To me, one of the sexiest songs ever. Led by singer Justine Frischmann, Elastica‘s self-titled debut album was loaded with bite size chunks of new wave and punk – riffs stolen in broad daylight from records by the likes of Wire and the Buzzcocks, then stripped, refurbished and amplified for the post-grunge mid-90s. It was a perfect antidote for the bloated dreariness that the Seattle sound had become, and it was accompanied by this video full of stuttery editing and nude bodies sitting in formation. (A goofier, more kid-friendly video for the song features the band playing on the screens of toy TV sets. This one fits the song better though.) The song landed some regular rotation on MTV and even charted to #53 on the Billboard Hot 100; lately, it can be heard in commercials for Chase.
Though Frischmann had links with two other titans of 90s brit-pop – she was a founding member of Suede but split from them before they got famous, and she dated Blur’s Damon Albarn for several years – Elastica proved unsustainable. Five years and several personnel changes later, the band released their second and final album The Menace in 2000. Frischmann has since established herself as a painter.
