A fair bit of talk lately — on my personal Internet haunts, but in the wider popmedia too — about guitars. A lot of people quite like them you see, and want them to ‘come back’ — question is, what can you do with them these days? ‘This!’ says Pink as she winds up her beatboxes and then sprays chunka-chunka glam guitar* all over them.
Destiny’s Child had the same idea, you remember — ‘Bootylicious’ has the best intro of the year, the one that sounds a bit like ‘Eye Of The Tiger’, low-slung fuzzy bass tension and call/response sultriness. The idea is that you use guitars in your pop just like last year you used harpsichords and strings — to give that texture-thrill which is the icing on the pop cake and the central Thing of the song too (because kids don’t eat cakes for the base!).
The bop-gun riffing in ‘Get The Party Started’ is as delightfully sparkly as a tinsel boa, and the beats snap in all the right places. Pink doesn’t do much but then she does not much very well and with minimum fuss. You can probably guess the lyrics from the title, though you might be too busy banging your head to try. Which makes Pink the popkid’s Andrew WK, except while he’s in the kitchen chugging brews until he pukes, Pink and her friends have got the house stereo with the bass turned up. No choice, frankly.
*(It might not actually be a, you know, real guitar being played and all that. Thought I ought to mention. You don’t care, do you? Good!)