Imperial Teen Issue #33

The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band (Merge)

By AK Gold
Published: September 1st, 2007 | 12:00am

In The Tipping Point, author Malcolm Gladwell coined a term — stickiness — explaining that in order to be capable of sparking epidemics, ideas have to be memorable enough to move us into action. I’d contend that great pop songs have to be sticky, and that’s why, to paraphrase Kylie Minogue, we can’t get them out of our heads.

On Imperial Teen’s first record in more than five years, the San Francisco quartet delivers quirky-enough pop songs, but they lack the stickiness necessary to make the music worth revisiting.

Opener “Everything” is full of eighth note–packed piano lines and tightly harmonized vocals, which, combined with guitarist Roddy Bottum’s slightly-too-whiny vocal bursts like “All of what has happened / All of what is yet to be / All that I’ve forgotten / All that wasn’t said to me” come across as disingenuous rather than philosophical.

“Room With a View” strikes a better balance between the music and lyrics about aging and responsibility by adding syncopated rhythms and arpeggios to the piano line, and restricting the use of harmonies to the bridges. “Fallen Idol” uses quirky lyrical turns like “Tongue is tied since you’ve become a fallen idol / I discussed the night and now it’s just a vicious cycle” to similar effect.

In the end, the problem with the music on The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band is much the same as the problem with the record’s title — when it’s right there in front of me, I’m forced to pay attention because there’s too much going on. But unlike parts of great pop songs I can recall years after I last listened to them (Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield” or Feist’s “Mushaboom”), when I walk away from Imperial Teen, nothing sticks.