Sussex contrarians the Indelicates have established themselves as one of the sharpest and shiniest pins to push into a popular culture gone once again smug, bloated and prickable. Their much-anticipated but little-hyped album American Demo suffered in places from a disappointing production that saw too many songs fall short of their vital and visceral potential. The band's third single Sixteen, however, had no shortcomings. Around a po-faced piano hook and Julia’s precise lilywhite trill, the song skips along, giddy with laughing in the face of scenesterettes before crashing to a halt in mock-terror of turning thirty. Neither the first nor the last lampooning of a cult of youth and stupidity, ‘Sixteen’ sparkles nonetheless with an accomplished irony and unashamed intelligence still glaringly absent in those against whom the band define themselves.
Rhian Jones
[YouTube]
[Album: American Demo]
2 comments:
Sixteen is really great but what The Indelicates do best, i feel, is using grandiose pop as a vehicle for well-aimed, articulate bile, something which i don't think it showcases particularly well (despite its intentions). Attacking scenesters seems a bit easy really, even when it's worth doing. That's why i would have chosen America, or Julia We Don't Live In The Sixties, or We Hate The Kids. Small potatoes though really, any admiration of this should be welcomed.
Hi Thommo. Thank you - my pick was a very close call between this and 'We Hate the Kids', which I regard as one of the decade's great lost anthems. What swung it for 'Sixteen' was the fact that I feel it loses out less than other songs from the album's production, and that its critique of the scene is unusually female-centric. Any of the songs you cite would have been excellent calls though.
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