''Vivian Girls'' is the debut

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by American

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band

Vivian Girls Vivian Girls is an American band based in Brooklyn, New York. The only consistent members have been Cassie Ramone and Katy Goodman, on guitar and bass, respectively; the group has had several drummers throughout its history. They took their n ...

. It was released in May 2008 by the label Mauled by Tigers. After Mauled by Tigers' limited pressing of 500 LP copies quickly sold out, ''Vivian Girls'' was reissued on CD and LP by In the Red Records on October 7, 2008. It was reissued again by

Polyvinyl Record Co. Polyvinyl Record Co. is an American independent record label headquartered in Champaign, Illinois. The label also has satellite offices in New York, Austin, and the Bay Area. Polyvinyl has put out over 400 releases to date. The Polyvinyl roster ...

in 2019, alongside its 2009 follow-up ''

Everything Goes Wrong is a 1960 in film, 1960 Cinema of Japan, Japanese Sun Tribe film directed by Seijun Suzuki and starring Tamio Kawachi and Yoshiko Yatsu in her film debut. The story follows Jirō, a rebellious high schooler, in his Sadomasochism, sadomasochistic ...

''.

Composition

''Vivian Girls'' has been described by critics as an album of

lo-fi Lo-fi (also typeset as lofi or low-fi; short for low fidelity) is a music or production quality in which elements usually regarded as imperfections in the context of a recording or performance are present, sometimes as a deliberate choice. The ...

and

noise pop Noise pop is a subgenre of alternative and indie rock that developed in the mid-1980s in the United Kingdom and United States. It is defined by its mixture of dissonant noise or feedback with the songcraft more often found in pop music. Shoegazi ...

music. '' Paste''s Henry Freedland said that it exhibits Vivian Girls' fusion of

art punk Art punk is a subgenre of punk rock in which artists go beyond the genre's rudimentary garage rock and are considered more sophisticated than their peers. These groups still generated punk's aesthetic of being simple, offensive, and free-spirit ...

and

shoegaze Shoegaze (originally called shoegazing and sometimes conflated with "dream pop") is a subgenre of indie and alternative rock characterized by its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion and effects, feedback, and overwhelming volu ...

- pop, while ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' noted the presence of

garage rock Garage rock (sometimes called garage punk or 60s punk) is a raw and energetic style of rock and roll that flourished in the mid-1960s, most notably in the United States and Canada, and has experienced a series of subsequent revivals. The sty ...

elements.

Critical reception

''Vivian Girls'' was met with favorable reviews from music critics. The album holds a score of 80 out of 100 on the review aggregation website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, based on 15 reviews. ''NME'' stated that "between the omnipresent slabs of reverb, the trio flip between harmonic garage rock, gloomy melodies and twee-

Birthday Party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature ...

isms". Jesse Darlin' of ''

Plan B Plan B typically refers to a contingency plan, a plan devised for an outcome other than in the expected plan. Plan B may also refer to: * Plan B, a brand name of levonorgestrel, an emergency contraception drug Film and television * Plan B En ...

'' praised the songs' melodies as "all hard and spiky on the outside and gooey on the inside, like tough girl music should be." At the end of 2008, ''Vivian Girls'' was named the ninth best album of the year by Rough Trade, while ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...

'' listed it as the year's 16th best album.

Legacy

Despite being polarizingly received when it was released, ''Vivian Girls'' has since grown in status. In a 10th-anniversary retrospective, ''

Stereogum ''Stereogum'' is a daily Internet publication that focuses on music news, reviews, interviews, and commentary. The site was created in January 2002 by Scott Lapatine. ''Stereogum'' was one of the first MP3 blogs and has received several award ...

''s Patrick D. McDermott dubbed it "22 of the messiest and most influential minutes" in noise pop's late-2000s resurgence. Finding the album "hip and timeless", McDermott stated that it introduced lo-fi as an aesthetic and the importance of atmosphere and production to "millennial

indie Indie is a short form of "independence" or "independent"; it may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Gaming *Independent video game development, video games created without financial backing from large companies *Indie game, any game (board ...

kids". He also credited it with giving listeners something different beyond the "pastoral-sounding boy bands and

Coachella Coachella may refer to: * Coachella, California * Coachella Canal, in California * Coachella (festival), an annual music and arts festival in California * "Coachella – Woodstock in My Mind", a 2017 song by Lana del Rey See also

* Coachell ...

-band

psych ''Psych'' is an American detective comedy-drama television series created by Steve Franks for USA Network. The series stars James Roday as Shawn Spencer, a young crime consultant for the Santa Barbara Police Department whose "heightened observ ...

" common in indie music at the time.

Track listing

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes. Vivian Girls * Katy "Kickball Katy" Goodman – bass, vocals *

Cassie Ramone Cassie Grzymkowski (born March 17, 1986), better known by her stage name Cassie Ramone, is an American musician and artist. Ramone rose to prominence as the guitarist and vocalist of indie rock band Vivian Girls, who broke up in 2014, and later ...

– guitar, lead vocals, cover artwork *

Frankie Rose Frankie Rose (born 1979) is an American musician and songwriter. She was an original member of Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls, Vivian Girls and Beverly. Career Formerly of bands Vivian Girls and Beverly, Frankie was the drummer for the acts Crys ...

– drums, vocals Additional personnel * Tim Fiore – tambourine * Jeremy Scott – mixing,

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, ...

Charts

References

External links

* {{Authority control 2008 debut albums Vivian Girls albums In the Red Records albums