∙ At the 2014 Juno Awards (the Canadian Grammys), the duo won Group of the Year, Pop Album of the Year ( Heartthrob), and Single of the Year (“Closer”). ∙ Produced by Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh, “Everything Is AWESOME!!!” was the closing theme from 2014’s The Lego Movie and became their first Platinum-certified single. 3-their highest ranking to date-and topped the Top Rock Albums chart. ∙ In 2013, Heartthrob entered the Billboard 200 at No. Working mainly with producer Greg Kurstin, the duo's approach is slick and punchy with lots of synthesizers, programmed drums, and a sound that falls somewhere between Robyn and Katy Perry on the pop. Four years later, on 2013's Heartthrob, the duo dives into the pop mainstream headfirst. ∙ Get Along, composed of two short documentaries and a live concert film, was nominated for Best Long Form Video at the 2013 Grammy Awards. On their 2009 album Sainthood, Tegan and Sara made some tentative steps into the pop mainstream by stripping their sound down to the bare essentials and delivering a batch of their hookiest songs to date. ∙ Their 2012 Gold-certified single “Closer” spent 18 weeks on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart, peaking at No. ∙ They released their 1999 debut, Under Feet Like Ours, as Sara and Tegan, but they soon swapped the order of their names to avoid being thought of as a solo artist called Sara Antegan. For now, call it a calculated risk that mostly works.Based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Tegan and Sara is an award-winning indie-pop band composed of identical twin sisters. It seems to cater more to the latter than the former, and while that's not an inherently bad thing, it certainly could backfire and end up as the outlier in their discography. The sisters have always incorporated candy-coated synths in their music. It'll be interesting to see how Heartthrob plays among Tegan and Sara's fanbase, and to the masses for that matter. That Tegan and Sara Quin went full-on ’80s Friday-night skate party on their new album, Heartthrob, isn’t a surprise. "I'm Not Your Hero" blows out its chorus rather impressively from the verses with some neat, alternated instrumentation. "How Come You Don't Want Me," co-written by Jack Antonoff of fun., is that extremely sad song full of emotional longing that T+S have perfected over the years, just through a poppier lense and without all the restraint. Tegan And Sara Heartthrob Warner Music Canada RATING By now Tegan and Sara are what you could call seasoned veterans on Canadas Indie scene. That's not to say all the ballads on Heartthrob fall short. Tegan and Sara just don't quite exude enough personality into these with their distinct voices for the first time in their career, they seem to be playing down to the competition. Same for the acoustic guitar and vocal melodies in "So They Say," and some of the lyrics ( "You don't need to wonder / If love will make us stronger / There's nothing love can't do") are too cloying, even for this type of music. "I Was A Fool" features a piano part that, in some iteration, seems like it's been part of twenty other radio hits before it. In other areas though, the duo struggle to inject personality into songs that desperately need it in order to stand out from the crowd. Still, a good pop song is a good pop song it's hard to imagine anyone walking away from these offended, at least. The club-ready hooks in songs like "Closer," "Goodbye, Goodbye" and "I Couldn't Be Your Friend" are undeniable, if a bit standard in their execution: They all rely heavily on canned, electronic-sounding percussion and plenty of synthy sounds, with a craftsmanship that's decidedly commercially influenced. Having sold nearly 1 million career albums and toured with acts from The Killers to Neil Young, Tegan and Sara are now positioned for the release of their 7th. It's clear Tegan and Sara set out to make a pop record, and it succeeds in that realm. It's also their best album overall.) The question is: Will anyone care? Will their passionate fanbase, large by most measurements but smaller by a mainstream barometer, follow them down this path, or will they exit, feeling alienated by this new direction? Will new fans, music consumers who get their tunes from the radio, television commercials and the like, welcome them with open arms? What's the endgame here?Īs far as the actual music on Heartthrob goes, it's mostly solid when one factors in intent. (For those scoring at home, the best amalgamation of T+S' underground roots and pop tendencies was 2007's The Con. Their indie rock and punk roots, which remained present over the years even as the duo's music became more accessible, have completely left the picture. Tegan and Sara wrote an unabashedly mainstream pop record in Heartthrob.
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