Alice in Videoland

While the electroclash scene may have dropped from the hipster radar lately, there is still some pretty cool music out there that merges hard electro and ’80s-style vocals and song structures. Sweden’s Alice in Videoland are by no means pioneers, and could easily be dismissed for the cheese factor common in harder European electro pop, but they do have some pretty catchy tracks. Singer Toril Lindqvist channels Cyndi Lauper and Gwen Stefani with a rawness nicely suited to the energetic synthesised accompaniment. The album’s opener "Emily” is a definite highlight, and "Ladykiller” and "Bad Boy” follow in a similar vein. But the album as a whole suffers from overproduction, which often drifts dangerously close to Euro-trance. Ultimately, the songs face an identity crisis — produced to a high standard, sure, but too intense to be pop music, and too pop to be cool electro.