Saturday, November 21, 2009

Noughties By Nature #84: The Pipettes - Magician Man

For some reason, I always think it sounds like the last day of summer at a run-down seaside town. And walking along some sort of metaphorical promenade - yes, I know this is rubbish, but bear with me - we encounter Rosay Pipette (as was), who's here to tell us a tale of a girl she's taken against, dancing and boys. Fortunately, she has friends on hand to provide splendidly over the top backing vocals and mighty "oooohs", and someone will provide rat-a-tat drums that could tempt even the clumsiest individual into careless air drumming.

Rosay spins her yarn delightfully, particular highlights being: the resigned admission that the girl who's incurred her ire wouldn't remember her name; the triumph when Rosay deems that her and her new beau's dancing is "better than her... much better"; the insistence that she still remembers ("Still remember! Still remember!": The backing vocals are awesomely ridiculous throughout) that first meeting. The chorus repeats, the song fades out in a chaos of drums, strange noises, increasingly crazed backing vocals ("Not a magician! Not a magician!"), the sun at this metaphorical seaside town sinks below the pier, and having proved how properly great they were at their peak that they could throw away stuff like this on the B-side of a 7" (Pull Shapes), The Pipettes implode in a sea of line-up changes and solo careers. Pop music should always work this way, really.
Matt Sullivan

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