Soda Fountain Rag – It’s Rag Time Review
Soda Fountain Rag is the stage name of solo artist Ragnhild Hogstad Jordahl, who is from Bergen, Norway. Definitely, the only artist I know of that is Norwegian (anyone want to list a few that I may know?). Skatterbrain calls her the Greatest Pop export from Norway. Unfortunately for me, I tend to hold back on hyperboles and don’t get recognized for saying “nice” things.
Anyway, I was very interested in checking out her latest album, which comes out on September 30 after listening to a few lovable tracks on her myspace. Go Bus Baby Go and Yesterday are not on this album, which shows off her pop sensibilities and generally has that cutesy pop that comes off as charming, kind of like Little Pictures (a hot band on blogs recently).
When finally checking out her album, I think I had expectations a little high. Her music is all about simplicity, simplistic lyrics, singing and music. It’s almost lo-fi when it comes to the production value but I don’t think that hurts the music one bit. It’s very raw but her music tends to get tiresome for being too childish.
At first I was charmed but the addiction of talking about being young boys and girls is all well nice and dandy for one song but after awhile I feel like there’s need to be other emotions exerted in addition to more complex storytelling that may be adult-esque. It’s decent pop don’t get me wrong but with 14 tracks, you can easily tell Soda Fountain Rag is still very raw and with her flaws. She’s certainly capable of much more and sometimes pop albums are hard to master, especially getting over the uniqueness/creativity factor.
Some of her songs are really fun but in the end, I feel the need to say that I’m not satisfied. I don’t like bashing relatively unknown artists but it is what it is.
Rating: 2.75 out of 5
Monkey Girl by Soda Fountain Rag
You Sit and Wait For Life by Soda Fountain Rag
Tags: album
