So last week we had an attractive British singer who looks briefly like an emo castoff in one of their music videos; this week it’s a British band whose debut album was produced by someone who’s also worked with Fall Out Boy and Lostprophets. Clearly, if there are any trends to notice in my musical diet as of late, it’s these:
- must involve a male and a female singer (also see the Kills, Blood Red Shoes and Los Campesinos!);
- must be a British press darling (ditto);
- optional: should have some resemblance/connection to embarrassingly young or uncool music genre
Johnny Foreigner’s Fall Out Boy connection is, admittedly, rather tenuous—about as tenuous as suggesting Laura-Mary Carter looks like a floppy haired emo singer. Never let it be said that I won’t distort a musical reality to service a neat angle. But there’s also the whole twee-pop resurrection that they share with Los Campesinos!, another British band you’ve never heard of but everyone on the home islands is already sick of hearing about. (An aside: if there’s one great thing about liking British bands in North America, it’s that there’s no British music press to overhype every band that puts out a remotely interesting EP or single.)
But let’s talk about that twee-pop angle for a second. Los Campesinos! sounds a hell of a lot like Heavenly by way of the Go! Team—the same chipper singing and double-time upbeat melodies of the former, but with three times the sonic material thanks to the kitchen-sink mentality of the latter. They also happen to shout and yell their lyrics more, like any good indie-pop band trying to sound like a pack of suger-addled teenagers. It’s the sugar that binds them most closely to Johnny Foreigner, who have been accused of ripping off Los Campesinos! but only share a few of the above qualities. There’s no way you’re going to mistake the Birmingham trio for Heavenly, for example, though one commenter did dismiss the band as being a poor version of early Pretty Girls Make Graves. To which I say, can’t be as poor as late Pretty Girls Make Graves, so why hate?
More to the point, the major point of departure to me is the extent to which Johnny Foreigner relies on guitars as a foundation. This might be where a lot of critics get the idea that the band’s arrangements and songwriting chops are more mainstream than Los Campesino!’s more varied sonic signature. But this seems like the sort of opposition that’s invented by the British music press in order to pick a brawl; as far as I’m concerned each approach has its merits. If occasionally you have a hard time telling them apart—well, I suppose that’d be more of a problem if I hadn’t just survived a year of intensely baroque and mature music.
I’m going to give the slight edge to Johnny Foreigner at the moment, largely on the basis of “Cranes and Cranes and Cranes and Cranes.” I know they’re supposed to be the punkier band of the two, but the chorus is so utterly adorable it’s like I’m back in 1999 listening to Bunnygrunt or something.