So the new free single on iTunes this week is a song entirely about slightly rough oral sex... Or cricket. Obviously.
I mean the two go together all the time right?
As I'm sure many of you out there in music land know, iTunes offers a free single each week from its store homepage (and if you didn't know this I highly recommend taking advantage of it). It's a good way to find music you probably wouldn't have tried because hey, who doesn't like 'free'?
This week it's a bouncy track titled 'The Sweet Spot' off of The Duckworth Lewis Method's self titled debut; a nicely timed concept album all about cricket. iTunes have sold the track as being "the sound of English summer- it's tuneful, mellow and easy on the ear.'
Now to my innocent eyes, a description of a concept album about a quintessentially British sport such as cricket, alongside descriptors like 'mellow and easy on the ear' invoked sweet thoughts of songs like 'The Village Green Preservation Society' by The Kinks. I loves me that song. I'm ready for some twee-pop.
But no. No no no no. Yes, the song is about cricket (sort of). But this is not your parent's cricket. This is Satan's cricket. The cricket whites have been torn off by pumping synth Organs and replaced with skin tight leathers. 'Strict Machine's' drum beat is pulsating through the green and I don't like the look of what they're planning to do with that big ol' bat.
TDLM have managed to craft a song entirely around one long double entendre that, really, had you not been told it was about cricket, you never would have assumed it to be about cricket.
I was torn about the song on the first few listens. Was this clever? Maybe if I were more of a cricket follower I'd be chortling to myself in a juicy voice, 'The Sweet Spot! Haha! Of course! It DOES sound like in-ter-course! Hoho!' But fuck that. Surely the 'sweet spot' is a phrase that could be applied to just about any physical activity. Even bowling, the elephantine fart of attractive sports, starts to get sexy if you apply the term to it.
However it's when I paid attention to the members making up TDLM that things began to make a bit more sense. The Duckworth Lewis Method are better known as Neil Hannon of the idiosyncratic Divine Comedy and his mate who I've never heard of and who doesn't appear to be important enough to have a detailed Wikipedia article so screw him. Neil Hannon is known for his clever lyrical wordplay and for epitomizing the English (yes, I know he's Irish) wit-'If it ain't tweed it ain't worth it'-turned-rock star persona. So a funny double entendre would be up his alley, so to speak (yeah, I'm no Neil Hannon).
Suddenly the song seemed funnier. This was clever! I mean Neil Hannon wrote it! But slowly I realized that, much like the mouth breathing kid hanging with the cheerleaders or Johnny Depp's half-brother, it's merely cool-by-connection. The song isn't all that clever. It's funny on the first few listens. But the cricket overtones aren't really there and the lines are less thinly veiled references and more slapping you in the face with a (I guess supposed to be cricket bat shaped) penis. And while really that should be a good thing, the lines are also bluntly soft-core and kid friendly enough that you can't be sure sex was ever really there to begin with. Like fucking someone in a Barney suit.
That being said, is it still worth it? In short, no, not really. However, the song is catchy, dumb and, most importantly, free. And so long as it stays free it wouldn't hurt you to pick it up. It has a good beat, even if it's one you've heard A LOT of times before (think Gary Glitter, Goldfrapp or Atlus). The organ synth groove-moves it flings around would be good for soundtracking finding your own sweet spot. Be careful though, because I'm willing to bet soon you'll find your after dark activities being soundtracked by the intro music to a sports reel. And nobody lives that down. Nobody.
-Dashiell 'I Managed To Avoid Making a Single Reference To Sticky Wickets' Asher
Image Courtesy of Divine Comedy Records/1969 Records
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