First there were three of them. Three teenage girls, three city
girls, vaguely afraid of the outdoors, calling themselves The
Concretes to befit such, wanting to start a band to show the boys in
Stockholm that they could do it too. They had to learn how to play an
instrument, any instrument; had to find one of them who wasn't too
scared to sing, but they did this by taking their cues from The
Ronettes, striving to embody such strutting sass as they picked up
guitar/microphone/drumstick for the very first time. Then there were
six of them, with actual boys roped in, wanting to indulge in extra
instruments, with bass and analog organ and mandolin all brought on
board, this beefed-up mix taking cues from Phil Spector as they
sought to build a wall of sound as imposing as any of the city's
concrete structures to which the group's nomenclature is forever
indebted. Then there were two records, which became one album, which
became Boyoubetterunow, which as debut signaled that something
truly special was going on deep in the heart of the heart of
Stockholm's city. Forget the urban jungle, though, because instead of
going under, The Concretes were transcending all these limitations of
structure and geography and pop-cultural stereotype, their disc at
pirouetting play in some ungodly-good Elysian Fields of girl-group
reverie and beautifully-recorded twang and pretty playfulness and
light-headed romance and all of that good good-stuff. If Sweden had
given up great girl-fronted groups in the recent days before them
— Komeda, The Cardigans, Red Sleeping Beauty — The
Concretes were without doubt, as the hip-hoppers say, some of that
next level shit. Actually, forget the next level, forget the top
floor, even, they were above all that, transcending the imposed
ceilings of the city that is their (conceptual, even) home, going
beyond all such limitations of place so often kept in place. After
that album settled, and no one despite Bob Stanley (and me!) seemed
to see the glory for how glorious it truly was, then The Concretes
returned to their home and set out setting out all over again. First
there were seven of them. Then eight of them. Now there are around 10
of them regularly, 12 most times they play live, 15 on a good night.
Even more when they get any-friend-who-can-sing up on stage in some
of the, like, choral moments. We're talking as many as can fit, minus
the robes, minus the desire to make a marketing angle out of the size
and scope of all of them, together; especially because it still
really seems like, at core, The Concretes are still just three
girl-group girls. Here, now, there's instruments sprawling out
everywhere, strings and organs stacked up to the sky, vocals heading
up to heaven on the holiness of this pop-cultural purity. An
elephant's eye is an inappropriately low metaphor to imply the
sky-high heights to which The Concretes' craft now soars as they now
take cues only from themselves, feeding off the fact that they're, to
these ears, the best pop band in the history of time. Or, well, uh,
OK, at least the best pop band in the history of this moment; playing
up a debut disc proper that's the best record in the history of 2003
as it stands so far. It's rare, for me, to meet a record even
deserving of vague allusions to such hyped-up hyperbole, not to
mention the fact that indulging in such, even if you see it as
deserved, is the kind of shit that gives cats scrawling words about
albums a bad name. But, my friend, this is the rarest of records,
and, like, this purple prose comes from a heart swollen with a
listener's love, love transcending the tacky nature of fandom, I
hope, and being only as pure as the intent of this record. Oh, I do
swoon.
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