I’m finding it difficult to understand all the blog fuss over Phoenix. The singles are catchy enough, but they’re also limp and twee, and the album drags. To me they sound like Spoon without the brashness, as if Britt Daniel had decided to ape The Cowsills instead of Motown. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, though, until the Rhapsody blog posted this tracklist of a mixtape the band put together. Has there ever been a more cliched indie mix? You’ve got your ironic pop-metal band (Kiss) leading off, followed by all the usual suspects: your mid-sixties punk, your ’60s soul (The Impressions sure, but no Motown at all?), your glam, your ambient electronic, your new wave (but, really, Costello’s version of “Shipbuilding” over Robert Wyatt’s?), punk uncles Iggy and Lou, some power-pop, your semi-pop avant-gardests like Red Crayola and Dirty Projectors, and the newest entry in the indie pantheon, early ’70s Brazilian psychedelic. Plus the required Dusty Springfield and Beach Boys related stuff (I love them both, but the indie genuflection has been too much to take for a while now). The closest thing to modern R&B or hip-hop is D’Angelo. All that’s missing is Bollywood and lounge. Well, besides African, rap, J-Pop, and any form of techno or synth-pop (and no, Tangerine Dream doesn’t count). Great records all, I suppose, but in indie terms safe and predictable. Indie may still not be mainstream, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a mainstream of it’s own, and Phoenix sails right down the middle of it. Even Disney pop is wilder than this.
Just as a postscript, the thought of French artists imitating British and American pop music made me think of one of my favorite French pop records: Michel Polnareff’s “Tout, Tout Pour Ma Cherie” (at least Polnareff had the good taste to sing in French–which reminds me, why isn’t there any Abba on that mixtape?). The video, which unfortunately isn’t embeddable, is actually a TV performance of France Gall’s “Les sucettes” (the original is here) with Polnareff’s track laid over it, but its oral suggestiveness fits perfectly with Polnareff’s catchy little ditty. If nothing else, I’d like to thank Phoenix for leading me to this bizarre gem (and lots of others). So merci beaucoups, guys, I could be lost for hours watching stuff like this:
