| If nothing else, these four lasses from Dublin are cocky. Who else would attempt to mix Irish folk music with vanilla pop and pretend that the end result would be something anyone would actually want to listen to. There's a fiddle and/or tin whistle on every track, for heaven's sake. Within the first two minutes of this album, B*Witched have ransacked their native musical culture with the scurrilous "Let's Go"(The B*Witched Jig)." A jig? If we'd wanted a jig, we'd have bought The Clancy Brothers' Greatest Hits. Unfortunately, this wrongheaded inclusion is just one of many to be found on the band's debut, another of which is their cheerful, attitude-stuffed single "C'est La Vie." It doesn't say much for a group when they can't even muster the shallow charisma of a "band" like the Spice Girls. For starters, "Rev It Up" is not an acceptable song title. Not even if it were intended to be ironic, which this wasn't. The offending track -- one of the few co-written by bandmembers -- sounds distinctly Jackson Five-ish. The B*Witched version is ... well, the lyrics speak for themselves: "We'll have fun/ We'll be splashin'/ Lazin' on the sand by the sea/ So don't you worry 'bout fashion/ You can wear your blue dungarees." It doesn't get much better, though it does get slower. Among the most lethargic tracks are "Blame it on the Weatherman" and "Oh Mr. Postman." At the other extreme are songs in dire need of Ritalin that would be ideal for serving at 7-year-olds' disco parties, right next to the bubblegum ice cream cake. "Rollercoaster," a recent UK single, is about life, love and everything. It may not rock, exactly, but it does bop. So, OK, I kind of like "Rollercoaster" -- it's sweet and light, a meringue of a song. B*Witched are the bargain basement Spice Girls, that's all -- cheaper and not as good. |