|
The Ting Tings: We Started Nothing |
Contributed By: D. Buchan
Created On: Friday, 23 May 2008
Hits: 63
 We Started Nothing Great DJ and That's Not My Name are the sort of irritatingly brilliant numbers that give frivolous pop a good name. Because if it isn't "the drums... the drums..." embedding itself comfortably into your brain stem, it's "that's not my name that's not my name..." refusing to let you sleep. Tongue miles away from cheek, irony firmly checked in at the door, anyone who can't see the simple inane pleasure in the way Great DJ spins out page one of Guitar Riffs For Dummies into a genius three minutes, or the way That's Not My Name turns a finger-wagging vocal and a skipping beat into some kind of post-punk hopscotch chant, is clearly very old, very dead, or very both.
However, the other thing that We Started Nothing proves is that The Ting Tings are a long way from having enough other songs to make an album. Fruit Machine further proves that it is impossible to write a half decent song with the word 'machine' in the title (see also: Cash Machine, Metal Machine Music and everything Tin Machine ever did), sounding remarkably like the theme tune to Are You Being Served?, while Traffic Light makes you wonder exactly why the Playbus is stopping at track four. Ding ding.
It's a *bad* song. You rarely hear a truly awful song, a song with absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever - unless, of course, you happen to spend any sort of time around The Kooks - and yet Traffic Light is. It sounds like the sort of floatly-light distraction tactic they employ in particularly onerous lifts to stop you slitting your wrists. It does get better, particularly the so the soon to be ibiquitous Apple advertising Shut Up And Let Me Go, getting it's freak on in a vaguely 80s Wacko-Jacko fashion, but ultimately, the peaks which follow those initial heights are never closed to scaled again. Which leaves The Ting Tings in a bit of a quandary? Which song should they play as an encore? Snark aside, it's a shame that aside from a couple of notable exceptions, the album title is just about right.
 
What's On Related: |
Awards