Well well, if I’ve heard a better carefree Summer single than this, I can’t think of it.  Benny & the Jetts is a breezy, swoonsome song, tinged with a little wistfulness, slow enough to be laid back but upbeat enough to be cheerful and fun.

It rolls with piano in the manner of the man whose song it namechecks, and tells a sad tale of an elusive, unavailable girl.  It’s far too jaunty a tune to be maudlin however, and the combination of the two contrasting emotions is absolutely classic Summer pop stuff.

Looking at TV Girl’s broader output, you can approach it from one side and this is fuzzy lo-fi pop, but approach from another and you get a sort of fuzzy amalgam of Avalanches and early Zero7 (this is not intended as a criticism either, before you say anything).

If you go to their Bandcamp page you’ll see they have a couple of EPs available for free download.  You’ll also see what looks like a transition from the lo-fi pop mentioned earlier to the more sample-based stuff on which makes up most of their more recent Benny & the Jetts EP.

Whatever way they do it, be it with production style or with electronics, these guys are taking sunny pop songs and fucking about with them, and doing a really nice job of it.  Referencing Simon and Garfunkel as well as Elton John gives you some idea of some of the touchstones for the more classic influences in this stuff, but as you can probably tell from my description thus far, a lot of the actual aesthetic is eminently zeitgeist-friendly.

TV Girl – Benny & the Jetts

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TV Girl – I Don’t Care

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