The Pipettes – 'Earth vs. The Pipettes

The drop-off in quality and flair between the Pipettes spirited and fun 2006 release We Are The Pipettes, and their formulaic and artificial follow-up, Earth vs. the Pipettes, is simply astounding. So much so that you have to question if it’s you’re even listening to the same band. Well, you’re not, obviously, with the original vocalists all wisely abandoning this sinking ship long ago, leaving sisters Gwenno and Ani Saunders in charge of finally killing off the good name of this group-hopefully, for I can’t take one more album filled with this sort of stale, synthetic rubbish. It’s so execrable that I found I couldn’t listen to the album on the bus lest people will think I actually like this sort of vapid, cheesy codswallop. In fact, I couldn’t take listening to more than 2 or 3 songs at a time, before cleansing my ears with actual music (much like needing to scrub yourself clean after being exposed to high-levels of radiation). It really is so bad that I believe decent, undeserving parts of me were destroyed simply by listening to the album, never to be regained.

The warning siren that announces lead-off track (and current single) ‘Call Me’ should be a sign to all listeners that something bad awaits. Take my advice, save yourself and those you love by not listening any further. But if you can make it through the excruciatingly awful first song (which seems to drag on endlessly, despite being less than three minutes long), things unfortunately only get worse, which seems inconceivable after the train-wreck of the first song. The Four Seasons aping ‘Ain’t No Talkin’ is soulless and piercing, while ‘Thank You’ seems to be the band expressing their gratitude that you haven’t stopped listening to their record already. The group has dispatched with the 60′s-era girl-group swagger of their debut, and moved on to the emptier aspects of the 80′s that no one wants to hear again. ‘History’ is such a sloppy mess that I still haven’t brought myself to listen to the whole thing, and it’s barely over two minutes long. It’s ultimately too painful an exercise.

‘Stop The Music,’ which comes halfway through this slow execution, seems to be another inside joke by the band, as if they and everyone else involved in this claptrap agree that this abomination should have come to an end already. You don’t need to know anything about the actual sound of the next two tracks to know how bad they are, just the titles: ‘I Vibe U’ and ‘Our Love Was Saved By Spacemen.’ These sound like bedtime stories written by over-caffeinated 8-year-olds. Whoever greenlighted this whole project ought to be quickly ushered out of the music industry. We’ve already heard this sort of garbage in the late 90′s, and no one needs a Spice Girls 2. ‘Captain Rhythm’ blatantly steals the memorable melody of Belle and Sebastian’s ‘White Color Boy’ and drags it through the suck machine, which is forgivable only because the atrocious song comes at the end of the album, meaning this agonizing episode is nearly over. The names of various tracks on the record, when combined with the dreadful title, leads me to believe that there might be some underlying outer-space lyrical theme layered throughout the album, but I am not willing to dig that deep with this absurdity, for what lies on the surface is vile enough.