The Kimberly Trip

In the 1980s, I pretty much disavowed all music. What I heard on the radio seemed at best inane and at worst unlistenable: overproduced songs with dumb lyrics, silly guitar solos and overwrought vocals. That said, the Kimberly Trip’s second album, Catastrophic Behavior, is an album that distinctly references a kind of 1980s musical sensibility, so much so that many of its songs could easily fit on a John Hughes film soundtrack (perhaps Pretty in Pink, sandwiched between Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Suzanne Vega). Because of my own biases, I can’t say this is a CD I’d ever listen to, but the Kimberly Trip is admittedly really good at what it does, and tracks like “O.C.D. Guy” have enough hooks to ensnare Molly Ringwald (and win back-to-back songwriting awards from the Northern California Songwriters Association).