Not Exactly The Carrie Nations

Girl band The Pipettes — pronounced more like "whippets" rather than like the type of chemistry equipment — first came into my life more than a year ago, when I was in Sydney and picked up an Australian Rolling Stone, which touted the group as the best think to happen to music since the kick drum. I downloaded them upon my return to the states, enjoyed them and then tired of them. Reminiscent of classic girl groups though they were, these leaders of the pack didn't have staying power.

Unless I'm mistaken, however, The Pipettes have been re-releasing their songs for American audiences with a more polished sound. A good example of this trend is the below video.

In the style of the Spike Jonze-directed video for Weezer's "Just Like Buddy Holly," this digitally inserts the Pipettes into the party scene from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, with the girls on stage and the movie's characters providing corny reaction shots to their poppy sounds. It works well, I guess, but it makes me imagine a bad end for this British threesome. You see, in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, the central three characters form a girl rock group as well. One of them ends quite happily, one is murdered after her newfound lesbian lover dies from a gunshot to the brain, and the third — the black one, Petronella horrendously nicknamed "Pet" — takes a bullet to the torso. That's not taking into account the various drug- and jealousy-fueled shenanigans the girls somehow manage to overcome.

So yeah — cool video. But bad life plan. Good luck, Pipettes.

[ Source: The Planet of Groove, where I apparently now get my music-related news. ]

EDIT 6.19.2007: It's a remake, not a "Just Like Buddy Holly" or Forrest Gump or Nikki and Paolo on Lost kind of splice-in. I found the original scene, featuring The Carrie Nations performing "Sweet Talkin' Candyman."