Tickle Me Pink - Madeline [Album]

Wind Up

December 23, 2008, 01:42 AM

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Before I even start I want to teach the world a little bit about Wind-up records and this is from an un-educated, un-researched point of view. This opinionated view had arisen through listening to Wind Up Records bands and the music they have released. In a nutshell, Wind-Up is my label of the moment. It is very rare that a label comes along that has that sort of pull on me that these guys do BUT they appear to have a ninja repetoire, some of which include potential luminaries (Seether) BUT, regardless of that sad fact, every other Wind-Up band I have ever listened to I have loved [although I've never heard Seether]. Everyone go now and look up some other Wind Up bands [like People in Planes] that are as equally as good as Tickle Me Pink - although it is a really shit name [Tickle Me Pink].

Also, I feel a need to let everyone know that at this point I have loved this album for a while. This isn't a one listen album review, this is a 30 listen album review. I have listened to Madeline so much that I know all the little intimacies and how Madeline truly is a great piece of art, and quite a legendary album. There is lots going on, from funky off beat drum patterns, and key changes, to the sound of big bells being chimed alongside a heroin overdose by a close female friend of the band, named Madeline. She takes you on a fun journey from beginning to end. The whole story starts getting fucked up a little when you read a bit of the history and the fact that supposedly the bass player from the band died in August 2008 of a Heroin overdose. At this moment you realize that Tickle Me Pink, as stupidly teen as their name is, come from a hard life and have some shit to say about real situations. Although from their initial appearance they may come off as innocent, in reality, Tickle Me Pink [to me] are a great rock band that speak well about dealing with, and surviving a lot of hardship.

I honestly love this album and although I know based on release date this review is WELL late, I have been sitting on it, and listening to it, A LOT. I have been showing it to people and then I have been listening to it some more. One of my favourites is "We Still Dance" and what to me feels like a key change from pre-chorus to chorus that gets me singing out loud every time. It's possibly one of the catchiest and cleverest things I have heard musically in a very long time.

In general, Madeline by Tickle Me Pink is one of my Albums of 08. I wanted to make sure I reviewed it before 08 died to give it props for what it did for my life in that moment. I love the fact that on the surface Tickle Me Pink come across as a generic Pop Punk piece of shit. But when you look below the surface you see a plethora of influence from bands as obscure as Silver Sun to ska favourites like 311 and Sublime. There is a lot more cleverness and musical experience beneath the Tickle Me Pink facade than they would let you think on initial glance. Honestly, there's not a part of this album I can really fault.

Probably my favourite song is I Can't Breathe where you can hear Science-era Incubus. You can really can get deep into this track and forget yourself for a little bit. Go Die is maybe slightly a bit harsh lyrically..... but then again maybe not? The circus / zoo like gang vocals at the end followed by laughter really top off the meaning of this quite messed up track. Beside the Others is probably the stupidest song on the entire record. Almost a forced ballad where, for the rest of the album they sound like the perfect 2008-9 anarchic band, with stories to tell about love, lust, drugs, death, tattooing and everything else in between [a fucking shitload Sherlock!].

Tickle Me Pink are a band that shyly missed a place in my Top 5 Albums of 08 but that in 2009 [if they don't let circumstance and other shit get in their way] could become a very, very popular band.

If I find out the above stories of hardship were indeed a story and not reality then negate everything I said above, these guys are Pop Punk Pap [I believe in you boys]. Hahaha.

http://www.myspace.com/ticklemepinkmusic

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