Tuesday, January 16, 2007

You know it's much better just to run and forget

Today, we're in Australia for one more day (though this post was very nearly about a song I absolutely adore from Sweden--that'll be soon, though). If you're actually from Australia, I apologize, because I get the impression that this group's songs (or at least one or two of them) may have been overplayed at one time. The group in question is Invertigo, a four person band (three brothers--some of whom were previously in Australian band Pseudo Echo--and the lead singer), who released their one and only album, Forum, in 2001. They released three actual singles off of it, as well as sent a fourth song to radio. The last I know of them, they went to the U.S. in hopes of making in big there; I'm not sure if they ever even released a single there, though there is a U.S. mix of one of their songs. I think the most publicity they ever maybe got (and keep in mind, I wasn't paying attention at the time, so feel free to correct me if anyone knows differently) was getting a song on the soundtrack to America's Sweethearts; the release of their album in the U.S. just kept getting pushed back. In 2003, their lead singer, Christian Argenti, left the group. I'm not sure what all the members are doing now, though I do know that Christian did some of the singing for the satirical Australian movie Boytown (about what would happen if the greatest boy band of the '80's got back together), but I won't hold that against him--I'm just glad he's getting work.

Forum was produced by Charles Fisher, who worked on most of Savage Garden's debut album. For someone like me, obsessed with poppiness and catchiness, for some reason only a few of the tracks on the album jumped out at first listen--it's a problem I often have with this sort of music, which probably falls into whatever subgenre of pop BBMak fall into (as a side note, I don't think Invertigo were generally referred to as a boy band, but you can't tell me these songs don't have a boy band-reminiscent element to them, especially if you're going to view BBMak as a boy band. Heck, one of their songs, "Slave," even has lyrics that sound ripped straight out of a Phixx song! Though Invertigo do predate Phixx). However, repeated listenings were extremely rewarding and revealed a flat-out great album. I could honestly post any of the eleven tracks from this album, and that's something I can very rarely say; I don't even know that I'd say that about the Click Five's album, which I absolutely love (Greetings From Imrie House is still a better album, though). That might lead you to wonder why I'm only posting one song today--the truth is, if I tried to choose any more than that, I wouldn't be able to stop.

Desensitized--the album's lead single. The chorus is great--catchy and full-sounding (two adjectives that could be used to describe the whole song, and much of the album), especially distinctive because of the moments Christian breaks into higher notes. All right, perhaps the lyrics are sort of cheesy, but no worse than a lot of the songs I love.

And, just because I can, here's the video for their second single, "Chances Are," the only video of theirs YouTube has. The video isn't particularly special, but they were just such a great band that I couldn't resist posting it.



In case you hadn't guessed, I very much recommend buying the album, especially if you like this song or this style. Not even Sanity sells it directly anymore, but you can get it from some marketplace sellers on Amazon, or keep an eye on eBay for it.

Next up: probably a song from the UK, but possibly a Swedish singer.

6 comments:

Paul said...

ooo i've been looking forward to this :) I never knew about this band but now i'm very eager to find out more. I will have to check out amazon marketplace, but i actually have so many boyband cds cluttering up my house that ebayers have no interest in that i should probably wait a little while :) And i'm very eager to see what swedish song you are doing! YOu are so much more hip than me - today I'm writing about hoary old rock band America (their new cd is like comfort food - soooo good when you are craving it!how appropriate then that my word verification is wtftf!)

Jessica said...

This comment has nothing to do with Invertigo, but I wanted to comment on the German boyband, Part Six =)[few posts below]

Thanks for introducing me to Part Six. I had no idea that another boy band existed in Germany, apart from US5. I watched their “Don’t Ya” video on youtube, and didn’t think much of it. However, “Drive So Far” was a pleasant surprise, and the video was nice too. I’ve been replaying the song A LOT. Do you know when their album will be out? Also, US5 is now a foursome as Ritchie’s (the young blonde one) has forbidden him to be part of US5. Some kind of scandal, I can’t read German at all, so I couldn’t translate the article.

Poster Girl said...

Ooo, I just love the Swedish song/singer coming up, but writing about Invertigo has got me listening to their CD so heavily that I might have to postpone it a few days--I want to make sure I give him his full due. Very pop-rock, though! And is that America as in "Sister Goldne Hair" and "A Horse With No Name" America? I had no idea they were making music still! But I'll look forward to your post. And hip? No, but thanks ;)

Oh, good, Jessica, I'm glad you like them! And I have to agree about Want Ya vs. Drive So Far--let's hope the album's more like the latter and less like the former! Their album is going to be called What's That Sound and it comes out February 9, apparently--they've got the tracklisting up at news page of their official website (one of the songs on the album, "I Only Shine," was a b-side for "Drive So Far" and you can listen to a clip of it in the "Musik & Lyrics" section). I've also got a non-video rip of "Drive So Far" that I'll be posting soon, but here it is:
http://www.zshare.net/audio/drive-so-far-mp3.html
And about US5: no way! I'm going to have to go see if I can find any articles about what happened!

D'luv said...

Great song, "Chances Are." It does indeed sound tres Savage Garden. I don't know why I always thought Charles Fisher was the one half of the '80s duo Climie Fisher... probably because Simon Climie went on to be a big producer, and I assumed the "Fisher," who it turns out to be Rob Fisher, was Charles.

KulPop said...

Great song that went directly onto my iPod. I will make sure I track down the whole cd.

Rob Fisher was also one half of Naked Eyes with singer Pete Byrne (re: above comment).

Cheers,

KulPop

Poster Girl said...

It is, isn't it (and does, doesn't it)? And as for your and Kulpop's comments: who knew the comments section would be so educational?

Oh, great! That's exactly the sort of thing I hope will happen! If you want to hear clips of the other songs before buying the CD, you can listen to some here--it's an Australian digital music store, so non-Australians can't buy from it, but we can listen to 30 second previews of the songs (FYI: it only works in Explorer for me, not Firefox). And by the way, I've been lurking around your blog but not commenting, as well as wishing I was going to be home when Paolo Nutini comes to Detroit--that's not too far from me, but I won't be able to be there.