Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

Consumer Guide:
  User's Guide
  Grades 1990-
  Grades 1969-89
  And It Don't Stop
Books:
  Book Reports
  Is It Still Good to Ya?
  Going Into the City
  Consumer Guide: 90s
  Grown Up All Wrong
  Consumer Guide: 80s
  Consumer Guide: 70s
  Any Old Way You Choose It
  Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough
Xgau Sez
Writings:
  And It Don't Stop
  CG Columns
  Rock&Roll& [new]
  Rock&Roll& [old]
  Music Essays
  Music Reviews
  Book Reviews
  NAJP Blog
  Playboy
  Blender
  Rolling Stone
  Billboard
  Video Reviews
  Pazz & Jop
  Recyclables
  Newsprint
  Lists
  Miscellany
Bibliography
NPR
Web Site:
  Home
  Site Map
  Contact
  What's New?
    RSS
Carola Dibbell:
  Carola's Website
  Archive
CG Search:
Google Search:
Twitter:

Consumer Guide Album

Dream Wife: So When You Gonna . . . [Lucky Number, 2020]
Fronted by Iceland-born, California-raised, art school-finished Rakel Mjöli, this London-based all-female pop-punk trio picked their name before they'd ever played together and have a ways to go before matrimony per se is likely to be within their ken. Sex and romance, however, Mjöli has a bead on from the male-bonding pissoff "Sports!"--"Time is money/Never apologize/These are the rules"--to a finale called "After the Rain" where she both craves and rejects a tenderness that can only be provisional in a line of work that keeps her on the move. She knows sex and romance are easier to come by for a minor rock star, and is up for one or both from "Validation" to "U Do U" to "So When You Gonna . . ." But the crux here is called "Validation" because she knows that's the tough one without having figured out how to get it or why exactly she needs it so. A-