The Ting Tings
We Started Nothing
Columbia Records
By Annie Lynn White
As a young lady who enjoys applying makeup between outbursts of song and dance in my underwear in preparation for a righteous party, I feel that I am fully qualified to speak on this album. Namely, that any other such young ladies will find this an excellent soundtrack for the aforementioned behaviors.
When middle-class suburban girls are growing up, they just want to be older. Grammar school girls want to go to junior high, those gals are looking forward to high school and then college and then real life. And at some point, just before it’s too late, one realizes she’s done growing up, and thinks to herself, “holy shit, I’m still young, but suddenly I don’t want to get older.” And while there’s an urgency to that realization, it’s liberating, because it means that she’s finally going to do all the things she’s supposed to before settling into her boring yuppie life.
Put simply, the Ting Tings sound like the fully understood freedom of one’s youth. The music is decidedly adult (perhaps even what I’d expect to hear from a collaboration between Lily Allen plus five years and Franz Ferdinand), but with a carefree playfulness that reminded me to hit up a club with eight girlfriends in an outfit I wouldn’t want coworkers to see. We’ll do shots of flavored vodka between neon margaritas and insist on dancing together, but not too close because we all outgrew that faux-bisexual phase in college.
Katie White has a voice that every woman pretends to have when singing pop music in the car or to an empty house. That little hook at the beginning of each line that we all try to do—well she does it right, and it’s not annoying, somehow. The lyrics are a bit repetitive; they’re there to give her something to sing. And even though bad lyrics make me cringe, if I were drunk it would be less of an issue. I might even sing along, exaggerating and thereby fucking up that little hook as usual.
With all that said, I hate to discourage any dudes from listening to this, but really, it’s a chick thing. There will be guys who can attest to the admirable qualities of the music, but I doubt even they would really like it. Not even gay guys. Sorry gay guys, we can share Christina Aguilera, and you’ll always have S Club 7 all to yourselves, but this one’s for us.
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