REVIEW: Various, International Pop Overthrow (Del-Fi)
- Steve Kandell
Los Angeles-based label Del-Fi Records was something of a pop music powerhouse thirty-plus years ago, but has been out of the business of releasing new artists for some time now. With the International Pop Overthrow collection, which features twenty different bands, the label seeks to reassert itself as a home for new, classic-sounding pop music.
As a whole, this compilation sounds like a lost K-Tel record from 1978, which is sort of the point. The bands, many of whom were featured at this summer’s International Pop Overthrow Festival in L.A., do not strive to do anything but craft simple, hook-laden three minute nuggets - new, but inherently familiar. Part of the fun of an album like this is guessing who sounds like who. The influence of bands from Big Star to the Bay City Rollers can be heard on every track. Not that this in itself is anything new for contemporary bands. Red Kross would sound right at home here, and The Sun Sawed in 1/2’s "Denny’s Girl" sounds like a lost Material Issue track.
Variety is not of the highest priority on the twenty songs assembled here; there are mid-tempo ones, kinda slower ones and a few slightly faster ones. Nothing groundbreaking or particularly innovative, but heads will bob. Standouts include "Remarkable Similarity" by The Jennys, which sounds almost .38 Specialish (this is not meant to be an insult) a bit rougher than most of the other selections, which generally skew towards the jangly. "Against the Grain" by the Nerk Twins is the most country- influenced of the selections. The verses of The Tearaways’ "It’s A Breakdown" sounds taken from an alternate take of Elvis Costello’s "This Year’s Girl." "Together Again" by John Moreman is so bubblegum the song virtually comes with its own Bazooka Joe comic. Album closer "Finding Out" by Single Bullet Theory sounds like American Music Club by way of Barry Manilow.
Curiously, of the twenty songs here, not one is sung by a female. Plenty of songs about girls, but no actual girls to speak of, and this could not be due to a lack of bands to choose from. Is Del-Fi maybe holding out for Volume 2?
