Bands to Watch #229: Rosie Vanier
Rosie Vanier‘s recent EP ‘Black Cats and Black Stars’ quite blatantly guns for the gap in the market left by Gwen Stefani‘s recent inactivity. On lead track ‘You Stoled My Guy’ (stream below), Vanier has a virtually identical high-pitched little-riot-grrl-lost vocal, and similar man trouble. ‘Up with the Boys’ is almost a perfect distillation of all the songs Stefani has written; on a blind listening you wouldn’t believe it wasn’t her Gwenness throwing the vocal moves. The music is all sawtooth synth and chart-friendly choruses, the vocal processed to within an inch of its life, with distortion and auto-tune aplenty.
The final track even shamelessly copies Stefani’s surely patented throwaway “oh-a-oh” refrain. This is all a lot of fun, and there must be some fans that simply can’t wait for another Stefani release to which it will be manna from Heaven. Certainly it’s a significant progression from Vanier’s previous indie-pop incarnation as part of Rosie and the Goldbug; there is a talented pop producer behind these tracks who has certainly earned their fee. Whether the world needs a carbon copy of an already hugely successful diva remains to be seen; no doubt if Rosie makes a success of this material she will be fighting off the plagiarism suits for years..but if the attitude on display here is anything to go by, that won’t hold her back.
One Response
15th November 2011
You seem to have forgotten the second track of the EP, “Can’t Follow”, in my opinion the far superior track. Was it forgotten as it’s not following the Gwen Stefani motif you wanted to pursue?