As I write this blog, there is currently a stack of cds sitting next to my elbow. No matter how hard I try, I can't make myself complete a single one of them without coming back to this charming little band from Glasgow. Camera Obscura formed in 1996 but didn't get around to recording an album (called "Biggest Blue Hi-Fi") until 2000. After that break through recording, the band followed it up with several others; "Underachievers Please Try Harder" was one of the first to be released in America. Currently, my favorite is their latest release "Lets Get Out Of This Country."
Why do I like this band? Mostly just because they are just so darn adorable. Listening to their music makes me feel like I am driving down an old French road in some retro-fancy European car. To be more succinct, they just make me want to do cute things. Their sound is definitely a throwback to the sixties and seventies with the kind of cheesy string sound in their songs which, I believe, was a fairly common characteristic in music from those eras. It works for them really well though. If you are familiar at all with Jens Lekman I can see him either a) working on a song or b)touring with these guys because the songwriting for both bands is very very similar. Jens Lekman's lyrics are a bit sillier though. (Which is why they are so great.) But enough about Jens; the point here is, you aren't going to walk away from Camera Obscura blown away with their songwriting skills, but you will be smiling, which in my opinion is more than par.
Two tracks from "Lets Get Out Of This Country" that I keep coming back to in particular are the title track and "I Need All The Friends I Can Get" How can you not love lyrics that utilize the phrase "it's the bees knees"? I sure as heck find them pretty irresistable, hence my current inability to focus on any other records I am trying to review right now. (Or my fifteen page paper.) Anyway, listen to Camera Obscura if you haven't already, and don't be surprised when after doing so you will be seized with the sudden urge to go on a bike ride wearing some kind of bright article of clothing. That being said, I guess I have a paper to get back to.
P.S. Check these links out peoples.
http://www.camera-obscura.net/
http://www.myspace.com/cameraobscuraband
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