The Hatepinks - Plastic Bag Ambitions (Cover Artwork)
Staff Pick

The Hatepinks

Plastic Bag Ambitions (2005)

TKO


The Hatepinks sound like, well, a TKO band. Incorporating a heavy `77 influence, these Frenchies give it a go with melodic, catchy, fast-tempo 4/4 rockers. Think the Briefs played faster and simpler and shorter. Thirteen songs blaze by in sixteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds. And it's all one big party. One big, fast, repetitive punk party.

And who can argue with that? In this day and age with emotions reigning supreme ruling music with a moody iron fist, the Hatepinks bring in a gasping, heaving breath of smokey, rotten punk club air. And it's fun. Fun like blasting Andrew W.K. at a party where everyone just wanted to hear the cover band play a Red Hot Chili Peppers song after slaughtering Hendrix's "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)." Fun like dancing to Led Zeppelin alone working in a record store on a slow Sunday evening. Fun like, shit, the first punk album you ever listened to. Shit, there's a reason why we were all drawn to punk.

It gave us a voice, an opinion, a statment (even if it was just simply "I'm different," no matter how trivial that actually is). It gave us a new view on how to get our jollies. And the Hatepinks are giving us a new product to thrive off of, especially with song titles like "I Am a Divorce," "Microwave Drugs," "Fashion Is Crime," "Tupperware Love," and "Kissing Cops with My Ass." How can you deny it? They're French! They pioneered the art of roasting shitty coffee really dark to hide the fact that it's shitty! They invented apathy towards pop culture! They gave us the idea that it's cool to smoke, but only if you seem really lethargic about it! And now they've given us the Hatepinks. And I'm one to fly the flag. Whatever the fuck that means.