Thursday, February 14, 2008

RECORDS AND CLOTHES ON THE FLOOR

For about a week my favorite band of 2005 was LOVE IS ALL, a Swedish pop group who use horns and hooks and lots of shouting to (at times) create an irresistible racket. I found mp3s of two of their songs – “Make Out, Fall Out, Make Up” and “Motorboat”, and I thought on the basis on those two that they could do no wrong. Both songs have everything I love in pop music, MY kind of “pop” anyway: brassy, loud swoops of sound; big hooks; nods to the 1960s heyday of hitmaking, and great vocals, even when those vocals are not “classically” great. It’s sort of what unites 60s French ye ye, THE RAMONES, Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, some CAMERA OBSCURA and BELLE & SEBASTIAN tracks; the early Bangles stuff and so on.

I bought LOVE IS ALL’s debut CD and found it pretty middling; saw them live and they were fun, and they are currently residing in my personal where-are-they-now file. A quick check of their MySpace site has them still very active, with new songs a-plenty. See what got the buzz started by downloading these two near-perfect songs.

Play or Download LOVE IS ALL – “Make Up, Fall Out, Make Up” (from 2004 7”EP on What’s Your Rupture)
Play or Download LOVE IS ALL – “Motorboat” (from 2005, US-only tour 45 on What’s Your Rupture)

2 comments:

China said...

You know, I bought the album based on "Make Out, Fall Out, Make Up" (real title, sorry to say!) and also came to the same conclusion. I have such hope for Sweden! Maybe there'll be some better stuff soon, alas.

Jeremy Smears said...

I totally loved that Love is All record. And Motoroboat is a perfect song, but its a cover. The original is by Jimmy Jukebox, one of Kim Fowley's many, many bands. Speaking of, last I heard he was producing their new album.


If you're not familliar with Kim Fowley, he's the best!
http://www.kimfowley.net/