Disco!graphy: Be Your Own Pet

Disco!graphy is a new feature that catches up with bands by exploring their entire full-length output.

On today's mix...
Be Your Own Pet (2006)
Get Awkward (UK Version) (2008)

Be Your Own Pet is an easy enough band to start off this feature: the young act only have two albums to their name. Their eponymous debut, however, was met with enough praise to establish the act at least for another few albums, and it appears that they're up for the challenge.

Be Your Own Pet's critical acclaim may have been a little overstated, but it's an energetic effort and a very endearing one. Like Times New Viking, they blaze through its fifteen tracks in around half an hour, and the results are exciting but unmemorable. Most of the songs blend into each other, but really, they're pretty cute.

All the hype that surrounded Be Your Own Pet would not, however, prepare you for the leap they make on follow-up Get Awkward. The band lets lead singer Jemina Pearl write her own lyrics here, multiplying her presence by about a billion, and the results are enough that it's hard not to dismiss their debut as a mere warm-up. A lot of critics were quick to declare how fast the band's growing up, but if anything, this is an album decidedly more fitting for the 20-year-olds. It's the logical progression of "Boyfriend" by Ashlee Simpson, which I mean in all seriousness in the best way possible: Get Awkward is hooky, pissed off, and very specific. The lyrics, which drop fast as lightning, are the album's greatest asset, finally asserting the type of attitude most acts can only dream off--Avril Lavigne would kill for this--and the Pearl's vocals are more melodically adventurous to match her newfound wordiness. On top of all of that, the band is in even better shape this time around, and the fifteen tracks that result are each catchier and notably more memorable than anything on the debut--though they come just as fast.

In a rather gross twist, the immensely palatable Be Your Own Pet's more assertive style was rewarded by major label Universal cutting three of the album's best songs ("Becky", "Black Hole", "Blow Yr Mind") for the state-side release--on fears that they were "too violent". It's the artistic equivalent of releasing the Marshall Mathers LP without "Kill You", "Stan", and "Kim". Yeah, they are pretty violent, but what sense does it make to censor an artist's personality? I'd heavily advise tracking down the UK version, as Americans are missing out on quite a lot. "Becky" is the album's best track, an immensely catchy freak-out that narrates an after-class knife fight with a backstabbing friend. It's the type of song that really defines a band like this, with Pearl bemoaning that she wishes those things Becky said about her in her yearbook had been true as she does time in a juvenile detention center for teen homicide, with the backing band stopping mid-way to chant, "We don't like Becky anymore!" Other highlights are "Heart Throb", a track about flirtatious eye contact with someone other than her boyfriend, and lead single "The Kelly Affair", whose chorus is unlikely to leave you anytime soon. There are no duds here, though the cutting of "Becky", "Black Hole", and "Blow Yr Mind" does soften the effect. The full thing is easily one of the year's best albums.

Be Your Own Pet: 7/10
Get Awkward: 10/10