It’s become altogether too effortless (approaching the point of cliché) to rail against the music industry and what passes for contemporary pop music. Yes, we are all aware that the major labels support safe, easily marketable acts to continue to increase their bottom line in an era of declining physical album sales. And yes, the media moguls who run radio stations want to play a continual stream of the “hits” in a time when people increasingly look online or to their mp3 players for their music. These folks like money – that’s not new!

But are the artists, critics, and fans actually doing anything about these supposed injustices? Not really, even if you do count the “pay-what-you-want” set-ups that have become all the rage. Like liberal intellectuals whining about conservative politics and conservative pundits ranting about liberal amorality, everyone in the music industry is pointing fingers at the other side and attacking straw men, shrieking about what they see to be wrong without actually providing any substantive answers to right those perceived wrongs.

So, along comes a group like Peachcake to provide some solutions, in the form of both cooking up some catchy, hook-laden electro-pop music and engaging in grassroots community activism. The duo’s new album, What Year Will You Have The World?, finds Stefan Pruett (aka Space Panda) and John O’Keefe (aka DJ JohnO) creating an alternate reality through their brand of songcraft. At once, the record features an exciting melding of creeping synth and bass lines with spacey beats that serve as the foundation for the upbeat, hopeful messages in their lyrics.

Maybe you feel that I’ve employed some empty rhetoric here. That’s fine – ignore my words, but don’t ignore this band’s music. Anyone whose nasty mood has ever been lifted by the power of music will find much to love in the music of Peachcake: it’s as if ‘80s new wave was reincarnated without the bad hair and mopey ambiance, and was instead propelled by on optimistic, DIY, “Yes we can!” dynamic. From toe-tapping tracks like “Did I Just Do That, Or Was It Jim Carrey “ and “Stop Acting Like You Know More About The Internet Café Than Me,” to the decidedly danceable delights “Make Movement, Not War!” and “The Song Of The Century!,” What Year Will You Have The World? is a record designed to be a positive offering into a music industry that sad, cynical, jaded, and waging a bitter internal war about the future the business. If there is an answer the band hopes to provide, it’s this: “Go local and have fun!”

[review by guest contributor Adam P. Newton]

Peachcake: (Official) (MySpace) (Wikipedia)