Review: Alice Deejay - Better Off Alone
March 8, 2019•209 words
(Originally posted: November 5, 2018)
Click Play:
Funny that. Never realized this early memory came from an album called "Who Needs Guitars Anyway?" I refused to consider "guitar music" until age 18. Same as always.
I remember hearing this on my handheld FM radio, perched on the corner of my couch. FLY, 92.3. It was 9 at night, a weird, adult hour for a middle school kid. I'm embarrassed to this day. Alice Deejay! Girlish shlock! Yet, it stuck. God knows why.
Formally, it has it all before I knew anything about anything:
four to the floor beat
sweeping textured pads
crispy lead synths
repetitive bleep bloop melody
nonsense female vocals
little fake acid line
little dopey builds and breaks, fake 909
even a touch of hihat shuffle!
This'll all make sense later. For now, it's genre defying, genreless. A touch of nostalgia even the first time through. Muzak for klub kids. Melody echoes in your brain for years.
It's a plain white room of dance music. Perfect mid century modern furniture arranged "just so." Not for any particular reason, that's just how rooms look. Still, gotta start somewhere. Better Off here than nowhere. Nothing more to say.