Album Review

Paige – If You Say So

• 19th Mar 2008

I am far from a fan of pop-punk music. Even the term itself tends to give me the shivers. How can punk rock – a genre defined by an anti-establishment, often nihilistic outlook – be associated with pop music?

It’s no surprise then, that when ‘pop-punk’ outfit Paige whiningly tell me to “get this party started” I begin to grind my teeth a little. In fact throughout the entire seventeen and a half minutes of Paige’s debut EP “If You Say So” I find it difficult to identify any ‘punk’ elements at all. This is a pop record.

Now there’s nothing wrong with making some sing-a-long pop, and with lyrics about girls and some highly pleasant piano parts, Paige are definitely making it. It’s the whole faux-macho element that I find difficult to stomach. You can’t title a track ‘You’ve got guts (shame we’ve gotta clean ‘em up)’ when it’s essentially quite a positive, celebratory song about being in a band. I don’t get it.

However, if you remove the attempted macho shouting and overly Americanised vocals [they’re from Hertfordshire], you’ve got quite a good collection of pop songs. I can envision many a teenage girl bobbing along to opening track ‘Dear Heartstrings’ or the more ballad-esque ‘Silhouettes’ fitting in well in a scene in the OC or such like.

Paige are certainly not going to “bring you to your knees with this melody” as the opening line to ‘Silhouettes’ may suggest. What “If You Say So” EP will do however, is provide you with a youthful, energetic collection of tracks that I dare say will do hideously well Stateside.