Crazy for You

A short album after long preparations

No more small donations like these. Give us everything, give it to us now. That is a brief interpretation of thoughts and opinions shared by numerous fans of a very young band called Best Coast. Two Californians, Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno, for less than two years, have released three EPs, Make You Mine, Where The Boys Are, and Something In The Way, alongside four singles. Of course, there were those who would be happy all these valuables for such a treasure as one full-length album. However, from the positions of marketing and promotion, this exchange is mindless. After allowing the public to taste their music, after charging the listeners with unquenchable desire to get to something more, Best Coast have released their debut long player only now. Crazy For You was officially delivered to the market in July 2010, which became one of the greatest events for all indie-rock supporters. However, full-length is not a very exact definition because the twelve tracks featured by this album last together a bit longer than only thirty minutes. This is not going to make the pleasure any less.

Summertime music from Californian coast

Of course, the driving force behind the Best Coast success is songwriter and singer Bethany Cosentino. She tends to sing about what concerns her personally and what happens in her life. Musically, Best Coast songs are well-known for structural simplicity and short duration. In connection with this, the Best Coast music is often characterized by indie-rock together with surf-pop. Surf-pop was the music once in the past performed by The Beach Boys, whose members are natively from the same coast as the participants of Best Coast. That is why there should be no surprise to see a depiction of a beach on the cover of Crazy For You. The music is the domain ruled by multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno who does not like to get in the front overshadowing the singer. More than usual, his instruments only serve to create a special background for the vocals, while their sounding is reduced below the norm on purpose. The majority of the track-listing is presented by songs based on three or four chords with solos out of five notes. The tunes are very simple and, at the same time, catchy. It is difficult to restrain yourself from singling along already during the first listening, especially to the songs where Cosentino sings without words like in When The Sun Don’t Shine.

Simplicity and beauty of Best Coast

Some people think that Bethany Cosentino plainly does not know how to write good lyrics and sticks to the ‘sing—about-what-I-see’ rule applied by poor poets. But the explanation is that the singer is just honest with herself and listeners. She does not resort to pseudo-intelligent speculations or many-faceted images, which is in many case just hides the absence of truly worthy ideas. In compositions Boyfriend, or The End the singer prefers to speak openly, straightly and strictly. These are too personal songs for her to distance herself from the real matters into philosophizing. The above said things may make you believe that Best Coast is rather Bethany’s solo project than a band; but that is not true. Bruno moulds the mood and conditions for his partner to work under, and for the listeners he makes a sweet music that you begin to like right away because it does not take you to work hard to comprehend it. The best songs here are those where both Bruno and Cosentino reach their perfection, and suchlike are Our Deal, Each And Every Day, and When I’m With You. These are the best samples of the Best Coast music, energetic and optimistic tracks. After albums like Crazy For You, you may think that California is truly a place of eternal heat, summer and good mood.