The Napoleon album is a big ball of sunshine! Just in time for a Denver winter.

Update: Napoleon The Bohemians Won the Series and the Little Guy Joined the Band. Terrible terrible title! But it is a marvelous record. It's a bit Orlando, minus the narcissistic pathos, it's a bit Wham! on a budget, it's a bit ABC minus the geriatrics and perhaps this may have been where the Push Kings had ended up if they hadn't decided to become awful human beings instead. It's soul music, allegedly. It's bouncy, jangly pop with an earnest, seemingly uninhibited singer. It is Montt Mardie gone even more camp. Montt Mardie with more friends. I like the first song's title I Try to Despise the Ugly People(but the Beautiful Ones Keep Turning Me Down). There are loads of horns, loads of voices, and joy abounds all about the room when I am listening. It is deliriously mad music. If you don't like this then you are probably now or formerly have been a Push King! Honestly. Second track. Listen to all of those silly "baby's". Marvelous. He can sing, really, he can sing rather wonderfully, he's frantic and on key, groovy organ and it's a bit like Saturday Looks Good To Me if instead of being emo tiresomes they were constructed from polyester and rhinestones. There is a bunch of Napoleon's. I borrowed this record from an illicit mp3-sharing site. Sorry Napoleon. I read that you chose your name because you want to conquer the world. I do want to help you do this! I love this record. I would tell all of my friends about Napoleon but I don't have any friends. Sorry. So I will write a random string of sentence fragments to do my part instead. Short songs. Awesome songs. Third. This sounds like it was recorded on a small budget as well. No big string arrangements. Perhaps those come when they make their next record for Siesta? Does Siesta really sell enough records in Japan to justify the recording costs of bands like say Edwin Moses. God I love Edwin Loses but the economics of Siesta Records is a complete mystery to me. The album title comes from this song. He sounds very Moore-Gerety on this one. Do you like the second Push Kings record? Well then you'd love this record. Surely. If not then you must be in Black Fantastic! Fun fun fun. And competent! Next is the falsetto number. Very Montt Mardie. Better than any Montt Mardie you've ever heard. Where did these people come from? They are Swedish. Are they MM fans? This is a ballad-ish number, it is a bit britpop this. No Shed 7 or Menswear, maybe a bit The Great Escape? Uh maybe not. I just watched a video for the third song. The singer mimes his words more oddly than anyone I've ever seen in a music video. Really. He's handsome, in group photos he's obviously quite pleased with himself and the rest of the band seem nonplussed. Or so my assessment would be rendered. He's a fine singer. But is he doing anything that hasn't been done better a thousand times before? This isn't Wham! after all. Everything She Wants was on the radio toay, that's an amazing song, nothing here approaches that level of greatness and if you aren't reaching Wham levels on the greatness index then you needn't take photographs with some snarky attitude. Of course, he's probably just a dream, the world's greatest person ever, but how fair would that be to be able to sing in such lovely tones and then not be a jerk? Not very fair. Let's paint him as dreadful instead. When projected dreadful it is easier to imagine him having a reason for being a pop star. I used to think the singer from Cats on Fire had a mission from God but he doesn't really. I've listened to the new Cats on Fire record, almost all of the way through, and it is tepid and mediocre. It's strangely muted, not out of some renewed interest in craft but just seemingly because the air has gone out of their balloon. Did they invest the entirety of the band 401K in Citi stock or something? Could be. Next song. Sounds like Edwin Moses. Much like Edwin Moses this is classic music through a white suburban filter. It's bowdlerized and safe. They don't have white guy afros and dashikis though. It's fluffy. This is perhaps why I love it so. They grew up listenign to Motown records and yet it doesn't really sound anything like Motown, perhaps Sterling Heights. It sounds more like ABC, another band influenced by Motown but only a cosmetic superficial sense. The circumstances that faced thse kids in Sweden must not resemble the struggles of young kids in Detroit in the 50s and 60s, not at all. And so competent mimickry is mistaken for soul. I am too cruel. It's a fantastic record, probably my favorite record this year. Not probably, yes. It's physical and breathless and sweaty and there seems to be an inimitable joy at least not from a native source within. It's the idea that a group of lovestruck teens in Swden grow up listening to soul music and decide to be a Swedish soul band and come up with a slick, variant that's far from unique but close ot marvelous that charms. Vaxala and I, a bit of the rhodes piano, funky/sexy guitar, some falsetto, slinkiness. The lyrics are out of the 'young soul singer's handbook' you can pick up at Barnes and Noble. It isn't clever witty or smart but it gets the point across. Let's dance. Again, I will remind you, it is performance that counts. I think Frida Hyvonene's lyrics are preposterously silly but honest man I would jump off of a double decker bus into the jaws of ravenous hyenas for her. They do have some moments of reflection that might intersect with my own sense of isolation as well. They quote the Smiths, specifically I Won't Share You in the second song, continuing the trend seemingly established relatively recently by Swedish indie bands(Montt Mardie, Honeydrips, etc...) of incorporating famous bits and phrases from more famous songs into their not so famous songs. "Freedom and Guile". Next song. Bombast. Splendid. Surely the land of the midnight sun should encourage more records such as this? I am reading The Ten Cent Plague and it's marvelous. This music would be analogous to a comic book hero in the wartime east coast sweatshop operations. The DIY ethic was there, similar to the shambolic spirit of indiepop bands when they were making horrible records and sending them around the world in padded envelopes filled with sweet tarts and licorice ropes. Little did they know that Shelflife records would in a later life blog about that one seven inch single on that one label from that one band from that one country that released a really mediocre seven inch with that mediocre couple of songs on it but that no one has heard in 20 years so its safe for me to say it is really quite fabulous. Like say East Village. Has the myth of East Village been erased now that you can easily download all of their dreadful recordings? There are still some holdouts I am certain the same deluded few that cling to McCarthy I imagine. Oh well. They will dismiss my irrational exuberance for this record anyhow. it is alright, we all love pop from different points along the spectrum, I tend towards those with molecules that glow like the globules of lactose hanging suspended in my colon and you might think that Tullycraft are the bees knees. Right now he's on about 'eat my heart'. It's cheesy. He mentions cheese. It's fun to listen to songs corny for the sake of being corny. Too often lyrics are written for what they mean to say rather than how they are meant to be heard. I listened to some of the songs from the new Stuart Murdoch thing. Nice. It's interesting that he only chose attractive young ladies as singers. Is he some sort of playboy pop enthusiast? He writes songs while he runs. I don't. Maybe the singers are fellow joggers. Physical fitness is cool. Today I've acquired a new goal related to running anyhow. I want to be able to run the lariat trail. Can you? Can you? Say it like Alec Baldwin. I've never seen the movie Glengarry Glen ross but I can quote that sales meeting scene word for word, I am dying to use it at work for our sales people. Vocoder. More gouda. He's a very handsome young man. i can picture him as a sex symbol in Uppsala. I seem to recall a sex study that said Swedes masturbate less than the average nation. is this because they are getting some real action regularly? I don't know why. I seem to recall the fact that sex patterns don't vary all too greatly from country to country only the veracity of responses does. I would understate my sexual prowess, though that is somewhat difficult because I'd rather not talk about it. When I am writing songs I don't think to write about sex. I write about deep philosophical imaginings hidden deep within my soul. Ha. I don't actually write songs. I wish. I fell asleep and dreamed of heaven with You Were Never Lovelier on the screen and truly I'd love to be able to write like Johnny Mercer. I'm Old Fashioned is miles better than anything on offer here but that matters little. This is still a blast. Now they are again very very Push Kings. This could have been somewhere near where the Push Kings should have landed on their third album. Somehow, instead, the Push Kings veered off to lame rock band land. Was it the move to LA, the being in Beck videos, the feather boas? Matt Fishbeck was mentioned on Momus' website a few years back as the lead singer of the Push Kings, ha, now he's working with Ariel Pink, I am sure it is dreadful. He was the most handsome Push King, he didn't deserve to have any ability, Joebama's America is about egalitarianism you know. Remember when everyone hated the Push Kings. I did not hate the Push Kings. I still listen to them every month. You should too. If you think that's crazy then you are probably the drummer. Sorry. Last song. Gospel. White kid gospel from the mean cobbles of Uppsala. This is lovely. He's a fine singer. In the video he looks really rather clean. Was he mentored by the Zazous or the Edelweiss Pirates? Grated carrots on my salad please. It is true Cats on Fire are deadly serious now, they have outsourced the job of fun to Sweden. Napoleon have gleefully taken up the task of making hearts smile. But I am not a fan of scarfs on men. This is reminiscent of the gospel track that ended the Far Places record. Mick McMick did not approve of that record. Everyone, including Mick, he was big stuff back then, hated the Push Kings. How ridiculous was that? I mean it is alright to hate all of them now, save for the drummer, but the Push Kings were fabulous. And so is this. Jason Pierce could take notes.