Gee, that New Pornographers bandname don't seem so ironic these days,
what with New Pornographer/country-chanteuse Neko Case being named
— no shit — Playboy's "Sexiest Babe of Indie Rock." I mean,
could you make this up? Needless to say, if you're gonna try
searching for this creepy crap on the internerd, perhaps don't do it
while your boss is around. I mean, I'm all for cheap laughs, but
Pornographers and pornography don't look great on visited-site lists;
and, really, how're you gonna explain it away? Or, more than that,
how do you explain that in such a "competition," "Chris" from
"Reckless Records" in "Chicago" would gush in breathy starfucker
tones: "I was fortunate enough to sit close to her during brunch the
morning after they played here in Chicago," about Michelle Mae from
Scene Creamers? What does this say about the world we live in? Or:
What does this say about the isolated state of mind I live in? And:
What's with all these question marks? So, then: Where do we go from
here? OK: New Pornographers. Old pornographers are Burt Reynolds; New
Pornographers are a Canadian pop combo in which many of their, uh,
members are, like, kinda famous in their own right. Like Neko Case,
formerly city-cowgal crooning in the most stirring fashion, now known
for tits-and-ass (the great Canadian weekend). Or Daniel Bejar, the
thin white duke duking out outed art-centric
never-be-a-Bowie-never-be-an-Eno-isms as Destroyer. Or Carl Newman,
once of Zombified pop-trompers Zumpano, now owner of this bandname.
Which, if you live on Vancouver Island, makes them a "supergroup."
Here, in these parts, it makes them an amped-up pop combo in which
four voices mix and match out front of tunes pushing exuberance and
eagerness and earnestness, with the sugary icing (backing vocals,
handclaps, analog organs, guitar solos) adding sweet concealment to a
bunch of well-researched pop songs. Songs so well written that anyone
calling the New Pornographers indie-rockers is off the mark. These
Canadian cats aren't just jamming out straggling songlike forms;
they're penning harmonies and melodies and chord changes and bridges
and choruses in the full knowledge of what this means — within
the track, to a listener, in the lineage of the pop song. And, like,
seriously, dude, check out the rack on that redhead.
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