In the early-to-mid 1980s, Mattel released a series of Barbie dolls dressed up in Madonna-esque accessories to capture the imaginations of the MTV generation. The Rockers were an all-female proposition (though, if memory serves, Rocker Ken had some vague role-- drummer, perhaps?), and each doll came with a plastic instrument and an EP-length cassette tape featuring mass-produced, semi-new wave songs about loving to rock. The fortunate girl could get the entire set-up (all the band members, the stage, the backdrop, etc.), play the tape, and live out rock and roll fantasies. Me, I only had two rockers: Barbie and the brunette bassist, whatever her name was. My best friend and I would gather all our rocker paraphernalia and stage elaborate concerts for her brother's action figures. In retrospect, these events had a decidedly Woodstock flair, as He-Man, G.I. Joe, Boba Fett, and the stray Transformer put aside their differences and came together to enjoy Barbie's Greatest Hits.

I don't know if the All Girl Summer Fun Band has quite the same unifying effect, though one might imagine their shows as places where ex-riot grrls, giggly teenage hipsters, closet pedophiles, sensitive indie rock boys, and misogynists inclined toward muttering, "I told you so." And it wouldn't be much of a stretch to suggest that these Portland girls resemble a lo-fi Barbie and the Rockers: four girls of slightly differing appearances playing cute, G-rated songs about cute boys in cute little girl voices. And it's all informed by 60s Brill Building Girl-Group pop, replete with nods to Brian Wilson. Their music pushes the outside parameters of twee, and ushers the listener into a fantastic world where all the girls giggle and blush at attention, wear polka-dot bikinis and sparkly barrettes, and never kiss and tell.

I'm 99% sure the members of the Summer Fun Band are cognizant of the image they're sending out, and I'm positive they expect the listener to enjoy the implicit ironies and delight in the retro-pop sensibilities while imagining the simpler, pre-Riot Grrl days. It's not exactly campy (that would entail maintenance of the beehive hairdos suggested by the salon hairdryer cover art), nor particularly original. Fans of bare-bones pop music might love this-- it's innocuous enough and, as the name suggests, summery and fun.

All Girl Summer Fun Band offers thirteen short songs (reminiscent of Cub without the crunch), featuring a minimal three-chord, mid-tempo song structure that varies only on the album's two slow numbers, "Somehow Angels" and "Girl #3." Beyond that, there's not much to say. "Theme Song," admittedly, features one of the best unanticipated screams I've heard following a bubble-gum chorus of, "We're the All Girl Summer Fun Band/ La la la la la la." And "It's There" provides a slight variation on the album's continually recycled song structure by tossing in a nice jazzy chorus over which the girls intone, "Shooby-doo, I've got a crush on you." No point in getting into the lyrics beyond that, though-- you get the point.

For the record, I don't have a problem with this kind of über-simplistic music. In fact, I'm a long time defender of rock and pop music in its purest, three-chord forms. But the girls' overt reliance on self-conscious cuteness really rubs me wrong-- the faux-prepubescent vocals and the coy, deliberately off-key harmonies grate like the Swiss cheese sentiments inherent in the banal lyrics. And maybe my problem is a bit political, too. Women in rock (and particularly women within the male-dominated indie rock sect) are already faced with enough patronizing bullshit, and the All Girl Summer Fun Band not only feeds this mentality, but knowingly plays up to it.

Of course, it could be I'm just too old for the kind of all-girl summer fun this band claims to deliver. But the truth is, if I want to listen to shameless pop with an estrogen twist, I'm much more inclined to reach for Destiny's Child. Their music may be equally insipid, but at least you can dance to it.

-Alison Fields, March 15th, 2002