Today, it's Rilo Kiley's The Moneymaker. Note how the intro sounds a bit like the Muppet Show theme. This has a kind of 'get in the ring and spar with me' feel to it. A tough-minded little, cool strutting number that makes you shimmy and shake if you are listening to it on your earbuds while walking. You feel righteous and invincible for its duration. Here it is, and here's what I wrote on my old blog about the album when it came out:
This album is the equivalent of indie queen Parker Posey doing a big budget Hollywood flick, like Superman Returns. After all, talents like Parker gotta eat, right? So Jenny Lewis returns to her bandmates after a loose and appealing granola bar of a solo album for a Pixie Stick-sweet, big, bright Hollywood album on a big Hollywood label and fans are crying Judas. Don't believe them. It ain't half bad. Course that means it ain't half good, if you'll pardon my grammar. She's mainly set aside the country soul for solid gold disco that's as shiny as a recalled, led-painted toy and as sunny as Malibu. Charming and dance-floor filling it is, but it trades one weakness - this former child actress has always been prolix in an unmusical way, but then actors do count the number of lines they have - for another - vapidity. Apart from an intriguing and creepy rewrite of Son of a Preacher Man - the underage 15 - she just wants to break free, shake her moneymaker, which her atheist mama gave her, and give us a Spanish lesson, and it all sounds tossed off when it should sound natural. Even her voice sounds plastic. You could call it selling out, but maybe she's just buying in. Whatever the case, the result is that it satisfies even as it leaves you feeling slightly dispirited. And if the critics want to persist in comparing this to Fleetwood Mac, then I'm starting the rumour that Blake Sennett is the new Bob Welch.
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