If the question, “what is hip in contemporary music?” were to be
\nasked, the answer would lie in going back to the past – retro.
\nRetro has become the new fashion-statement in music-styles these
\ndays, with bands taking their sounds to as early a time as the
\nsixties. So, to the list of new bands that feel “old is the way to
\ngo,” here is another addition — introducing This Years Blonde.<\/p>\n
This Years Blonde is all ’80s glam, complete with the audacity,
\net al. It is a one-man army of an American-European Kiki Du Parre.
\nThough the new generation retro acts have got the music right, they
\nhave got the sartorial details all messed up – all of them look so
\ngood! Wasn’t music till the ’90s all about bad hairdos and silly
\ncostumes?<\/p>\n
Kiki has got all the wrong ‘glam’ styles right: his hair makes
\nhim look like a llama on a bad hair day. He is seen wearing scary
\ntrinkets on his body, which is generously adorned with scarier
\ntattoos, and his album-cover, with the terrible lip-image and the
\nwarning saying “Rock Erotic Inside,” makes him look as stupid as
\nthe stupidest ’80s glam hair-band. The album-cover does not look as
\nsleazy as it looks silly, and the music isn’t too erotically
\nstimulating either. So, the whole concept of being shoddy is simply
\nthe ‘glam’ way of being cool.<\/p>\n
Like every ’80s rock act with bad dressing sense and excellent
\nmusic sense, This Years Blonde’s music is all about catchy guitar
\nhooks, appealing chorus, and great sense of melody. It sings what
\nhair-bands used to sing about in the eighties — love, sex and
\ndarkness — with words that are as good as their hair.<\/p>\n
Kiki, with his baritone voice, sounds like David Bowie in a
\nfive-piece glam-band, and the music, if not too flashy as
\nglam-rock, is gothic — it is eighties goth, in the year 2004.
\nUnlike the ‘Marilyn Manson’ goth of today, which is more of
\nplentiful noise and ruckus than actual music, This Years Blonde’s
\nmusic is well embellished with moody guitars — and vocals to the
\neffect that it doesn’t have to scream its gut out to sound spooky.
\nKiki has a back-up female singer on most of the songs, giving an
\ninteresting blend to the texture of his eerily calm and composed
\nvocals.<\/p>\n
The ’80s glam-scene was big on solos, and though not as shabby
\nand haughty, This Years Blonde’s solos are refined and less
\nchaotic. “To The Night,” a song bolstered with long and laid-back
\ntheatrical solos, has the guitars sounding all swirly and
\natmospheric. The same is with “Big Star,” this time, with the
\nguitar-hook that is redolent of the early Cure. However, “Turning
\nOf The Page” is typically glam, with a quick riff and an energizing
\nsolo.<\/p>\n
Though musically retro, the album too sounds like the early
\neighties, meaning even the ‘sound’ of the album, sounds from the
\nage when U2 had still not become a household name. This however
\ngoes well with the music of the band, unless it tries to go too
\n‘techno’ as it does on “Violated,” in which case, it starts
\nsounding like a low-budget horror movie, where the ghosts look more
\nfunny than horrifying. Also, Kiki’s attempts to mix his baritone
\nvocals with his higher-pitched singing on songs like “I’m Doing
\nWell” and “Love Screams” suffers due to overly-done ambiguity in
\nvocals v\/s poor sound-mixing. But the rest of the record is
\nhaunting and catchy, so all is forgiven.<\/p>\n
Though unknown, This Years Blonde is a necessary addition to
\ntoday’s bands that are becoming intelligent by going stupid. This
\nYears Blonde’s melody-driven goth-rock proves that bands like
\nSisters Of Mercy and artists like Billy Idol made as much useful
\ncontribution to the eighties sound, as Culture Club or Duran Duran
\nhave, by being big influences on the talented young bands of today
\nthat are reliving the wonderful 80s where music was all music, and
\nlooks didn’t matter.<\/p>\n