Merchandise‘s new single arrived with me yesterday and seeing the cover, that familiar toon style of illustration and the brown/orange thang is really starting to stamp the Merchandise brand on all that they do. When a band starts to become a brand, things start to feel more cohesive and as a result things start to get a bit more exciting in some way. It should be avbout the music but if pop music was just about the music we’d be in a very different place.
Listen Up! is the follow-up to Sometimes – one of those catchy tunes from 2008 that still weaves its way into my head frequently. It’s a clever, confident track that doesn’t do very much. This makes it good… for me. Poppy to the hilt, it uses a lot of repetition (“You were my world wer – wer – wer world”), and has catchiness written all over it. It’s going to be another one of those naggers that keeps popping into my head in the spring of 2009.
Looking forward to Merchandise’s album coming later this year – five years in the making.