Monday, December 08, 2008
City Boys With Influences
Today's Song of the Week, 'Rich Girl,' comes from the Virgins, who are a band of boys, but certainly not a boy band. I saw them warm up for Black Kids at Webster Hall on November 1, and was impressed. They're a talented bunch of college-age kids who are channeling disco-era Rolling Stones (eg 'Miss You') and new wave outfits like Squeeze. For me, they remind me of playing 'air guitar' or rather 'air vocalist' in my underwear as a teen...
Here's 'Rich Girls,' which lays down a funky Stones baseline and very Jagger-esque mid-song monologue, but with a bouncy, melodic chorus that's most un-Stonesy... It's good clean fun... I've had this in my head for weeks...
No one-hit wonder here - the second single's even creamier and catchier than the first - Squeeze-calibre melody and harmony with rubber rhythm recalling Duran Duran (which is a good thing)... The opening intro is slightly cheesy, but stay with it, trust me...
They've also been compared to the Strokes, Manhattan kids, garage-rock swagger, and a congenital inability to write a song that isn't instantly catchy...
And I'm dead serious about their infectiousness - it's so rhythmically, top-tapping irresistible, that while listening to them on my iPod in the subway last week I was tapped on the shoulder and asked to stop pounding my foot.
Why 'The Virgins' as a name? Says Cumming: 'We wanted our name to reflect our musical ambitions: Keep it sexy and not too pretentious. Or you could say 'young and dumb.' : - )
Here's 'Rich Girls,' which lays down a funky Stones baseline and very Jagger-esque mid-song monologue, but with a bouncy, melodic chorus that's most un-Stonesy... It's good clean fun... I've had this in my head for weeks...
No one-hit wonder here - the second single's even creamier and catchier than the first - Squeeze-calibre melody and harmony with rubber rhythm recalling Duran Duran (which is a good thing)... The opening intro is slightly cheesy, but stay with it, trust me...
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