Dressy Bessy "Sound Go Round" CD (2002)

Details: Dressy Bessy, "Sound Go Round," released on Kindercore Records (2002). Dressy Bessy's second studio album released on CD format (US). Playback tested, no issues--CD shows heavier VG wear. Cover/insert in perfect condition.

Description: "...There’s no other way to say it: Tammy Ealom is one of the most unassuming and perfect songwriters in modern pop. She doesn’t sound like she gets out much, but it’s not like Brian Wilson did any club-hopping either. These songs are the kind of things that people who do nothing but listen to records in their room all day long for their entire childhood write — there, but for the grace of having no musical talent, go I. This is the genius of Dressy Bessy’s bubble-gum pop: it makes the personal into the universal, and assumes that if there’s one lonely funny quirky person in the world, that there are at least a few more out there who want to hear songs by that person.

Like all true pop superstars, Ealom only has two subjects: love and music. (Oh, and one song about flowers.) We get the happy: the opening song, “I Saw Cinnamon”, is about the perfect boy: “I saw Cinnamon / Rockin’ down the row / He had his arms full of melody / Fa so la ti do”. We get the sad: the way Ealom delivers the lines “Let’s hear another song / About the girl who’s seen it all / She’s seventeen coming up on eighty” can’t help but transport you right back into being eleven in your bedroom listening to albums on a rainy Saturday afternoon eating peanut butter-and-banana-and-raisin sandwiches. And we get the happy/sad: “Maybe Laughter” turns on the crucial lyric “This somebody makes you laugh girl / Is someone who who’d make you cry still”. Music and love are empowering, are melancholy, are everything. I’m in love with Tammy Ealom’s ultra-adorable vision of the world: if it ain’t comin’ out of the record-player speakers, it just ain’t real.

But all this cuteness never gets oppressive, thanks to the fact that Dressy Bessy is a band rather than just a singer-songwriter project. John Hill punches these songs up with a grungy Nuggets-style guitar sound, which is a fine thing. Too many bands aiming at a ’60s pop sound forget that Brian Jones was the true hero of the British Invasion. And the closing song on this album, “Carry On”, features the most insanely funky rhythm breaks on any album I’ve heard recently, courtesy of Greene and Albert. Little touches here and there make this record something beautiful: a Zombies-flavored organ whine here, the Herman’s Hermits bounce on “Just Being Me”. They’re never less than tight, and at their best, like “There’s a Girl” and “All These Colors”, they’re world-beaters.

Go ahead, dismiss Sound Go Round as “merely” a pop album with girl/boy songs. But do so at your peril. This album kicks as much ass as a really good junior high basketball team. I can think of no higher compliment."--PopMatters

Grade: NM (Cover/Insert) / VG (CD)

CD TRACK LISTING:

1. I Saw Cinnamon
2. Tag
3. There's A Girl
4. Just Being Me
5. That's Why
6. Oh Mi Amour
7. Buttercups
8. Maybe Laughter
9. Big To Do
10. All This Colors
11. Flower Jargon
12. Fare Thee Well
13. Carry-On