If you know anything about me, you know I like indie-pop. That is to say, I like music that uses pop-hooks, rock influences, chord structures that aren’t too complicated, and vocals that are pleasant. I’m not talking about most Top 40 crap…that stuff reaches for the lowest common denominator. I’m talking about the stuff I can put on in the background and listen to without feeling like I’m listening to music for 3rd graders, but also music that if I want to sit down and give a close listen to, there will be some measure of depth.
On Dally Bon Idyll, the duo Billy & Dolly (Bill Rousseau and Dahlia Gallin Ramirez, formerly of Monolith) are doing it right. The opening track, “Oh Yeah,” sounds a little like Claudia Gonson of the Magnetic Fields if she lost all her irony. By track two, “Gold,” I had to do a double-take to make sure I wasn’t listening to The Magic Numbers, and by the end of the album, I was hearing shades of Peter Bjorn & John, the Shins, and even Revolver-era Beatles.
The thing is, I didn’t feel like these were influences on them (Well, except for the Beatles, but who isn’t influenced by the Beatles?). Rather, I feel like these are all bands I like, and Billy & Dolly have managed to place themselves amongst these other bands, making pop music that is 1000 times better that the pop that gets radio play. They are playing pop music for adults, and they are doing it without the pretense and the irony that comes with a lot of indie-pop today. This is good stuff.