album of the week: 2.3

Mademoiselle K

jouer dehors

EMI France (2011)

why you'll love it: catchy, well paced indie pop

why you'll hate it: A bit too much "major label polish"

I know zero French, but have listened to a lot of bands come and go. Going entirely off of production context, I am assuming Mademoiselle K has been picked up by a major label, and their third album jouer dehors, is getting a radio push. The songs are smoother, and slower than usual. There are few more ballad like songs to focus on Karen Gierak's vocals. I've heard this a dozen times with punk pop punk bands I liked in high school. To start waving the "sell out" banner feels a bit played out; or maybe I'm just too old to care anymore. Maybe it's also that Mademoiselle K has always had a melodic catchy foundation that can get away with excluding jagged guitar riffs and the occasional shouting.

The band's rough edges were never really their selling point anyway, just a bit of extra flavor. They make catchy indie music, which is still the priority for jouer dehors. While a few songs take it easy, the album never grinds to halt, and the songs never feel to sappy or serious. Just as well, none of the songs are watered down to the point where they are indistinguishable. Karen sings with a bit of cheekiness keeping a lighthearted fun pace. "Aisement" is catchy right off the bat. "Vade retro" satiates the old-school well enough. "Sioux" is moody, rocks, and has a great pace. There are some good highlights on this, but nothing that can stand up to some of my favorites on previous albums..

jouer dehors doesn't seem to have much staying power, so I wouldn't expect it to be this year's "yeah, it's normal music in a foreign language, but it's really really good!" album (I'm alluding to Asian Kung-Fu Generation's Magic Disk); but who knows… While this is a few steps away from the kind of band I was happy to have discovered a couple years ago, this album is a respectable flirtation with the mainstream. If you dig Metric, or any number of other catchy Canadian indie rock bands, you should feel right at home with this.