Fitz & The Tantrums

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Apr 6, 2011

Evil Women And Men Meet Evil Women And Men, A Love Story

Words by Sean Moeller, Illustration by Johnnie Cluney, Recording engineered by Mike Gentry

All is never fair in love. Never. Never ever. Okay, fine, some of the time it is, but we're not here to talk about those times. I think if we're going to be perfectly honest with one another - you dear reader and listener, me, and Fitz & the Tantrums' lead singer and songwriter Michael Fitzpatrick - we would all admit to seeing fair happen in love so few times that we'd need the fingers on half of, or perhaps a full hand. You see, love leaves a lot out when it's doing its thing. There's no doubt that it can be good, even if it's unfair, and vice versa. So, what we're trying to say here is really, very little of the profound nature, but we'd just like it to go on record that we think the general behavior of the emotion might need some reform that it will never get. It's just too dense. It will never take direction and so we just get by, letting it work us and everyone else around us, as much as it could ever want to work us. Fitzpatrick was able to plumb himself for the old soul that was buried within him after an unfair bit of love ripped him apart and left him for the buzzards. As a front man, he plays the man who's been used by women with nasty intentions. There's lying and cheating and plain old evil pulling the strings on all of their working parts. They are women that you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley or a well-lit one because, all the same, they're going to get their hooks into you and before you're able to realize it, you'll have already been victimized and you'll just be in the same sad situation that Fitzpatrick found himself in. But hell, it's probably only this bad in hindsight. Those snakes were gorgeous and smelled good at the outset. They had riveting pairs of legs and bodies that every warm-blooded man wanted to do unholy things to. That hot and bothered world turns into a cold, apocalyptic one in a hurry and Fitzpatrick - as the old soul and funk forebears that he admires and does service to did - chronicles that descension, or rather, where it all comes out on the other end. It seems that he is privy to the kind of insight that you'd always like to have on the other side of a failed relationship. It's information that actually will be used intelligently the next time some minx comes along and tries to sidle up to you. All of your Spidey senses get tingling, but you're wiser than you once were. Fitzpatrick and his singing cohort Noelle Scaggs create an interesting tension in Fitz, as the songs seem to be almost systematically almost the shady things that women do to men, but with Scaggs' sassy sexiness, we're more alert to there being a fuzziness involved. See here: everyone fucks it up. There are plenty of people who love for the wrong reasons, or get crushed and hurt for the wrong reasons, and when we hear Fitz & the Tantrums give us the playback with the most joyous and energetic fire, we realize that being the victim gives anyone some choice material. Fitzpatrick, Scaggs and their crack ensemble burn through the hurts with smirks on their faces, getting back at the fates and those shitty men and women who dumped them, cheated on them, took their money and left or caused them the kind of grief that only lasts because it gives the breakup story that special kick, when he or she says, "And get this…," before dropping the shocking conclusion.
 
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