Love Is Not Pop

admin — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:04:00 +0000

While listening to the recently released album from Swedish pop artist El Perro del Mar (Sarah Assbring), I quickly realized I was being pulled into a cathartic experience evoked by Assbring's ethereal vocals and repetitive, melancholic lyrics. Starting with the track “Gotta Get Smart” and ending with “A Better Love,” the songs hold true to the healing process of a breakup, especially the desperate hold of a co-dependent first love.

As the title provokes, Love Is Not Pop is not cute; it is pain, loneliness, desperation, heartbreak, losing yourself, finding yourself, and after having wept, hope. For the artist, the album is about “the dream of a pure love in a dirty world.” Unlike many other similar artists with equally melancholic lyrics, Assbring sings her hurt, exposing a vulnerability to her listeners that is at times comforting and uncomfortable because of the intimacy it offers—and, perhaps unknowingly, requests.

“Gotta Get Smart” is undeniably the most important song on the album. It’s about the moment in time when you finally realize you’re done. This decided confidence comes through the somber, repetitive lyrics: “We’ve been together for so long. Don’t wanna break you’re heart. I’m done, I’m done thinking it over...I gotta get smart.”

“Change of Heart” and “L Is For Love” are both dominated by a sense of heaviness: dark chords, ethereal vocals, deep sighs, and a bitter tone. In the first, it is unclear whether the repeated lyrics “he will never stop” is about abuse or simply incompatibility, but the song is about realizing you cannot change the person you love, even though you may have “been dreaming for so long.” The latter is encompassed by feeling defeated “when the hope is gone." The exhausting plea, “Let Me In,” is driven by an unpleasant beat and equally anxious lyrics: “Baby open up the door. I don’t make me have to beg for love. I want to be your fool, if that’s all I’m gonna be.”

“It Is Something (To Have Wept)” is inspired by a G. K. Chesterton poem titled “The Great Minimum,” and at this point, the desperation that dominated the last few tracks is replaced with acceptance and appreciation for the lessons learned. “Better Love” marks the end of the emotional journey and the desire to be content and optimistic “til better love comes.” It is also a conclusion: “This isn’t over til I say when. When. When.” It’s done.

El Perro del Mar is currently touring North America.

Written by: Abigail Chance, November 21st 2009

El Perro del Mar

admin — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 13:33:00 +0000

By El Perro del Mar

The Control Group

Listening to El Perro del Mar – a pseudonym for the Swedish singer Sarah Assbring – makes me feel like I should be a character in an early 1960s television show. The chipper, pop melodies, be-bops and sha-la-las that underscore her melancholy lyrics about life and love have earned her comparisons to the Beach Boys and girl groups from the 50s and 60s. Like those groups, she’s also a big fan of repetition, as in the song “God Knows (You Gotta Give to Get)”:

God knows
I've been taking a lot without giving back
God knows
I've been taking a lot without giving back

You gotta give to get
You gotta give to get back
You gotta give to get
You gotta give to get back
You gotta give to get
You gotta give to get back to the love

Seems boring. It’s not. And don’t all of our obsessive thoughts tend to loop through our heads in quite the same way?

Yes, you’ll find yourself bopping your head to the left and the right when you slip this CD into your player, but unlike the Shirelles’ voices that sound as if they’ve gotten a good night’s sleep and sipped plenty of chamomile tea, Assbring’s is that of a woman who has been up all night weeping and throwing back glögg. Assbring probably has a perfect voice underneath it all, but she’s just too tired and hurt to give a shit. The Shirelles give you cotton candy, Assbring gives you burnt sugar.

Written by: Margaux Laskey, January 18th 2007