Missy Lorelei gives her verdict on pom pom.
Pop has finally eaten itself, and this is the result: technicolour sugary vomit, like a Rococo bubblegum in which the last 50 years of pop music can be picked out. Ariel Pink, real name Ariel Rosenberg, has been poking at the open sores of the record industry since 1996 and causing psychedelic disturbances ever since. He has said controversial things in public--incredibly ill-advised things, like 'I like paedophiles,' 'It's not illegal to be racist,' and 'I'm the Jimmy Savile of Los Angeles,' in a desperate bid to create publicity. He looks like Elton John, styled by Kurt Cobain and played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman in his thirties. If only his music was as interesting.
It is kitsch like Jeff Koons is kitsch--nauseatingly so, sleazy, knowingly bad taste but without a wink that has sustained the careers of the likes of, say, Prince. It is, just like Lady Gaga, too concerned with playing dress-up as other people to do anything original. For example, Plastic Raincoats In The Pig Parade is saccharine psychedelic tweeness with the self-consciousness of the Flaming Lips, and synthpop anthem Lipstick could be a New Romantic act like A Flock Of Seagulls. God help us.
Frank Zappa rears his beardy head often--in Four Shadows and White Freckles, with the requisite deep, cavernous reverby vocals and keyboard squidge. He clearly regards himself as existing in this pantheon, but putting on stupid voices and multi-tracking them is not enough if you lack the tunes in the first place. Lawrence from Denim/Go-Kart Mozart draws from similar wells but would kick his ass in the song stakes--but of course, Lawrence remains an underachiever while Pink gets all the kudos. Sadly, there are better out there at this kind of thing--Grimes, Beck, Animal Collective, Tuneyards and Battles all do sonic re-invention in a way Pink can only dream of. He is merely standing at the party making balloon animals while they have created three albums each.