WILL YOU LEAVE THIS PARTY WITH ME? WE WERE NOT INVITED ANYWAY...

this review of Bis' Plastique Nouveau is, well...rather ill-informed. drives me nuts when that happens, which i suppose is why i feel the need to mention it here. skip this entry entirely if you're not interested. XD

<rant> aside from niggling things like the fact that her stage name is "Manda RIN" and *not* "Manda LIN" (and i'm sorry, but the r/l transliteration problem does not hold a single molecule of water here...--;;;), which are immediate tip-offs...i wonder, how exactly is spinART sending this to people to review? because both the aforementioned review provided by Ms. Kellogg and also this review refer to it as an album. a proper album. which it's NOT, and never was meant to be. there's mention of a "mini-album" on spinART's website, but i think these people took it far too seriously, and had they done slightly more research, would have seen where reviewing it as a proper album might steer them wrong.

the remixes themselves are new, but most of the "new" proper songs on Plastique Nouveau have in fact been released elsewhere...just not in the US. (and i have a lot of it, big shock. XD) so if this is an "album" proper, and should be considered as such, then i'm guessing This Is Teen-C Power! would be considered an album as well...were it not for the magical letters E and P that are placed after the title on that particular release...oh, and the fact that it's a compilation of singles that had previously been released in the UK prior to the band's signing on with Grand Royal in the US.

both of the above mentioned reviews mention Bis' ties to the Powerpuff Girls. and both wrongly refer to their contribution as THE theme, when in fact it's the ending theme. a fact which most people probably don't care about...and if asked about it, the band have said they don't perform the song live as they feel it's not really them. sure, it may have gotten them more exposure, but i don't know how much that seems to transfer over into winning new fans to their particular sound...at least, not enough to buy albums or go to concerts.

as far as the PopMatters review is concerned...well, i'd again point out that the main fault is that she's regarding it as a proper album, instead of a compilation of rare tracks and remixes, as i'd think it would be obvious it's intended to be...regardless of whatever "mini-album" notations have been made about it. therefore, it shouldn't be surprising that "Manda's vocals have essentially disappeared," nor that "Bis put "The End Starts Today" on two records running." (i'm still confused about "content to be in the most stylish magazines"...erm, when did this happen? i recall brief mention in Seventeen and a one-page photo/article of Manda looking supremely glassy-eyed in an Alloy catalog...and brief turns in various Japanese publications such as Rockin' On. this is hardly the stuff of high fashion.)

it's clear that she doesn't care for Bis' new sound. which a lot of people don't, and i understand this. and to address another point she makes, that "if you're an electronica fan, you may just love this album,"...Spaz is more primarily into electronic music than i am. and he doesn't care for Return to Central-era stuff either, save for "Protection," "Robotic," and everything on the Fukd ID EP that they did for Chemikal Underground save for "Brainclouds." while he's just one person, and therefore hardly representative of an entire group...he too professes to miss the old Bis sound. which i can understand, although i'm apparently in the minority when i say that i like almost everything Bis has done, old and new (and excluding remixes...some of which are alright, but most of which i could live without. save for the "Robotic (Just Last Week)" syndrum mix, of course. ^.-)

the thing that continues to confuse me, though, is...am i the only one who sees any sort of logical progression in the way Bis has changed over time? i'm sure there aren't many other people who care, for one...i'm not kidding myself about that. and i'd be surprised if taking this more dancey turn that everyone seems to find so surprising actually did launch them into some sort of strange SuperPopStardom. but it genuinely confuses me. as someone who's followed them for a damn long time...it really does seem logical to me, and not like this just happened overnight...which most reviews (of this, of Return to Central, and even of the grossly misunderstood Social Dancing [which should have sold a zillion copies...i will NEVER understand how that record could possibly have been a commercial disaster]) seem to assert that they did. these elements have ALWAYS been there in Bis' music. it's not as though they just had done with everything they'd previously done and formed a jug band or something...now that would be a complete change of pace for them.

the other thing that gets me too is, aren't bands allowed to change? to (d)evolve in the way they manage their sound? are our heads not big enough to allow this to happen, that they have to stay in the one little box we slotted them into the first time we heard them? i mean, you don't like it, you don't like it. fine. but i guess it sort of irks me, this idea that "i liked them how they were, why did they have to change?" don't you change, every day? if so, why can't they? you may not like how they change, and that's completely within your rights to do so...but it's going to happen whether you like it or not, so i really don't see how it's such a surprise. and the last thing i'd think their particular changes over time to be would be some sort of cynical ploy to make themselves more commercially viable. >P

and hrrm, here's the press release to accompany PN. it provides a damn lot of information. GreenGalactic doesn't seem to refer to it as an "album," or even as a "mini-album." i wonder where this conception came from, then...? because i think that's the heart of the problem with these reviews. you can't expect something to be an album when it's, well...not.

and of course, there's the issue of New Order being referenced as "sterile." i'll grant you that only if you've only been listening to the big radio singles. Brotherhood can make your neck hairs stand on end...that is an intensely claustrophobic and uncomfortable record, largely due to its production. and even stripped to its bare bones, i fail to see [regardless of whether or not you like it or them] how it, or Low-Life, or in fact any other full-length album OR b-side to a single of theirs can be referred to as "sterile." 'tis an obvious and inappropriate comparison to toss off. exactly the sort of thing i hate. RESEARCH, dammit. or don't mention it. RAR. >P </rant>

[n.b. i'll fully admit and agree to the fact that i'm biased. but obviously, so are they. and i really would be probably about as annoyed in reading a review that mentioned other people that i didn't feel quite as strongly about if i knew it was this badly informed. what good is a review if it's largely innacurate and contains such poorly researched references? it seems incredibly irresponsible to me, is my main problem. i don't take issue with whether or not this reviewer cared for it, after all. she's more than welcome to her opinion...but she needs to buttress it with solid facts if she's going to bring them up at all.]