Has anyone heard of the debut by Persephone's Bees? The album is called "Notes from the Underworld" and is one of the strongest song-by-song pop records since Weezer's blue album. Unfairly, I think critics have dismissed this record completely. It is not on Metacritic, and even Amazon features only three reviews. Take a look. Download some songs. This album needs to be noticed.

I'm not usually one to comment when I have nothing nice to say, but I heard City Of Love, Nice Day and one other song, and they were AWFUL. City Of Love in particular is one of the most obnoxious songs I've heard this year.

Moderator note: Moved this to Alternative, which is more band- and genre-specific discussion than the Best of 2006 thread.

I've not heard Persephone's Bees but they have two strikes against them for me already:

1. Terrible band name. Awful.

2. They obviously have a big college street-team/major label marketing push. You can't turn around on the campus of my University without seeing a poster, flier, or postcard for the band. That's really obnoxious. I realize it's marketing, but it's the kind of mass-papering that annoys me the most.

Notes from the Underworld is one of my favorite albums of the year. Love every track here. Great psychy-pop, reminds me of Blondie or early Bangles. Very nice vocals from Angelina Moysov, also like the videos of the band at their site. Jeepers, pE, here I thought the band name was a fun one!

I don't know anything about their music, but I thought their name was a cute play on the phrase "bee's knees".

quote:

Originally posted by philosopherEric:

2. They obviously have a big college street-team/major label marketing push. You can't turn around on the campus of my University without seeing a poster, flier, or postcard for the band. That's really obnoxious. I realize it's marketing, but it's the kind of mass-papering that annoys me the most.

To me, this probably means they've got some kind of wide appeal to college frat boys or something, and it tells me they probably suck. Like Dave Matthews suck. Who the hell voluntarily degrades themself by becoming an unpaid advertiser? I feel like I've sunk about as low as I can go right now, but I would never do anything like this.

Interesting observations but it seems like a lot of you haven't actually listened to the album.
yes mass marketing is annoying, but it doesn't say anything about the music.
take a listen. this is the best mainstream pop of the year.

I listened to it, mainly because crazed and I often share tastes, and I found it to be uninteresting. I hear the reference points, but I don't think the songs are good.

As far as the name goes, I hear 'generic college rock' in it. But at least it didn't have "wolf" in it, like every other band going.