Song #48: Diana Vickers - My Hip (off Songs from the Tainted Cherry Tree - 2010)
I am convinced that there are certain albums (girlpop in particular) that just kind of magically show up in my iTunes library. I don’t remember purchasing them, nor do I recall strong recommendations from other girlpop enthusiasts.
I know almost nothing of Diana Vickers. I wiki’d her and found that she’s younger than I am (harumph! though I need to get used to that - with the exceptions of Madonna and Kylie, pop vocalists are generally fourteen years old) but it couldn’t answer my REAL question: where the heck did Songs from the Tainted Cherry Tree come from?!
Most of the songs aren’t very good - I can’t deny this. Sometimes she tries a little hard to sounds throaty and older (like a non-ESL Shakira?) but the songwriting is unpolished and the backing beats are annoyingly electroclash. There are two exceptions: the single (The Boy Who Murdered Love) and My Hip. While neither is going to win awards for composition, both are a lot of fun.
When songs appear on an album that are so opposite in message, I always wonder if they’re written with the same man in mind. I know there are certain dudes for whom I’ve written libraries of songs, showing the emotional sine waves I experienced around them. Then again, I don’t think she wrote these songs herself, so it doesn’t even matter.
