Review: Just The Kid – “Keep It Fun!”

March 19th, 2010 by Oswald Hobbes / Comment on this post

Just The Kid are all about “fun.” They titled their debut EP Keep It Fun!. Their songs are exclusively about girls – a little sniping here and there, but mostly these guys just want to have fun with them. The sound is highly polished and proudly synthetic; think a slightly glossier Metro Station. To a lot of people, that’s considered a damning rather than a benediction. But as I listened to Keep It Fun! over the course of a few weeks, throwing it on when I needed a quick blast of extremely refined sucrose, it more than served its purpose. This is a certain kind of thing that’s not exactly my certain thing, but it’s an extremely accomplished and smart version of that thing. So kudos to these guys for keeping it fun for all of us instead of just their target demographic of socially awkward teenage girls.

The EP begins with a fairly generic synth intro; it kind of sounds like these guys are bringing the fun from outer space. And then “Shawty,” the first proper track, launches into riffs that seem to draw inspiration primarily from JTK’s parents’ collection of Asia and Def Leppard records. It’s a jarring transition – I didn’t expect to taste the familiar arena tang of dry ice on a record about going to the mall and picking out some goofy sneakers. But there’s a few of these little touches scattered about that make Keep It Fun! feel at least nominally like real rock music. “Hot Damn” hangs on a “let’s dance, dance, baby, baby, let’s dance” lyric that’s probably as self-aware as it is inane. I mean, can you honestly argue with this stuff? It’s cotton candy.

I’d say thirteen minutes is the perfect amount of Just The Kid – they’d have to switch it up a little to sustain my interest for an entire full-length. But I’ll throw Keep It Fun! in from time to time, I’m sure, whenever I want to sashay around my apartment with a fruity mixed drink and pretend I’m in a one man off-Broadway show of Sex And The City. If you’re into this kind of stuff (and I’m sure most of you secretly are), then it’s a great example of its genre. Put it on a cocaine playlist with Cobra Starship, Metro Station, and some Infinity On High-era Fall Out Boy and you’ll be having more fun than the entire cast of Gossip Girl on your average Saturday night at 3am. I like it, in my own private way.