Playlouder - Music is the Network

As a terrible elitist and and curmudgeon, there's nothing I enjoy more than whinging about the state of modern music, how young people and the mass-media that pander to them are all shallow and trend-obsessed, and how anyone who isn't Bonny 'Prince' Billy can fuck right off if they think I'm going to listen to their record. Therefore, it was with considerable delight that I sat down, hungover, in front of the television on new years day with a couple of friends, who began to surf through the music channels. "Great!" I thought, "Now I can demonstrate my clear superiority of taste and judgement in matters musical, while having a good old whinge in the process. Is there any better way to begin the new year?"

Imagine my disappointment, then, when a group of Swedish teenagers called Those Dancing Days appeared on (of all places) NME TV, making a soul-flecked indiepop racket that it proved absolutely impossible not to enjoy. Like their fellow countrymen Love is All and Lo-Fi-Fnk , Those Dancing Days' music is shot through with a wonderful C-86ish joy, without ever becoming overly precious or generic, but while Love is All and Lo-Fi-Fnk's twee proclivities are tempered by their other influences (noisy post-punk and electro respectively), Those Dancing Days are an unashamed indiepop band, with the same love of vintage pop music as so many sensitive adolescent musicians before them, alongside a slightly slack, DIY attitude that betrays their enthusiasm, and marks them out as more than arch, irony-loving revivalists. Listen to four tracks on their myspace.

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