With a touch of sound reminiscent of The Postal Service, PlayRadioPlay’s “The Frequency” is a catchy “poptronic” disc with six songs worthy of anyone’s time.
PlayRadioPlay is a one-man-band. Daniel Hunter, a 17-year-old from Ft. Worth, Texas, started PlayRadioPlay in 2005 simply by posting music to his MySpace after teaching himself to play drums, guitar and bass.
The move he made from there to “The Frequency” is rather amazing. Within the span of a year, this kid went from fooling around with music in his bedroom, to getting more than a million plays on his MySpace (and what musician wouldn’t want that?), to opening for Fall Out Boy (always a plus in my book!).
I have friends back in Michigan who have pulled off one-man-bands and gained local celebrity, but never getting signed or opening for bands like Fall Out Boy. PlayRadioPlay and Hunter have already impressed me.
The instrumentals of the song are incredibly upbeat, making for great times just dancing around ridiculously in your bedroom when no one else is home (that’s normal, right?). Hunter himself said that he “enjoy[s] making music, because [he likes] putting stupid beats together with corny lyrics and dancing like a fool in front of groups of people” and that his “music seems to make people happy, and [he enjoys] making people happy.”
I have to tell you, “The Frequency” does an incredibly good job.
The first song, “Bad Cops Bad Charities,” made me think a little bit of the song “Let Go” by Frou Frou (think of the movie “Garden State”), but only at the beginning. It, like every other song on the EP, has its own flavor that’ll keep it stuck in your head for the rest of the day.
One thing not necessarily noticeable about Hunter’s songs is the actual words that make up the lyrics. I’m not saying the vocal tracks are crap, but that, you get so focused on how buoyant the songs sound, and you don’t really pay attention to the deeper meanings the words have.
Paying attention in particular to “Compliment Each Other like Colors,” you can find the dimension in Hunter’s songs. The music is lighthearted, but the lyrics present a balance that gives you more to think about when you’re sitting alone with your mp3 player, just about to fall asleep.
At the end of “The Frequency,” Hunter has provided a cover of The Killers’ radio success “Mr. Brightside.” A techno-pop clash between PlayRadioPlay and that one band with a pretentious singer, I think I like this cover much more. It’s a bit longer than the original, clocking in at just a little more than five minutes, but it’s worth a listen. Even if you don’t care for The Killers, you just might like this version.
Overall, any fans of pop-techno-dance-fun stuff will enjoy PlayRadioPlay. I suggest giving the entire EP a listen, as six songs totaling 23 minutes won’t kill you. If it does, you can haunt me for the rest of my life.
PlayRadioPlay played a one-week set of shows with Anberlin, Daphne Loves Derby and Jonezetta, and is gearing up for a month-long stint on Warped Tour from June to July. Check him out at myspace.com/playradioplay or playradioplay.com.