DFTD’s Favorite Albums of 2009: Datarock, Red
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Ten years ago I would never have dreamt I’d ever find myself listening to a Norwegian dance-punk group, let alone recommending their third studio album as one of the year’s best. But that is just what I’m doing.
After hearing “Molly” here on DFTD in a June 1st joefro post, Datarock’s Red, released around the same time, steadily crept up my iTunes playlist until it reached a semi-permanent place on my 16GB iPod Touch (I don’t switch up the music on it often- I much prefer to listen to albums over and over until I have all the lyrics memorized - it’s a sickness). There it stays, getting massive play on both my headphones and my speakers at work (sorry gang ;).
Equal parts Talking Heads, Atari, Casio and the nerd band at the end of Revenge of the Nerds, this homage-heavy album is the ’80s fan’s dream. There’s the aforementioned “Molly” (about Molly RIngwald, who else?), the much talked about “True Stories” (all its lyrics taken from Talking Heads song titles), and of course the song of this post, “Amarillion”.
“Amarillion” is the perfect ’80s movie companion song. If I mixed it into a soundtrack from a movie of that era, you probably wouldn’t know it didn’t belong. Because it does belong. As does Datarock’s Red on my Best of 2009 list.
I wanna hold your hands tonight
I wanna walk you home from school
I wanna take you on a date
I wanna treat you like a fool
