HOMEWORK: Assignment #1: Pretty and Nice's "Massive U"

Published Sep 03 2009, 11:04 AM by Michael Brodeur

TRAILER: the making of Pretty & Nice's "Homework" assignment

1. HOMEWORK

As we have enthusiastically proclaimed with our keen supplement this week: Welcome back whoever you are! We at the Phoenix are of a giving sort, so as a way to fluff your cushion while you’re settling in, we present to you the inaugural installment of our brand new Homework series.

Students aren’t the only ones who must work their asses off to get ahead; grubby rock bands must do this too. As a way of keeping our favorite bands’ noses to the proverbial grindstone, we will be giving them “assignments”: custom songs written under cruel deadlines with unusual guidelines designed exclusively for our amusement -- or bemusement, depending on how the song comes out.

For our debut submission, we immediately thought of local prog-hop dynamos, Pretty & Nice, who, seriously, we just . . . we just love them so much. Despite this love, we still stuck it to them pretty hard with the rules for their assignment, which was kind of a bitch. Behold:

2. THE RULES

For our “Welcome Back” issue, please record one (1) song that:

contains the phrase “welcome back”
includes, somewhere/somehow, a reference to the guitar accents at the beginning of the Welcome Back Kotter theme—but nothing else Kotter-related
insults the Green Line at some point
includes the names of 10 local colleges (used however you wish: “Tufts” can refer to clumps of hair, “Emerson” can refer to Ralph Waldo, “B.U.” can be the first syllables of the word "be-yoo-tiful,” etc.)
is rad

3. GRADING

And golly gosh did they deliver. "Massive U" is the sound of a band waking up surrounded by college kids backing up in beeping Ryders; a throbbing headache, a frustrated mutterance into one's morning coffee, spastic summa cum laude post-punk calisthenics. The band deftly met the required college quota, sneakily bending august institutions into makeshift phonetic patches:

we found a MASS-ive ART-ifact
TUFTS of her hair

the LONGY you wait
s-s-SUFFOLK-cate

There's a little dig at the Green Line ("my bloodlust goes green"), a formal greeting to the returning mobs ("welcome BAC to the game"), and the song is nothing if not heavy with radness. Thus!

Final Grade: A

4. THE SONG

Don't take our word for it. Here it is, our back-to-school gift for you . . .

DOWNLOAD: Pretty & Nice, "Massive U" [mp3]

5. NEXT ASSIGNMENT

Next month's homework will be assigned to: Hallelujah the Hills

Filed Under: homework, Pretty & Nice

Pretty & Nice

PRETTY & NICE are the four horsemen of pop doom. The glitch-pop quadrangle was pieced...

Brian Carpenter, of Beat Circus: Top 5 Songs For A Jealous Man ...

@KayHanley at T.T.'s Tonight, or How To Use Twitter To Guarantee We'll Plug Your Show

Follow the Phoenix

All Blogs

Phlog (1,514)
Talking Politics (1,600)
On The Download (2,245)
Laser Orgy (85)
Dont Quote Me (561)
Outside The Frame (326)

Filed Under: homework, Pretty & Nice

Boston Phoenix
HOMEWORK: Assignment #2: D-Tension
Published 10/22/2009 by Michael Brodeur
VIDEO: The honorable D-Tension presents, "Can You Dig It" 1. HOMEWORK For our second installment of Homework -- our still-shiny-new monthly series of brand new...

Boston Phoenix
MP3 of the Week: Doomriders, "Come Alive"
Published 10/16/2009 by Carly Carioli
Like Motörhead before them, DOOMRIDERS live up to their name: they sound fucking evil. They’re one of the few side projects whose careers might actually...

more by Michael Brodeur

A sister act | February 12, 2010

Real talk | February 05, 2010

V66 revisited | February 05, 2010

Delta blues | January 29, 2010

Various Artists | Pop Ambient | January 29, 2010

See all articles by: Michael Brodeur

Latest Video

OTD Categories

Out

VIDEO: Arctic Monkeys at the House of Blues

Rare Frequencies

Rare Frequencies: Trouble and treble

Playlists

Lady Lee's Lion's Den Playlist

MP3 of the Week

HOMEWORK: Assignment #2: D-Tension

Hot Tix

Ticket On-Sale Alert: Muse, Mariah Carey, Black Eyed...

Latest Comments

Charlie Baker: More Neanderthal-Conservative Than Romney? - "But reasonable people, particularly those in public political life, do not question the scientific...

By Fake Name on 02-09-2010 in Talking Politics

More Bad Signs For GOP Women - The NRCC has got to get a clue! This is exactly why the GOP constantly loses the female vote among independents...

By Leah Wright on 02-09-2010 in Talking Politics

The Kells in Allston is closing - Thank God. A Tavern in the Square, though? Christ.

By Z on 02-09-2010 in Phlog

Thugs and goons: Howie Carr explains--updated! - Carr got it from the comments omg. Who's less credible carr, barnicle or beck? Remember when journalists...

By neil on 02-09-2010 in Dont Quote Me

Q&A #10 -- Mighty Malone? - Joe Malone is a solid character who connects with the average citizen. No one ever accused him of any...

By smallfish on 02-09-2010 in Talking Politics

Latest Comments from On The Download

HOMEWORK: Assignment #1: Pretty and Nice's "Massive U"

Leave a Comment