Who Do She Think She Is?
Pussy Tourette
1996: Feather Boa Music 3-93032-4
This one has nearly as many great parts as Pussy’s first album did, but it almost falls flat here and there. “Almost” being the key word: the two actually weak tracks on the album, for me, are “Body of Work” (well-intentioned and no doubt genuinely honoring somebody) and “Do It Yourself ‘Dyke’” (the full version of that song just skirting yawn territory, but possibly only nearing that ground in the first place because the preceding album’s “I Think He’s Gay” was just so much more full-blown, so to speak).
Leaving those debatables aside, we have a mighty fine sparkling bracelet of tightly-packed little songs, with the pauses between the songs campily buffered with marvelously silly English/Japanese phrase translations such as “I don’t care if it IS 78 degrees outside; why aren’t you wearing a bra?” There are bouncy dance-floor-oriented thumpers filling the first half of the album, while the second half is largely “lounge act” style along the lines of the movie Vegas In Space tawdry and at least delicately pornographic if not more explicit (in the latter category are the stellar “Why Me, God?” and the head-shakingly WAAAAAAY-over-the-top-AND-the-bottom “Merrilou”). Of special note is the “Car Hop Song,” which I gather was originally a Wilma-and-Betty number on the Flintstones cartoon show; Pussy’s version is deeeeeeeelicious fun.
One other thing that I *must* mention: Pussy’s backup vocals are all provided by Jo-Carol Block and she is GREAT. I have/had no idea what she actually looks like, but her voice reminds me so much of Janette Sewell that I’ve tended to picture her that way, specifically as Sewell did while touring with Simply Red in 1986 on the “Men and Women” tour (yes, I saw them, and they were great).
Comments © 2005 Mark Ellis Walker, except as noted, and no claim is made to the images and quoted lyrics.