[review 2006: the best of the year]

A friend of mine went to see the Blow this summer, just before the release of Paper Television. Khaela Maricich apparently introduced a song with an admission: the next album was going to be their pop album, something they could actually make some money on for once. At the time, everyone probably thought she was kidding, but now we know otherwise: Paper Television is the closest thing the Blow has to a pop album.

Of course, no one in the K Records stable really has much to spend on things like big-name producers or lavish, fully-equipped studios in Hawaii, so when the Blow decide to make a pop album, we’re not talking Timbaland and Christina Aguilera. We’re barely in the territory of I Am The World Trade Center, the last indiepop duo (or maybe the only indiepop duo) to garner the half-joking dubious title of “the indie Britney Spears.” They at least had an array of laptop-powered synths and samples at their disposal; whether intentionally or otherwise, Maricich and partner-in-crime Jona Bechtolt work with a smaller palette of sonics to spin their minimalist electropop magic.

If you’ve ever heard a Blow album before this one, however, you’ll think the sound much fuller than before. Bechtolt’s instrumental talents have worked wonders for Maricich, who previously ran the Blow as a one-woman show. While Maricich’s coyly innocent vocals have always been a Blow trademark, Bechtolt’s contributions provide a vital counterpart that has, until now, been missing: sexy lo-fi beats and bleeps that sound just as juicy as Maricich’s best lines.

Accompanying the reinforcement in the production department is a newfound focus in the songwriting; nearly all of the experimental scribbles from older albums have been dropped in favour of—gasp!—fairly straightforward verse-chorus-verse pop structures. And again, the Blow score a bullseye. The slinky, seductive qualities of earlier Blow albums tended toward the subliminal, expressed most effectively in breathy sighs and burbling electronic riffs. On Paper Television those qualities get more play, especially on songs like the siren’s call of “Pardon Me,” aka “The Blow’s Late Night Dance Party Extravaganza.” Everything about this song is sex, from the lyrics (”there was a lot of sweat” indeed) to the relentless beats to the awesome flute-loop breakdown.

The biggest problem with earlier Blow albums was the faint whiff of awkwardness about the proceedings; Maricich could never quite sell material like “What Tom Said About Girls,” a rap track that couldn’t escape the occasional hints of hesitation and the bedroom-pop sound. But Paper Television hits the ground running and almost never lets up; “Pile of Gold” and “The Long List of Girls” more than make up for the lost potential in “What Tom Said About Girls.” On the more traditional indiepop side of the ledger, the Blow offer up “Parentheses” and “Babay,” the closest they’ve come to the ideal Maricich has been chasing with earlier songs like “Jet Ski Accidents” and “A Night Full of Open Eyes.”

“You don’t know this,” Maricich once said during a show, “but most songs by pop stars are written by indie girls.” The crowd probably thought that was a joke too, but listen to Paper Television and you’ll come away a believer.