The Naked and Famous - Meeting People Sucks video free download

Directed by Campbell Hooper and Joel Kefali for Special Problems, taken from the debut album 'This Machine-EP' by The Naked And Famous.

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http://www.thenakedandfamous.com

Boy/girl duo, check. Name nabbed from Tricky's 1999 lyric "Everyone wants a record deal/ Everyone wants to be naked and famous/ Everyone wants to be just like me", check. (Though I used to have a Tricky tee from his '95 debut Maxinquaye with those words on it, so they must pre-date Pre-Millennium Tension — it was a flimsy promo shirt from the record company, it wore out — but then I did wear it to death. Dick! Me, not Tricky. Well, I haven't had the pleasure, er, anyway). Shoegazer electro-vocal-cool, check... Auckland, check.

So far, so much to loathe, if you're so inclined. Me, I like all those things, but heck, ignore the hype (which isn't exactly blaring but we are operating on the edge of very cool here IMHO so it's a thin ledge to be skating on) and listen to the songs — as ever, the best antidote to preconceptions/misconceptions. But, if you haven't heard, then allow me.

The Naked And Famous set the tone from the first notes of opener "Kill The Littleblackdots": drone feedback, someone slapping a tambourine in a back room, then handclaps and overdriven bass kick in before singer Alisa Xayalith gets going in a deadpan delivery about faulty machines and jealousy. Ice. Cool.

Track two, "Serenade", flips the expected script with an almost hoedown-meets-electro vibe: acoustic guitar, slow pounding bass beats and Xayalith singing something about love and want. Like Shania Twain but wearing black instead of leopard print. I kinda like that one big hit of hers actually, ol' Shania — but that could be just a hot ex-flatmate with bad taste rather than the actual song. See how perceptions get all mixed up?

The rest of the EP — it's only six tracks — sticks with the overblown bass but track three overdrives with chunky, riffy guitars too. "Meeting People Sucks" is a cool song title, bringing to mind the naffness of social networking. Or at least the Myspace 'Who I'd Like To Meet' profile part of it — who do you meet from the virtual world who you haven't already? "Meeting People Sucks" is almost as good a response to pop into that box as Shayney P. Carter's Myspace blurb: 'no one really. it'd just be too awkward...'

Now I'm thinking Curve instead of Ladytron (or Shania). I like how these youngsters easily assimilate influences from all over the shop, a bit of glam here, some handclaps there, a touch of drone to make it just so ... how did they get this assured this young? Maybe that's the great NZ knocking machine talking, perhaps these guys just have good ears. Chief studio nerd of the pair is known as Thom Powers. Apparently also his real name.

Track four, "Part 1″, is the most shoegazer: Lush on the slow tip mayhap. Certainly nineties-feeling: omigod we're up to there on the nostalgia tip already? Nice outro/segue into "Post", the next and second-to-last track with the biggest guitars drawing us out of the lull and back onto the dancefloor. New Order, new millennium maybe, only with girls instead of Barney. Love those hazy female vocals ah-ha-ha-ing all over the instrumentation, which now includes a minimal piano riff. Not the first instance of simple ooh-ooh kind of pop feel, this works just fine.

By now I'm getting carried away, by both the music and over the word count, so let's just close with the final, no-surely-it-can't-be-over-already track (good trick, leave 'em wanting more) "Spies Spies Spies". Title track chorus, again with the machines being uncooperative. I can dig that. Rocking out and over. The label says another EP is due in September and an album next year. Can't wait.