Pomplamoose

Pomplamoose is my first review on what I would call a "YouTube Band."

You may know them as "the annoying couple from the Toyota commercials," as my friend Steve (Not from this blog) described them. They had a few national commercials around Christmas singing traditional carols in their own special way. (FYI, I didn't much like the commercials.) Incidentally, Steve from the blog describes them as "that girl that stares at you with dead eyes." And while she may stare at the camera with the look of a nervous girl giving her first handjob, the music is very enjoyable and creative. (Don't listen to him Nataly, you can stare at me with those dead eyes any day.)

A typical Pomplamoose song will feature Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn performing a song, each playing multiple instruments and singing both lead and back-up vocals. Nataly will often sing the lyrics multiple times for an awesomely harmonious effect. An interesting thing about Pomplamoose is that in the music video you see footage of the instrumentation spliced together on screen, and so you are able to see how they were able to obtain the finished product through hundreds of tiny shots. Things that you probably rarely think about are shown in minute detail. Something as simple as clapping that coincides with the rhythm clearly takes a great deal of time for two people working on such a small budget. Many shots of individual claps are dispersed throughout the video. Though he tries his little heart out, it is pretty clear that Jack isn't proficient enough on the drums to play most songs the whole way through. They get through this with many individual shots of a cymbal crash or snare smash, and fill it in with low budget moves such as drumming their fists on a desk.


There are two general types of Pomplamoose songs: covers and originals; I'll review some covers first.



Their covers have quite a bit of variety, ranging from Edith Piaf to Lady Gaga. Their most viewed video is a cover of "Single Ladies" by Beyonce. It is a great example of my argument that the instrumentation in rap songs usually sucks. The inclusion of piano, drums, bass, acoustic guitar, and home brewed sounds (including a Polaroid camera's flash being slammed shut for a percussive sound for example) among other things are a big improvement IMO over the clapping and exylophone from the Beyonce version. Don't get me wrong, I think that the Beyonce video has its merits and that her version of the song is just fine, but the addition of real instruments makes it so much better for me. If you disagree then search ford the instrumental of Beyonce's version, and listen to it while you fall asleep, it's like Chinese water torture. It has less variation than the music from a GameBoy title screen. Anyways, here's a link:



Just barely losing out in the views count battle is a cover of "Telephone" by Lady Gaga. It starts with a great example of Nataly's self-harmonizing. This version of the song is faster and more to the point than Gaga's. The original concept of the song is pretty simple, and I think that the Pomplamoose version is more befitting of the message. The Lady Gaga version is too serious and passionate for a song whose lyrics can basically be reduced to, "Stop calling me, I'm dancing".



"La Vie en Rose" is another song of theirs that I really enjoy. It is a cover of Edith Piaf. The instrumentation is simpler and doesn't use any post-modern instruments or distortion/auto-tune as far as I can tell. I heard a long time ago (from somebody who I can't remember for the life of me) that there are two ways to do covers. You can do a cover faithful to the original's style, or you can make it your own. In this case I think that Pomplamoose has done a good job of capturing Edith's original intent and emotions. For those of you wondering what it means, my understanding of the lyrics are that when the singer is with their lover they see the world through rose-tinted glasses.




The last cover I will do is one of the songs that got me into Pomplamoose. It is "Makin Out" by Mark Owen. Out of all of their songs, this is probably the one that Nataly stares at the camera the least; so if that bugs you then I would suggest watching this one. Nataly sings a love song written for a male singer, and I think gives it much more oomph. I think this song most beautifully displays her voice, or maybe I just think that it's the most beautiful song (lyrically) that they sing. Either way, it's fucking pretty. To give you an idea of how much I like it, I downloaded it on iTunes, legally.



Other notable covers: "Beat it", Michael Jackson; "Mister Sandman", The Chordettes; and "Nature Boy", Nat King Cole.


The first song that I ever saw by Pomplamoose is probably still my favorite. The lyrics are cute and clever, and the video is goofy and fun. My only complaint would be the length of the song. The portion of the song before it becomes just the chorus and silliness is only 90 seconds. The chorus is, at least, not a strict chorus, by which I mean that it is altered between verses. (I usually like when songs switch it up like this.)



Another song of theirs which only uses a rough chorus is "Another Day". It's a fun little song about just enjoying the comfort and routine of relationships. My one complaint about this song, which i could say about a lot of them, but don't have much else to say about this one, is that there is a promotion at the end of the video. Now I know, they gotsta make their money, but it is an annoyance when watching a bunch of videos on a row, especially on a playlist, and having to skip the last minute of every song, or else listen to a promotion for bars of soap that sold out over a year ago. I wish they would go back and edit their old videos to be more aware to this fact.



The last song that I'll be mentioning is called "Always in the Season". I guess that it's a Christmas song, but I don't limit when I listen to it based on that. It does have a bit of a Christmasy sound to it, but as the lyrics suggest, you shouldn't have to wait for a certain time of the year to appreciate something that you enjoy. I like to listen to "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" by BNL & Sarah McLachlan at all times of the year too. And after all, there are a lot of "Christmas Songs", that aren't really about Christmas. "Let it Snow" comes to mind. There are a couple of guest musicians, playing horns and strings, a nice variation to normal Pompla instrumentation.



If you enjoyed these songs then I'd also recommend their solo pages and other collabs, all link on their channel. My favorite is probably "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk", originally by Rufus Wainwright, covered by Nataly.