Stream: The Singles * (Scarlett Johansson and friends), ‘Candy’
Kevin Bronson on
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[Update below with statement from the L.A. duo The Singles]
Scarlett Johansson [pictured during her 2007 Coachella cameo with the Jesus and Mary Chain] sent fans into a tizzy last week by releasing the Go-Go’s-inspired single “Candy” and announcing the formation of The Singles, an all-female pop band with Holly Miranda (who just signed to Dangerbird Records), soul singer Kendra Morris, retro-pop songstress Julia Haltigan and Este Haim (on drums). The song was produced by TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek, who’s releasing it on his Federal Prism imprint. Johannson says of the project: “The idea was to write super-pop dance music written and performed by girls … I love Grimes. And I love the Bangles. And I love the Go-Go’s. I wanted it to be like those bands: ultra pop but also a little ironic, a little in on the joke.”
* The group is going by the name The Singles, which is no joke to Vince Frederick and Nicky Veltman, the L.A. garage-rock duo who last year — as The Singles — released the very fun album “Look How Fast a Heart Can Break.” “She must have known about us. One Google search would do it,” Veltman says via email, adding that she and Frederick are “trying to figure it all out now.”
[Update: L.A. duo The Singles said this morning that they have retained legal counsel and issued a cease-and-desist order relating to the band name, “alleging trademark infringement and a variety of other legal claims.” The statement noted that The Singles have been making music under that name since 1999. “I woke up one morning and learned from the news that our band name was literally just taken by someone else as their own. It’s hard to believe that any musician would do something like that to another band,” Frederick said. “The Singles has been my life for the past 16 years. We have worked so incredibly hard to make it a success. … I don’t understand it. Our band, The Singles, has an account on nearly all social media sites and our music is available in record shops, on iTunes, SoundCloud, and other websites. Just a simple search on Google would have revealed that ‘The Singles’ was already a band name being used by another pop/rock band — our band.”]
||| Stream: “Candy”
[…] background vocals. Frederick relocated to L.A. in 2009, and in 2015, they had a kerfuffle with some Famous People who wanted to start a band called The Singles, but now, happily, the L.A. trio is the first to pop […]