Sounds from Nowheresville – The Ting Tings
The Ting Tings apparently deleted the initial recordings for this, their oft-delayed sophomore album, as a giant ‘fuck you’ to their record company. It seems an odd gesture of artistic defiance for an outfit whose stock-in-trade is flimsy electro-pop with the shelf life of your average carton of milk.
Now comes Sounds From Nowheresville and, while it’s nowhere near as bad as some have reported, it’s certainly a strange little record, bereft of anything resembling a radio hit for an act that
desperately needs one. The pair throws so much at the wall in the hope that something sticks — percussive punk in Hang It Up, ’60s girl group melodrama in Guggenheim, new wave in Give It Back — but too often the results feel undercooked, like a collection of offcuts from their first album.
Apparently those recordings they deleted were a swag of dancefloor stompers that had their record company heads salivating. Perhaps a sift through the Ting Tings trash bin is in order?
