Artist: Best Coast
Title: The Only Place
Label: Mexican Summer 311092
Released: May 15, 2012

I have this odd habit of walking around the house and singing about my mundane tasks. I do this with the worst phrasing possible; elongating syllables to match the meter and usually doing it in a very narrow melodic space, somewhat droning.

If you took this annoying tendency I have and wrote a song for the California Department of Tourism, you would get, “The Only Place,” the new single from the second Best Coast LP of the same name. With lyrics like,

“We have fun/we have fun/we have fun/when we please.” and
“Yes we always/yes we always/yes we always/have fun.”

It leads one to believe Bethany Cosentino attended the Rebecca Black School of Songwriting. Not that the lyrics on the debut album, Crazy For You, were approaching Dylan, at least there was a sense of yearning finding its way through the fuzzy production. It was like the Shangri-Las became Valley Girls. Now the Valley Girls have become bored. These songs are like singing phone texts.

Structurally, there are some nice moments. There are good pop hooks and even the melodies are all right if they wouldn’t be delivered so stiffly. The opening to “Better Girl” could have been written by Marshall Crenshaw, but the phrasing of poor lyrics overshadow what could’ve been a great pop song.

I know it’s an impossible dream, but I wish I could hear what Dusty Springfield would’ve done with this record. If she were around to record the closing track, “Up All Night,” it would’ve been a classic. Soon, the only place for The Only Place is going to be in the used record bins.