"You say, 'Now what's your style and who do you listen to?'" Mark Foster sings on Foster the People's first album, before adding defiantly, "Who cares?" Later, he punctuates "Call It What You Want" with the declaration, "What I got can't be bought." With just a few catchy singles and a reputation for energetic live shows, this L.A. trio already sounds defensive and cagey, as if bristling from some imagined attack. We've heard their sort of scene dissection before, mostly from younger bands entering a fractious pop arena (Arctic Monkeys, for instance), but Foster the People-- at distinct odds with their nurturing moniker-- seem to be daring you to categorize them, assess them, or, hell, even engage with them. By way of introduction, it's a bit off-putting, especially soundtracked by demonstratively upbeat West Coast indie-pop buzzed on disco-infused vodka.
Once you get past the genre paranoia, Torches actually has enough going for it that Foster the People could conceivably make those same points through their music rather than their lyrics. The songs dodge and weave stylistically, avoiding perceived critical jabs by scavenging pop history for new old sounds. Foster's falsetto alternately evokes Jamiroquai and Mercury Rev's Jonathan Donahue-- surely the only overlap between those two performers-- while his keyboards volley between early-90s radio dance pop and more recent MGMT doodles. Foster the People's proud maximalism also extends cannily to their songwriting. Foster can write a chorus so bold and simple that you can hear it once and sing it for a fortnight, a tactic that has already made minor hits of "Helena Beat" and "Pumped Up Kicks" (the latter of which promotes hipster-on-hipster violence).
Particularly hoisted onto such dense production, the hooks are so big, blunt, and persistent that even my four-year-old niece counts Foster the People as her favorite band. But on Torches that plays as a crutch as well as a strength. For example, the band runs a two-line melody into the ground on "I Would Do Anything for You", never building on it or allowing it to evolve in any way. Still, when this earworm-core works, as on the singles, its pleasures are perfectly modest and enthralling. All of which makes the group's dodginess only more distracting-- no less so considering their rapid successes: a major-label deal, a Billboard top 10 debut, a coveted slot at Lollapalooza, and the devotion of at least one fan who prefers them over the Wiggles or Odd Future. Listing those accomplishments may strike Foster the People as an accusation of selling out, but seriously, relax. As the song that's wedged into my cerebellum goes, "Who cares?"
