Beach House. I remember seeing the name a couple of months back when I saw they were coming to Wesleyan on Saturday, Mar. 27. Then it hit me – I had tried their music a while back. I checked my computer only to find that I couldn’t find any of their music on my computer. Eh, I thought, I’ve heard of them before, they’re pretty big, it’ll be a good show.
Beach House. I saw the name again one morning while trawling my online music websites. I remembered another bit about them. I had heard about them on a forum and found out Pitchfork (a popular indie music review site, for the uninitiated) took a shine to them.
Beach House. The name popped into my head when I was trying to pitch a music review to my editor. They’re getting much more press with their third album, they’re playing the school, it seems like a “you-got-peanut-butter-in-my-chocolate” match made in heaven. I get “Teen Dream” and I sit down to listen to it.
The last few notes finish up on the album – 49 minutes 6 seconds. What was that? Lemme just listen to it again. I was doing some reading while listening to it, probably wasn’t paying attention… Another listen goes by. Really, that’s eerie. Amnesia, memory erase, can’t remember jack. Give it a break, get some food, come back, and give it another listen. Somewhere into the third listen, the surprise twist hit me: I had already deleted all the Beach House off my computer once. Cue dramatic music.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re not unlistenable, they’re just unmemorable. The band is described as dream pop, which translates into whispered, unintelligible vocals and soft keyboards washing over the listener. I’m not knocking the vocals, probably the strong suit of the album. Singer Victoria Legrand’s range is in a twilight area where the vocals could be construed as coming from either gender’s pipes (seriously, Sam Beam from Iron & Wine soars over her), and her voice, distinctive in its own right, conveys more meaning than any lyrics could (I also looked up the lyrics online. You really don’t want to hear any of the lyrics, but that’s a different story).
The music in each song is just so damned repetitive. Songs didn’t meld together per se, but trying to remember the melody from the previous song was a Herculean task. Pop music can get away with repetitive structure, but it has to have a hook that you, the listener, want to hear over and over again. Without that hook, it’s just… Beach House.
But what do you do with Beach House? Reviewing “Teen Dream” was like reviewing a bowl of vanilla ice cream: I can’t write a scathing review of a bowl of vanilla ice cream, but I’m hard pressed to say anything good about it. Here’s what I say: Go out to the show. We get precious few shows due to the lack of good clubs in the area and it’s a night out with friends. I’ll probably try and be there. Who knows, it might click for you.
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