The Bristol, England-based Getdown Services’ second full-length album, Massive Champion, should come with a warning label. The music is like an addictive drug that demands repeated dosages even as one is throwing up in the sink; an image that fits the band’s trash aesthetic. The record is promoted as alternative dance punk music, which is as good a label as anything else, but think about what that means. Or as the duo reminds us, “Check the Definition”.
Alternative: the lyrics are vulnerable and abstract, conveying working-class alienation and anxiety, and use humor to address serious concerns. For example, the first cut, “Poor Bannister”, falls in the tradition of Blaze Foley’s “Clay Pigeons” and the Replacements‘ “Kiss Me on the Bus”, using public transport as a metaphor for the travails and triumphs of life’s journey for the working class. In this case, an older woman falls asleep, and a man vomits all over himself. This represents everyday existential struggles. The singer is the observer who tries not to look too hard.
Dance: The tracks offer funk-heavy bass and drumbeats on the two and four, mixed with electronic earworms that wriggle against a conversational human voice that breaks into sing-song rhythms. So, the lyrics to the instructional “Cha Cha Slide” offer one the option of making shapes to lines such as “The best things in life are free and everything is free if you steal it.” Don’t think about it, just move your body.
Punk: The music reeks of DIY artlessness with few chords, short arrangements and simple song structures. It’s fast, loud, and snotty with minimal production. The songs have titles such as “No One Likes Me”, “Stop Living”, and “I Can’t Die Like That” that suggest the punk ethos of ironic self-hatred and death fantasies that protect against the social order that demands cheerful conformity.
Back in the day, the kids in Bristol were sharp as a pistol when they did the Bristol Stomp. That was another time and another place, but these guys (Josh Law and Ben Sadler) are still stomping out the grooves with mixed metaphors (re: how were pistols sharp?) Today’s lessons are yesterday’s rehabilitations, and tomorrow never knows. Getdown Services remind listeners that quotidian acts like buying a birthday card, getting a haircut, and consuming probiotic foods are all part of a class war rigged from the start.
There’s something distinctively British about the whole affair that implies a phony authenticity that paradoxically makes it more genuine. While parallel American acts (parallel in terms of class consciousness) like New York City’s Talking Heads and Ramones satirically sang about not going to night school/college and banging one’s head against the wall, these guys go to dance class and try to sit up straight and behave as a way of infiltrating higher society. This expresses the difference between the US and England in terms of history and economics.
Massive Champion compels one to move to the beat and pay attention. The voices on the album remind one of what one already knows as a living, breathing consumer in the wasteland of Western society. While upscale artists like Charli XCX and Lily Allen can complain about the hollowness of ritzy living from the top, Getdown Services demonstrate that life on the bottom is no less real, authentic or satisfying. One thing these artists share is a hope that engaging in music and busting a move may be the best way to get through this thing called life.