Weekly: The Follow Up

Okay -- here's two new bands for all of you. Remember when I said that I tend to stay away from girl bands? Well, here's the band that proves the rule wrong: the Pipettes, a three-piece group from, uh ... England. Okay, so they've released one single and have a song featured on a comp, but I still consider them, for the sack of practicality, "unsigned." The group, as they say themselves, is heavily influenced by the work of Phil Spector and the teen pop that followed in his footsteps. And they do a good job of it , too! Really jangly, peppy, and of course poppy stuff. Cute, yet sharp vocals, and crispy production make for a very authentic sound, if you could call a 60s throwback band trully authentic. Listen to Dirty Mind, a song which has an unusual lo-fi, guitar pop vibe. Cool how they sort of change up the "girl band" style of the 60s, I guess.
Okay, so I've been listening to this other, most definitely unsigned band called Ghetto Pony. Really hard to classify these guy. Also really hard to not draw Unicorns comparisons. But they have that same spontaneous, "let's see how this turns" out sort of approach to creating music. Or so it sounds. They like to use drum machines and Casios ... stuff like that. I can't complain, because it's really rather good and well arranged. Kind of like if Arcade Fire songs were performed by a band of 4th graders. Cool, cool ... listen to ... everything they've done here.