Saturday, December 31, 2011

Frank's Favorite Albums 2011: Girly Indie Electro-Dance Pop Edition


Yeah you heard me, girly indie electro-dance pop. A genre I am embarrassingly well versed in.  In my pop music fantasy land these two artist are on the radio 24/7 instead of Ke$ha, Lady GaGa and Nicki Minaj. full disclosure I did enjoy that Super Bass song I never ever listen to any radio other than NPR so I get to be a little pickier about how I get my pop fix. Like most other fields this year, not many standouts, but these two are more than enough for me.  


Class Actress - Reapprocher
October 18 Carpark Records

This album is cool as ice. Heavy on the synths and sultry vocals the debut from the Brooklyn duet have released one of the best synth-pop albums in a good while. Each song is clean and efficient, with front woman Elizabeth Harper's confident and crisp delivery doing what good dance music does, creating an emotional as well as physical connection with the listener. Nothing on Rapprocher steers outside the lines of traditional dance pop, but this can be excused when the music is as as good as it is here. Despite the hero worship the whole album manages to feel contemporary.

  Hopefully their sophmore release will lead them to a more unique product, building on the many strengths of Rapprocher. Kind of like what happened with the following artist.



LIGHTS - Siberia
Last Gang Records

This is the second album for Canadian lap-top pop ingenue LIGHTS following up her debut The Listening. The Listening had strengths such as the songwriting (for the medium) and her voice, but was marred with production vying for a commercial sound via auto-tune and such.

Siberia tones back and dirties up the production letting the vocals do most of the work while providing a dark counter point to her youthful delivery.  I recommend purchasing the vinyl because staring at the cover while listening greatly enhances the experience.


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