Magic Kids - Memphis - CD (2010)

Labels: True Panther Sounds
Review by: Captain Fidanza

I have heard that this band is the next big thing. I have heard that this band is the next thing big.



I have heard that this thing is the next big band. I have heard that this big is the next thing band.



I also remember back in 1998 when Gay Dad were touted as the next big thing before they’d even released a record. When they did finally release something everyone instantly realised they were shit and had only been championed as the saviours of music because they all worked for music magazines.



So, to The Magic Kids. They sound a little bit like the Beach Boys if you’ve never heard a Beach Boys record and only know they write songs about surfing and summer and pretty girls from Southern California. People who write for the Observer Music Monthly would probably refer to this music as “œshimmering” or “œperfect pop,” it’s neither. It’s just a nice thing.



Just as the most effective depictions of celluloid loneliness are always set in big cities, I’ve always thought that perfect pop music only really worked when it dealt in some way with it’s opposite. Sooner or later, summer fades and turns into autumn, The Beach Boys knew this, ABBA knew it too and I’m sure if you held a gun to the head of one of the so called Magic Kids, they’d admit it too, but for some reason they prefer to call their songs things like “œCandy,” “œSummer” and “œSkateland” as though it’s 1963, we’re all twelve years old and there’s never going to be a single cloud in the sky.