The Raveonettes Embrace the Pop Song
On their fourth full-length, the Danish duo aims for big choruses.
Nov 8, 2009
If there was an album that marked the transition from youth to middle-age (in rock 'n' roll terms), it was 2007's Lust Lust Lust.
Until that record, the group had been on a major label (Columbia/Sony) and collected such accolades as "Best Rock Album of the Year" (for the eight-song 2002 debut Whip It On, as selected by the Danish Music Awards) and as a band to watch (Rolling Stone and Q Magazine) for its fresh-sounding mix of guitar distortion, girl-group harmonies, heavily reverbed vocals and obvious affection for Blondie, the Jesus and Mary Chain, the Velvet Underground and Phil Spector. Blender magazine even named the platinum-tressed Foo "one of rock's hottest women".
Recorded mostly in Wagner's NYC apartment, Lust Lust Lust was not only a homemade, more intimate effort than previous albums, but it was also the Raveonettes' first for an indie label (Vice/Fierce Panda). Yet it sold better than the Raveonettes' previous records, including 2003's Chain Gang of Love and 2005's Pretty in Black. Clearly, the group—by then comprised solely of the core of Wagner and Foo—could stand on its own four black-boot-clad feet.
In and Out of Control
In and Out of Control, the group's latest, finds the (non-romantically-linked) team approaching their songs with a renewed sense of pop possibility. "I think we always kind of tend to sort of need the opposite of what we've been doing previously," says Foo, speaking from a car as she heads from her L.A. home to see some friends in Venice Beach.
"Lust Lust Lust was a very homemade, in-the-bedroom sort of productions, and we wanted to have someone come in from the outside and deconstruct us a little bit. We wanted to be challenged to get out of our comfort zone." With the encouragement of their producer, Tommy Troelsen, the band moved towards what Foo calls "a more, traditional pop song direction, more chorus-oriented. It's not something that is really new for us, but it's new for us to really embrace it."
A Spoonful of Sugar
The irony is, the sugary vocals and enticing melodies are in service to some fairly dark sentiments. Case in point: "Boys Who Rape Should All Be Destroyed", a statement delivered with cavity-inducing melody and harmonies.
"I feel like this album in a sense deals with tragedy, but wrapped in bubblegum, if that makes sense," says Foo. "When you create that extreme juxtaposition within a song, it's somehow more confrontational, because you're completely unprepared for what's going to come. So that's a song that has a really melodic doo-wop melody and harmonies. We wanted to create a real tension in the song. I think several of the songs have that.
"It's a weird album in that way—it seemingly sounds really light and celebratory, but it has this sort of bizarre kind of feel at the other end of the spectrum, both diabolic and angelic."
Sharin Foo, Rock Mom
Foo had become a new mom when the record was being made, thought that's not necessarily reflected in the lyrical content of pop zingers like "Bang!" , "D.R.U.G.S" and "Breaking Into Cars".
"I was worried when we were going into the studio that I wouldn't be able to engage one hundred per cent," says the singer and bassist. "But I felt like I was still able to, that I could still be present in the music." It didn't hurt that recording the album in her hometown of Copenhagen meant free babysitting via Foo's parents.
That Great Love Sound
Currently in the midst of a North American tour, the Raveonettes are back in pink and black, making the world safe for the kind of pop music not many people write or record anymore. They may not be the buzz band they once were, but their music still offers, as they once put it in a song, "That Great Love Sound".
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