Return of the chicks

Munich-based fashion designers, Chicks on Speed, are back with their third release '99 Cents'

CD REVIEW

By Mitchell Peters

Viva la Deutschland! The Chicks are back and ready to exploit yet another facet of music and art with their third release, “99 Cents.” What else would you expect from the Munich based trio of Eurotrash art-school dropouts?

With the follow-up to their 2000 release “The Re-Releases of the Un-Releases,” a collection of raunchy remixes from their first record, the Chicks on Speed attempt to shake up the electronic music world with their trashy electroclash dance-pop beats and humorously choppy vocal styles. In short, COS has created an enticingly danceable world of cheap art where no rules exist.

As fashion designers of avant-garde paper, leather clothing and women’s accessories that bear messages like “sell-out,” “groupie” and “very expensive,” COS has transcended their artsy logos that attack capitalism into a conceptual album that comes across surprisingly well.

While listening, a person can almost close their eyes and imagine the board room setting of a fortune 500 company, where COS deliriously sing and dance under a glimmering disco ball on top of an expensive, finely polished wooden table surrounded by 12 astounded, white-haired, dinosaur executives.

In the opening track “Shooting from the Hip,” COS draws you into their anti-corporate ideology with a seductively somber beat that slowly builds into an all out disco dance fest. From there, they lead you into the catchiest song on the album, “We don’t Play Guitars,” which features fellow electro-chick Peaches, who proudly boasts her ability to play guitar while demonstrating a wailing guitar solo.

The blood pressure then simmers down to normal levels with songs like “Coventry” and “Love Life” which show a fresh, yet watered down electro/acoustic side of COS that will leave fans surprised and a little disappointed.

Although their rendition of Tom Tom Club’s “Wordy Rappinghood” is an impressive display of their ability to cover songs from the ‘80s, it doesn’t quite live up to the raw innovative B-52’s covers “Gimme Back My Man” and the Normals’ “Warm Leatherette,” found on “Re-Releases of the Un-Releases.”

The anti-pop, capitalistic disgust is brought back in full swing, however, with the club/dance title track, “99 Cents.” The rat race continues in “Sell-Out,” where COS encourage their listeners to “exploit yourself/just sell out/cash cars just sell out/do it to yourself before it’s done to you.” With lyrics like these, it’s not hard to detect COS’ sarcastic view of the money-driven world of greed in which we live.

Whether you agree with them or not, COS is definitely trying to a send a message to over-obsessed consumers who spend way too much money on Louis Vuitton purses and Gucci sunglasses. Needless to say, this fusion of fashion and music is a more musically refined side of COS that we haven’t seen in that past.

It’s sure to be an instant hit with underground Berlin discotheques and among electro-heads everywhere. You probably won’t see them playing guitars anytime soon, but who knows, maybe COS will focus their next electronica effort on another socially sarcastic, angst-driven idea like the American fast food take-over that’s making Europeans fat. With these chicks, anything is possible.