The Ting Tings – We Started Nothing

Surprisingly fun, and also irritating.

The Ting Tings are a band that I had heard in passing and disregarded as annoying, but listening to the album it’s actually a lot of fun and I have totally rethunk my perception of them. Although they are still a bit annoying.

It’s simple, and nothing particularly new, but they are unashamed of doing something that’s fun and a bit stupid, but still has integrity.

Lead singer, Katie White sounds like she’s been educated to the age of 11, and then let loose in a theme park and made to write music. She also sounds like she can’t really form words properly and that the time she’s singing the words is the first time she’s seen them, but it’s an innocence you can’t really dislike, but at the same time, you don’t want to have to deal with it all the time.

It’s like when you’re looking after someone elses child and they’re chatting all the time and you humour the kid, and it’s okay, but if you actually had to deal with it all the time, it would get old, fast.

There is a sufficient level of diversity in the album, to keep your attention from one song to the next, and although the surface moves around throughout the album, it retains the foundations of the music throughout.

The best songs on the album are in the first half. They are catchy and fun and amusing, but ultimately annoying. Whereas the last part of the album is tedious and lazy, but not as annoying.

Listen to this album: Pogoing in quicksand.

Rating: 76%

Extracts from ‘That’s not my name’, ‘Fruit Machine’ and ‘We started nothing’

‘Great DJ’