Teddybears Stockholm
Rock'n'Roll Highschool - First Listening
Well well well, first new record in a while, and one with a really cool sleeve design too. Not surprising to read inside that Jonas Åkerlund has been involved in creating it. It's a great idea to have the backside picture turned ninety degrees too, it gives a whole different feeling to the format.
And no, I wouldn't call this rock'n'roll, it just rocks and rolls heavily :-) ... Come on, you've heard Ahead of my Time and Automatic Lover, you know what it's about. This is cool music indeed! Feels pretty summery and cool. The more "instrumental" songs, ones without standard vocals if anyone sees what I mean :-), sounds the way I'd like Daft Punk to sound. The songs are better in length too, no six or seven minute dance tracks or anything, just three-minute injections of electronic audio entertainment. Thirteen tracks of music with a total length of 39:37 means you can easily take the whole thing in one sitting without starting to skip to the best tracks, and you're still left wanting more. That's never a bad thing ... Pretty positive first impressions, right?
Teddybears Live 'n' Direct?
Sorry I'm afraid the answer's no, that didn't work too well at all. Just saw their Hultsfred gig and, if that's anything to go by, live doesn't seem to be their best element. It becomes all too evident just how many people are better singers than mr. Arve ... Not even the songs with guest artists got above the level of their album versions. Nah, I'll stick to the album, thanks ...
Addition on October 23, 2000.
Is the name Teddybears inspired by the appearance of Patrik Arve? He could use a teddybear costume on stage, or at least the same Teddybears jackets everyone else wears. Now, he just looks out of place, too tall, well fed and stationary. Being the singer but pretty unable to sing doesn't help either, to me this is one band which just improves the less the singer is seen. So, the less live the better. Yours to keep on Sen Kväll med Luuk was cool for example. Very dressed up, lots of props, Paola on lead vocals and the rest of the band only seen on TV screens. More of a video than a live act perhaps, but I think I prefer it that way.
On the other hand, at least Arve has some healthy distance to himself and dares look silly. But I'd still like a better (and better dressed) lead vocal ...
