Black Kids: Partie Traumatic

Those who claim that good music must be original either harbor some woeful misconceptions about music or just don't enjoy very much of it. For one thing, all music relies on what has come before to a great degree. For another, innovation in music is usally accidental, arising due to imperfect mimicry, much like mutations in genetic code. And artists that set out to create something completely original usually produce something interesting but unlistenable.

Black Kids' debut full-length, Partie Traumatic, is great precisely because they are skillful imitators. They strip-mine the 80s for vintage sounds and combine them with current pop culture signifiers to make fun party songs. While the seams are mostly visible, Black Kids' surprisingly broad cultural vocabulary make up for obviousness. Reggie Youngblood's frequently dead-on impression of Robert Smith, while almost embarrassingly transparent at times, works well with Black Kids' fluffier fare. Partie Traumatic won't be anywhere near as influential as the material they bite, but it's tremendously successful at what it tries to be: one of the most memorable and fun indie pop records in recent memory.