
www.myspace.com/pennybroadhurst
www.pennybroadhurst.com
|
