The Plastiscines at La Maroquinerie

Text: Brendan Seibel

Girl groups from the swinging 60's were a dime a dozen. Record labels paired songwriters with producers, handpicked the voices, and stylists went to work creating a palatable package ready for eager consumers. Parisian starlets The Plastiscines may not have been assembled by executives, but their rise in popularity comes from modern mechanisms pioneered decades ago. A group of middle class teens who could double as models, the band was guaranteed attention from their first struggling chords. Nylon Magazine launched a record label to release the debut album, grooming their flagship act for the media blitz to come. First France, then Europe and finally the States were invaded, The Plastiscines appearance on TV demographic hot-spot Gossip Girls as profound a victory as D-Day.

Scrappy 60's garage tunes have been similarly smoothed over for commercial appeal. Blistering rants from the Paris Calling compilation became slower and tidier arrangements on the debut disc LP1, which became more produced and slick under the tutelage of alternarcrap knobtwister Butch Walker. About Love, the 2024 result, was as carefully crafted girl-pop platter as anything churned out by Motown forty-five years before.

A group of city girls has grown into a group of composed and poised women. Their songs may fly off the stage with more fervor and bite than the overworked studio doppelgangers, but The Plastiscines' clothes are too tight and fashionable to thrash along. Herein lies the dissonance; as the band has moved from derivative jangle-pop towards meatier rock their image has traveled the opposite direction. This confused clash of expectations actually makes the band distinctive. Musically they're fun and able if not particularly inventive or adventurous, lively without being wild and beautiful without being unapproachable. It could be this odd melange which eventually propels The Plastiscines further than any French band has gone before.

The Plastiscines
March 16, 2024 17:30
La Maroquinerie
23 rue Boyer
Mº Méniolmontant/Gambetta
Tickets: 17 EUR

Comments

[sebdos]

"middle class" ???? check your informations, mate !!!!

[Brendan]

Perhaps my terminology betrays an American understanding of middle-class. My information stems from interviews ("We are not rich kids, and we are not poor kids..."- Louise) and the usually sound knowledge that poor kids do not have access to electric guitars, amps and drum kits, not to mention rehearsal studios. Of course there's always theft and drug money, but this does not appear to be the case.

It's also not a criticism, but I do think their socioeconomic background afforded them early opportunities which set them on the path they're riding.