OK, OK, I know. Pitchfork rated it an 8.2. They sound like Belle and Sebastian. They're from Brooklyn. They were one of the "best breakout bands of 2009." I still can't stand The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and their painfully toolish name is only a small fraction of the reason why.
The Pains are named after an unpublished children's story (note two key words: unpublished and children's). Their music is dripping with the kind of confectioners' sugar sweetness that tastes fresh and organic in small doses, but is eventually sure to make you sick.
The band's sophomore album "Belong" was released off Slumberland (tag line, "keeping it foolish since 1989") on April 1 to general applause.
Critics have described their sound as "magnanimous" but I don't buy it. Sure, they've used a lot of reverb, their fuzzy guitars buzz, the layered chorus adds dimension, but this is about as shoegaze sheeny as tween pop rock ever gets—it seems pretty evident that there is little to no depth beneath the shimmer.
The band layers a drum machine and keyboard with choruses and fuzzy guitars to produce a sound that is consistent to the point of being boring. Replacing one song with another would not make much of an impact on album composition or strength—save for maybe "Girl of 1,000 Dreams," all the songs sound more or less the same.
The Pains are not known for having profound lyrics, but to call their lyrics "witty," as a few critics have, is absolutely absurd. A more accurate description of their lyrics is that listening to The Pains is like reading the diary of a 15-year-old, or overhearing a conversation among the characters of "Clueless"(although even "Clueless" is openly satirical).
"Anne with an E" has lead singer Kip Berman's breathy vocals suggesting, "Let's go out tonight and do something that's wrong / cuz I don't feel alright when disaster's gone."
"Terrible Friends" is straight out of Laguna Beach: "Everyone is pretty and fun, everyone is lovely and young / Everyone is gentle and gone, but everyone's just everyone."
"Strange" reasserts the prudery that defines the album: "When everyone was doing drugs / We were just doing love." Is it self-righteous sappiness disguised as innocence? Nah, it's not that complicated. I think its just naïveté, and I'm not sure which is less appealing.
Sure, one might claim that the album simply reflects The Pains' tendency toward nostalgia. They encapsulate '80s shoegaze meets The Smashing Pumpkins, and understandably so.
For "Belong," The Pains teamed up with big-time British producers Flood (Smashing Pumpkins, NIN, U2, Depeche Mode and PJ Harvey) and Alan Moulder (Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine) to amplify their songs and make them sound even more like My Bloody Valentine meets The Smashing Pumpkins meets Belle and Sebastian inside a confetti-filled vat.
Perhaps that is what is so frustrating about The Pains. The band harkens back to the '80s and '90s, but are void of the grunge and the rough edges that made those decades such an incredible time for music.
Smashing Pumpkin's chart-topping song "Today" epitomizes the garage grunge that so often characterized '90s alt rock: "Pink ribbon scars / That never forget / I tried so hard / To cleanse these regrets / My angel wings / Were bruised and restrained / My belly stings." Compare that to The Pains' "Anne with an E" for a laugh.
Sure, The Pains aren't trying to imitate Nirvana. In fact, the quartet is shamelessly poppy and hardly attempting to hide it. However, there is such a thing as pop music with a backbone, music that gives its listeners license to be carefree and have a dance party and go skinny dipping and eat handfuls of sprinkles and put flowers in their hair, but only on the condition they understand that, after the party ends, the real world still exists (think David Bowie, or Cher, Prince, Depeche Mode or even Madonna).
Good pop music has the task of celebrating life and society, but also of acknowledging (subtly or not-so-subtly) that with pop culture come inconsistencies, injustices, hypocrisies and tragedies.
With "Belong," however, The Pains fail to address any of life's complexities. The Pains are a pop band in the second decade of a century brimming with substance to critique and challenge, but Belong is an album that only reinforces The Pains' inexcusably naïve twee pop image.
Sure, I'm all for adolescent honesty, but not for bubble gum ignorance. And yes—simplicity is a crucial component of good pop music, but not at the expense of nuance, and certainly not to the extent of inanity.