Everyone's talking about this 'Top Shop Pop' (hereafter known as TSP) thing, going on with all the bright young pop runts. But it's now time to step back and let the pussycats who invented the whole damn genre through.
Yes folks, Liz, Tash and Jenny are pioneers in doubling a dubious shelf life: Step 1. Make sure your single releases alternate between snappy if unremarkable ('Whole Again' notwithstanding) originals and covers of songs that don't need really covering. Step 2. Appear on every possible TV show, pop mega-concert and radio roadshow wearing cheeky foxtress clothing and cheeky foxtress grins.
Quite incredibly (their pioneer status notwithstanding), these tactics have seen them through to a third album. And it's 'Ladies Night'. Which means one of the aforementioned unnecessary covers kicks off the album, as Kool & The Gang's disco classic gets a burbling session bass and cod-funky session guitar makeover.
The 80s are obviously en vogue down the Kittens' way judging by the number of uptempo disco ditties that follow - check out 'Be With You''s use of the classic synthesised orchestral backing track (you might want to ignore the somewhat flat singing during the chorus) or the smooth-as-milk-chocolate TSP guitar of 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' (not the Elton John/Kiki Dee song by the way).
Recent single 'If You Come To Me' is the first track to really step out of this mould, with a hip-hop-style piano tinkling behind the beat and the girls holding their harmonies high on the chorus. 'Believer' (sample line: "I need to breathe the air you breathe") and 'Everything Goes Around' are pretty forgettable by comparison, being anodyne, TSP-by-numbers.
By contrast, 'Somebody Like You' sounds like it's strayed off Kylie's 'Fever' album, a slick marriage of 80s chic and Pro Tools tricks. 'Nothing In The World', meanwhile, is the first track that slows the tempo right down, with the yearning vocal style that Christina pulled off so beautifully on, er, 'Beautiful' but the Kittens can't quite match.
"I don't wanna be alone but I don't wanna be in love" they whisper on 'Don't You Know', which is not what they've been telling us for the previous 11 tracks, which have either been bursting to the seams with adoring love or lost in a cloud of diary-confessional teary-eyed misery at the actions of an other half. But then really you expect nothing more, nothing less.
Which is why 'Ladies Night' is an acceptable album from an acceptable act. The Kittens stay within their own well-defined parameters, not teasing with great singles or a ropey album like Liberty X or achieving the seemingly effortless cool of Sugababes. And most of it will definitely soundtrack Saturday afternoons in High Street clothing stores across the land.
