Shampoo
This is British girl pop by two self-styled "trash nymphets" from the East End named Carrie Askew, 18, and Jacqui Blake, 20. In one recent interview, Carrie, asked to articulate the duo's message, answered, "Drink lots of vodka and party." Shampoo's music, which stomps along with the unsophisticated clunkiness of a pair of platform shoes, has a knowingly coarse verve to it, but the overriding sensibility is bored, sullen anger. The girls bray—they don't sing, much—slangy lyrics about the consequences of staying out late ("Trouble"), alcohol-induced motion sickness ("Shiny Black Taxi Cab") and their own garish notion of self-actualization ("Viva la Megababes"). A little of Shampoo goes, oh, quite a long way. About half the album is awful. And yet the world can always use a band like this, if only to serve as a counterbalance to the decent, thoughtful singers such as Natalie Merchant. If, like the saints of old, Merchant went off into the wilderness to pray, Shampoo would be the demons who came and tempted her. (I.R.S.)
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