Does It Offend You, Yeah?: You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into
Friday, 14 Mar 2008 16:10
Does It Offend You, Yeah? - took their name from David Brent.
Virgin, out March 24th.
In a nutshell…
Bad name, good album, yeah.
What's it all about?
There are some really badly named bands out there. From the unpronounceable !!! to the frankly terrifying Porno for Pyros, bands seem to like to confuse their fans by giving their outfit an annoying moniker.
Reading-based Does It Offend You, Yeah? probably come somewhere near the top of the pile when it comes to pretentious tags. Apparently named after a quote from The Office, the four-piece synth outfit has been gaining praise for the last few months from the sort of people who think it's a good idea to spend a small country's deficit on some deadstock Nikes.
After touring on the NME Awards Tour and remixing the likes of Muse and Bloc Party, the lads finally decided it was probably a good idea to release more than the four songs on their MySpace page. You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into's ten dirty synthy rock songs are the result.
Who's it by?
DIOYY? (this band really play havoc with a computer's spell checking facility if anyone is interested) are Morgan Quaintance, James Rushent, Dan Coop and Rob Bloomfield. They are quite young and very trendy. NME and Vice think they are cool.
They make the sort of shouty electro pop that Justice or Digitalism would make if they had grown up in a crappy commuter city in southern England, rather than in ultra trendy Paris or Berlin.
As an example
"Let's make out, Let's make out, Let's make out/Let's make out, Let's make out, Let's make out/Let's make out, Let's make out, Let's make out/Let's make out, Let's make out, Let's make out/Let's make out, Let's make out, Let's make out, Let's make out." - Let's Make Out (obviously)
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
You Have No Idea What You Are Getting Yourself Into is something of a confused beast. Is the band aiming for Justice-like club-ripping synth bangers, or Bloc Party-style stadium-filling electro pop? It's fairly clear that the lads have no idea, which means that the critics are probably going to ignore it in favour of something slightly more assured. They do have a stupid name though, which does tend to trick people into thinking they are cooler/better than they probably are.
What the others say
"Whichever end of the synth-guitar spectrum your preferences lie, there's at least half a good album here." Laurence Phelan, Independent
"DIOYY? may have the most ridiculous name in music, but it doesn’t really matter when you can produce an album of this quality first time round. Are you offended? Cos we sure aren't." Laura Davies on Gigwise.
So is it any good?
Giving yourself a silly name is a risky tactic. Sure some people are going to think it's great and decide that you're brilliant just because it makes them look cool saying they like you. But most people will probably think you're a bunch of berks.
DIOYY are lucky. Their name meant tastemakers paid them some attention and they were good enough to deliver an album which is interesting enough to justify it.
Sure, You Have No Idea What You Are Getting Yourself Into is a bit all over the place.
Opener Battle Royale makes you think you are going to be getting a tough dance record that would sound great at 4:30 in the morning in an east London warehouse, but then that sound sort of disappears (though it does pop up again on the excellent We Are Rockstars and the pretty good Weird Science).
Instead, it is replaced with fairly poppy electro that is fun and sounds disturbingly like Bloc Party before Kele got annoying and pretentious. So we are faced with the rather endearing Being Bad Feels Pretty Good and the endearingly punky Attack of the 50ft Octopus.
In the end, the album is saved by the fact DIOYY? clearly don't take themselves too seriously. Anyone who opts for a song says "let's make out" millions and millions of times is obviously not so proud to make a fool of themselves from time to time. And the fact that Epic Last Song lasts for a total of four minutes and 36 seconds shows the lads are game for a laugh.
7.5/10
James Cooper
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