The Virgins by The Virgins (October 2008)
Verdict: 9/10
Sorry, I couldn’t find any bad music this week. It’s fairly simple, given today’s most popular stuff, but it’s not stuff that I would particularly take any interest in listening to, much less review. But, I digress. I discovered an Indie Rock band while flipping through a really old Rolling Stone issue called the Virgins.
They aren’t exactly current, but I found their music to be so good, I just had to write about it. The formidable foursome play what I felt was a mixture of Dance Rock, Disco, Pop and Alternative. So yeah, Indie.
Fronted by vocalist Donald Cumming (whose vibrant life includes him running away from home at the age of 14, dropping out of high school and partying pretty much every day), the band’s self titled debut came out in late 2008. Go through some of their Lollapalooza interviews, you’ll see three highly dubious men puffing right into the camera lens, rambling on about how beautiful music is and the joy of making it. Stoned Mofos.
One can’t say that their music is path breaking and phenomenal, but one thing for sure is that The Virgins’ music is exorbitantly catchy. Their funk bass lines are somewhat similar to Old School RHCP, singing style to a young Mick Jagger (Donald bears a striking resemblance to Mick Jagger anyway) and the guitars are perfectly placed to accompany drum beats similar to 80′s dance hits. Their lyrics tackle the pressing issues of today such as teenage love, blowing up money, cocaine brunches and sleeping on park benches.
But seriously speaking, “Rich Girls”, their infectious single, which accompanied many movies and TV shows, is one of the most memorable songs I’ve heard in a long time. “Teen Lovers” uses a more power-pop sort of melody, and uses synthesizers, with a cleverly made video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ2U16pIIbY). Another really good song from the album is “She’s Expensive” which again bounces back to their original disco-rock genre.
The music is great, the members of the band are notably crazy and they aren’t mainstream. So, yeah, it’s something we should listen to.
