Black Kids

What seems like eons ago, I included Black Kids as #10 on the Top Ten Debuts of 2007 list that I was appointed to write for Stereo Subversion. I remember thinking “I’m Not Going to Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You” was catchy and a good song, despite the fact that I’m not really a platform shoes kind of guy (more the worn out sneakers type). I remember thinking that their four song debut EP was actually what it should have been; a compact documentation of the band’s sound; one that, while certainly derivative, gets to the core of what the group are about (rump shaking, body grinding, rejection), a collection of choice cuts for college radio play, short enough to attain the quality consistency that will get the critics buzzing. Whether things really were that calculated, I won’t claim to know. However, I’m a proponent of the idea that Black Kids were the band for bloggers to latch onto last year and important things like a catchy single and a marketable name were critically to that. Who says things don’t work anymore like they did in the 60s? Internet is the new radio indeed.

I concluded my Black Kids blurb with a fairly obvious observation, which was that the group could either flourish with all the hype or simply fade away to make room for the next thing. Whether their sound has longevity or will translate well to albums of longer running time remains to be seen. However, there’s little arguing that a major label deal for a group that just arrived on the scene with nothing but a four song EP to their name constitutes a flourishing. A sold out showing at the Paradise is also a promising sign, though Black Kids weren’t the headlining act (that distinction goes to Melbourne’s Cut/Copy).

Watching Black Kids do their thing from the Paradise balcony, I was struck by several observations that should’ve been completely obvious when I first heard the band six months ago, but for reasons that could only be attributed to my poor, media battered attention span and my generally unobservant nature, such ideas didn’t grip my psyche. At least not until that moment when I was trying to wedge myself between two dozen other people also leaning over the side, bored guy to left of me and a grinding, lusty couple to my right, not to mention a strange, David Bowie-on-the-cover-of-Diamond Dogs looking kid sitting right behind me.

Brilliant observation #1: Reggie Youngblood sounds almost exactly like Robert Smith. Maybe it was the abundance of Cure songs being played in the club’s lounge that’s modified my brain into thinking this, but Mr. Youngblood is a dead vocal ringer for Fat Bob’s more ecstatic moments, that ones that hide on mid-80s Cure albums in-between all of the brooding. It’s a decidedly shrill sound, occasionally harnessed by Youngblood into subtly (investigate the quieter verses on a few songs for those moments), but always inevitably careening into manic squeals of glee, like a sudden injection of hyperactivity.

Brilliant observation #2: Anyway you want to slice it, these songs are disco. Poppy and catchy disco that doesn’t fall into the trap of ten minute dubs, but bonafide disco nonetheless. I’m not sure how Black Kids get so utterly mislabeled. Punk? The original punks spat on that dance stuff. Not rock n’ roll enough for them. Post-punk? Hardly a Gang of Four-ism throughout the group’s set. Power pop? If there was a song that remotely resembled The Who, then I must’ve gone deaf for four minutes and then promptly forgot about it. Silly, silly, silly. Black Kids have all the proper disco elements: the bass lines (oh my god, the bass lines), the lyrics about moving your body and lust and junk, and a big, attention grabbing, wall of hair. Call it by any other name if so inclined, but the point of the music is to dance to it, not to sway or to head bang or to humor.

Most impressive was how the group managed to get about half of a typically lethargic Boston crowd moving, an impressive enough feat. Midway through the set, Youngblood made note of the fact that the music was intended for dancing and a good amount of people then defected to boogieing. To surprise of none, the highlight of the set was “I’m Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You,” which met quite the palpable reaction when Youngblood strummed the opening chords. The song’s chorus, armed with the eternal 1-2-3-4, is an instant transportation back to the carefree days of youth, sort of a “Hokey Pokey” for the emo generation (I mean this in a completely complimentary fashion).

Time will tell just how far Black Kids go. Their brand of post-Cure/Morrissey dance pop is incredibly popular at the moment, slowly but surely edging from the upper levels of the underground to the mainstream, if it hasn’t already. This could mean an even further acceleration up the musical totem pole or it could mean vanishing into the shuffle. Things go as they will, the band still will have a successful debut in Boston to fondly look back on.

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