Brassy!

by Harold Fine
8.23.2002

Brassy’s highest ambition is to make party music better than anybody else. To that end, this English band mixes the energy and brevity of punk, the simple catchiness of New Wave, the and the beats and scratches of hip-hop. Do they succeed in making the best party music? Depends on how you like your parties, but the danceability and catchiness of Got It Made, the group’s first full-length, is beyond question.

Crammed with songs that barely exceed two minutes, Got It Made goes by so fast – seventeen tracks in 41 minutes – that by the time you’re able to process each squealing burst of propulsive beats, beeps, and blasts of snide vocals, the track is over and a new one’s begun. Neither introspection nor tremendous complexity are anywhere to be found on this record, but that’s not the point; this band has a different goal – to break down all resistance to its groove. “If you can’t dance to it, what’s the point?” Muffin Spencer, who fronts Brassy, asks in the group’s presskit. Going even further, Brassy aspires to make a record you can’t not dance to, and it’s hard to deny the potency of their calculated suspension of searing hard rawk guitars, dense programming, and sneering strut.

And just because dance pop can be one-dimensional doesn’t mean it can’t be done right. The smart, the stylish, and the strident get involved in dance pop all too rarely because it’s assumed to be shallow, so the field ends up crowded with pre-fab teen pop artists. But when artful people get involved in dance pop, it ceases to become a guilty pleasure and crosses over into the realm of just plain pleasure. I’d rather hear Brassy than Britney any day.

Tell me your favorite dance/party record! The tenth person to respond will get a free copy of Got It Made. Email bands@audiogalaxy.com.