For a reasonable price, English indie-pop duo the Ting Tings are selling anti-establishment "fuck you"'s by the bottle. Plus some barely serviceable party tunes. And, oh yeah, they're kinda sexy, too. Actually, it's tough to tell exactly which readymade, tongue-in-cheek pop angle they're adopting, but the duo's genesis unequivocally stems from a mutual jadedness towards the record industry. Both Katie White and Jules De Martino cut their teeth in teenage pop groups only to see their music career as adults hamstrung by bum record deals and one false start after another. Bent on seeking vengeance, the pair packs loads of not-so-subtle jabs at the industry into their spotlight-hungry debut, but despite the tough talk, they can't avoid sounding like the simplistic saccharine pop lifers they are.
Of course, no one expects an album like We Started Nothing to carry the torch for subversive, incendiary popular song (see Robyn, Santogold, and M.I.A., among others, for that); we just demand good hooks and lots of 'em. Any hand-wringing over the Ting Tings's conceit as Top 40 mutineers is rendered moot by the inadequacy of their pop craftsmanship. Shticks may make for easy initial criticism, especially with great pop acts already straddling the lines between the charts and indie (cf. Lily Allen, the Pipettes, Annie), but when a band sport featherweight singles like "Shut Up and Let Me Go" and "That's Not My Name", they'd be lucky if listeners pay attention long enough to even notice their bit.
The duo self-produced Nothing and, thanks to their hefty experience, they accurately cop pretty much any genre they want, from fratty new wave to mopey twee-pop. Problem is, they pay little attention to detail. On a breezy summer jam like single "Great DJ", this can pass as shrewd understatement, but other tracks don't benefit from the same. "Fruit Machine" is a grinding bitchslap that never really connects, wanting so badly to sound just a smidgen as tough as Peaches or M.I.A. but inevitably melting into painfully adorable, boring Toni Basil cadences. When the time comes to really crank up the party engine, White and De Martino prove even more shorthanded. After club-footed dance numbers "We Walk" and "Shut Up and Let Me Go" sink the album, the duo tries to bring it home with the six minute-plus self-titled closer, a seemingly endless, riff-less stab at B-52's bacchanalia that never gets off the ground.
Maybe it's my own vengeful sadism talking, but the Ting Tings sound much more engaging when sad. "Be the One" and "Traffic Light" may not possess the immediacy to qualify as standout tracks, but the goth-tinged twee of the former and aching lullaby of the latter makes for the most fully fleshed-out ideas amidst a sea of half-baked inklings here. Maybe once the Ting Tings stop trying so hard to convince everyone they're having a good time and start actually having a good time, these cute little ballads will no longer be their sole redeeming quality. For now, we're stuck listening to them flounder for revenge like they haven't learned a damn thing from Shakespeare or The Wrath of Khan.
