December Boy -The Loves (Fortuna Pop!)

And so as The Loves stomp ever closer to the end of their ten year tenure as Britain’s best bubblegum garage soap opera, we find them releasing a REAL HUMDINGER of a tune. I have been thoroughly enjoying ‘December Boy’ every time The Loves play it live and now here it is to cherish as a real life record (limited quantities on pink vinyl!) / ethereal sound file.

It’s a huge upbeat pop thing, a big old chimimg wall of sound on which Jenna gets to do a silky swoon of a lead vocal accompanied by Emma Pocketbooks and the erstwhile Liz Love; not to mention ‘real life violins’ and woo! an anthemic key change. Brilliantly, it contains ear-nagging snippets of about a billion other pop hits, e.g. ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’, ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’, ‘The Locomotion’, ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’ (yes), as well as the obvious nod to Big Star. Luckily, it’s oh so much more than the sum of its parts, a giant wintery snog with a head full of whirling snow flakes and long lost girl group songs.

‘B side’ ‘Bubblegum’ is a todally groovee, shake yer bubble-butt, wig out baby, go-go garage, freak-out frantic, teeteringly unhinged, fuzzed and shrieking pop-sike attack lead by Simon’s slur-y, sleazy, vocal whine. Your nineteenth nervous breakdown never sounded so much fun.

www.fortunapop.com/release_details.php?cat_no=FPOP101