Matt Goodlett
"200 KM/H In The Wrong Lane"
2002 Interscope Records
Score: 7.5 (of ten)
Tattoo, Taty, T.A.T.U., what ever you want to call them they are not the norm when it comes to pop music, but I will get back to that in a few. About a month or so as I was walking through Best Buy, looking for CD's I fell upon some random carbon copy pop group. I saw the picture of two girls on the cover that looked like they were almost modeled after the Olsen twins, and thought to myself, how we really need more fabricated pop bullshit. I kind of laughed to myself, shrugged it off, bought my CD’s, and forgot about it. That is until about a week ago. I was up late, flipping through the channels, going from infomercial, to infomercial, when I landed on MTV. I noticed the name of the group was T.A.T.U., and the teeny pop crap image from the CD jumped up in my mind. But for some reason I didn’t change the channel. The video didn’t fit the image I had in my head. The video was dark, and when I say dark, I mean David Fincher dark, not bad lighting dark. It didn’t fit the mold I had set for them in my head. There were no bright colors, no smiling dancers, and then it happened, the two girls that I had thought would be so wholesome, Disney Channel worthy if you will, started kissing, and basically making out. Now the first thought that sprang to my mind was how old are these girls, is that legal? They looked way to young to be engaging in that kind of activity.
So I started researching it a bit. The girls that I thought looked so American pop, weren’t actually American at all. They both hail from Moscow. Volkova Olegovna (17) and Katina Sergeevna (18) formed the group when they were 16, and 17. Since their first single (All the Things She Said), they have blown up in Russia, and all over Europe. A lot of the success at first had a lot to do with them being a young girl duo, who were not only lesbians, but very open about it, in their music, and in their videos. Ok, now I was intrigued, and I know what you are thinking. No, I wasn’t intrigued strictly because they are two cute lesbians, not that the lesbian thing had nothing to do with it, just not in the perverted sense. I was intrigued by the courage and honesty it would have had to of taken for these to young girls to take the weight of this on their shoulders.
Their CD, 200KM/H In The Wrong Lane, reads like poems in a diary written by a girl who is afraid of the consequences about coming out, to her parents, and coming to terms with being a lesbian. The First, and one of the more powerful songs on the CD is “Not Gonna Get Us” which is more or less about how they just want to get away from everyone, where they can be together, and not be judged. A lot of the songs fallow this same vein, with feeling alienated, and how they feel betrayed by their feelings, and so on and so fourth. They don’t however write their own music which I kind of had a problem with, but I can look past it considering the subject content. They actually have a songwriter that works exclusively with them, and writes songs custom fit to them, based on what the girls tell them, and how they feel about certain things.
The girls actually cover an old Morrisey song on this CD, and pull it off quite well I thought. It reminded me a lot of Snake River Conspiracy’s cover of the same song (How Soon Is Now). Actually the music sounds a lot like the same hard, crunchy dance beats, in a lot of SRC’s songs. The music is a lot more edgy than typical American pop. I don’t know if that is because they are from Russia, or they, just have a more edgy sound, either way it’s not that bad. A few of the song’s hooks, have a way of sticking in your head, and I actually don’t mind it. These girls are far from innocent little pop princesses, but they’re not dirrrrty with the extra “r”’s like some of our pop stars either. They have a message, and they are getting it out. Weather or not that message is a marketing gimmick or not, I don’t know, but some how I doubt it. I’m sure it helped in their success, and helped the get signed, but I think that is as far as it goes, but who knows I’ve been wrong before.
I know it’s pop, and I know it is girly bullshit, but I actually enjoy this CD. Now don’t go out and buy it because I said it was good (like anyone would do that), because this is definitely not a CD for everybody. Two of the songs on the CD are in Russian, but they are just the original versions of the first two singles “Not Gonna Get Us” and “All the Things She Said”. After listening to the CD, and how these girls spill their guts, it makes me feel stupid, and closed minded for my initial thought, of them being to young to engage in that kind of activity. If it were a guy and a girl of the same age in the video doing the same thing, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. That is what these songs are about. They are about feeling different, because you have certain feelings for a certain person who may not match the status quo. If you are in the mood for something different, but still a little pop, you might actually like this CD. |
