The Pipettes eh? Remember them? Of course you do. I thought this was great at the time, about 2005. Bizarrely, it sounds quite dated already to my jaded ears, more of which later.
First though, in case you don't know, or have forgotten (and who, indeed, can blame you), The Pipettes were a retro-with-a-knowing-wink, polka-dot clad girl group. They had a few hits and a line-up to rival The Fall in its fluidity.
They owe their existence, in a way, to the KLF. Their book The Manual was, well, a manual for how to get a number one hit without musical talent, following their experience with "Doctorin' The Tardis."
(Normally I'd link to the video here, but you wouldn't thank me if I did.)
Julia Clark-Lowes decided to construct a girl band (Pipettes = laboratory equipment = manufactured y'see) and the result was The Pipettes, except that by the time they had hits (Dirty Mind being the first) she'd left to form another band. (They're called The Indelicates. I( saw them live last year and thought they were pretty awful, although nothing like The Pip's)
Her replacement and the others (Gwenno! Rosay! RiotBecki! as album-opener-cum-signature-tune We Are The Pipettes put it) had a run of singles, an album and then, mostly went their separate ways. (Gwenno is still in the band, with two others brought in at various times as replacements. Whether or not they still sing the song I mentioned in my previous parenthetical aside (I seem to have even more than usual, today), and what they do with the lyrics if they do, I don't know sadly)
Anyway, this was their first hit. It seems to have peaked at #63 in the hit parade, but it felt like a hit - it was certainly played in indie discos and the like, and I should know, I was playing it. Memphis Industries, which was riding high at the time because of The Go! Team's success, was the record ;label, and in the packaging they've put in a lot of effort in mimicking the 1960s Columbia sleeve, an example of which illustrates Record #6 below, complete with exhortations to read the Record Mail and buy Record Tokens. The reverse of the sleeve also has a rather good advert for a "Memphis Industries Hairdryer" (reproduced below) with prices in LSD. The two follow-up singles used a variant on this, but in different colours with matching colour-coded vinyl inside, which was great, but less authentic - 60s singles were usually black. The vinyl's not the best quality, but I've had ropier, certainly sounds fine to me.
It's retro, but knowing, affectionately tongue-in-cheek retro.
That's the sort of thing that doesn't date very well at all, of course and listening to this alongside the Phil Spector stuff it owes most too it's paper-thin.
I think we all knew that at the time secretly though, but allowed ourself to be carried along with it because they did the whole thing with aplomb. They looked great, you could pick a favourite (RiotBecki, if anyone's interested) and you could dance (The 7-inch of Pull Shapes had the dance moves on the back!) and they were always upfront about their manufactured origins.
There was a time when their early, non-album singles were worth a bit of money (I've seen them go for £30-50) and this one was worth a wee bit more than the other ones from off the album. I imagined this had calmed down a bit but looking on ebay just now I found that Pull Shapes made £20 while a copy of the first recording of Judy (pre-album) numbered 28/1000 failed to sell at just under £19. I can only assume that a couple of people got carried away but it only serves to confirm my point from a few posts back that rare does not = valuable. There's a buy it now of this single at £8 which is the high side of about right.
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