Invisible Girl
One thing that’s happened over the last ten years is the critical acceptance of genre-revivalism. The best revivalist acts tend to operate like search engines for genre tropes, not only displaying an implicit awareness of every aesthetic cliché in the book, but knowing exactly how to use each of them for maximum effect. Until this decade, revivalist artists like Sha Na Na and The Black Crowes practically had asterisks next to their names. They might have had money and fans, even hits, but critics largely treated them like covers bands. There were exceptions, like August Darnell’s Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band and Kid Kreole & the Coconuts, but they just slipped through the cracks. When Dap-Dippin’ With Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings dropped in 2002, it was a curio; as of 7 years later, Sharon Jones is a cottage industry, The Daptone roster continues to increase its critical cache, The Dap-Kings played on one of the biggest albums of the decade (Amy Winehouse’s Back in Black), and side-group Menahan Street Band provided the most talked about hip-hop sample in ages (for Jay-Z’s “The Roc Boys (And the Winner Is...)”). Revivalism is in direct conversation with pop music; it feels vital in a way it never did before.
Garage revivalism was in bloom long before King Khan & His Shrines released its breakthrough album, What Is?! in 2007, but that album’s craft, especially on songs like “The Ballad of Lady Godiva,” “I Wanna Be a Girl,” and “Welfare Bread,” set it above and apart from its peers. On Invisible Girl, King Khan and fellow traveler Mark Sultan refine and expand their aesthetic, rounding it out with R&B overtones and an alt-comic sensibility. “Anala” begins the album with a Coasters-referencing doo-wop vocal, while “Invisible Girl” and “I’ll Be Loving You” follow with two pop songs that could have been easily affixed to any genre. Then, things start to get weird. “Animal Party” is a gimmicky crowd-pleaser, crowning with a brilliant impersonation of chicken-screeching. Album centerpiece “Tastebuds” is perhaps the catchiest tune about anal sex this side of “Go Your Own Way*.” Yet, even as they veer toward novelty-leaning songs, King Khan and Sultan always retain their immaculate craftsmanship. They know that a good song always advances the medium. It just so happens that, for The King Khan & BBQ Show, a good song and a song about having taste buds on the tip of your dick so that you can taste the inside of your girl’s asshole are not mutually exclusive concepts.
-Martin Brown, 2009
*Come on. “Backin’ up/ Shackin’ up’s all you wanna do”? You know what Lindsey Buckingham’s talking about. In fact, most of Rumours has some serious anal sex undertones. "The Chain"? "You Make Loving Fun"? Are you kidding me?
Comments