Minty Fresh
2003
Pop Has Freed Us
About This Album
Papas Fritas' brand of pop is charming, innocent, and drawn from classic sources as diverse as the Beach Boys, '70s AM radio, Fleetwood Mac, and classic U.S. indie pop. Well, maybe those aren't the most diverse sources, but the group takes them and creates a varied and invigorating sound. Tony Goddess and Shivika Asthana's open-hearted, artless vocals can't help but charm all but the most hard-hearted listeners, and the band's playing is always energetic and full of imagination. Pop Has Freed Us is a career summation that includes eight songs from their three LPs and one EP, as well as nine songs previously not found on any album. There are three tracks from 2000's excellent Buildings and Ground, two each from 1997's Helioself and 1995's Papas Fritas, and the title track from 1996's Passion Play EP. If you program the disc to play just the tracks taken from their records, you might just be stunned at what a consistently wonderful pop group the Fritas are; in fact, the best of these tracks compare well to any band from the '90s or 2000s that had the nerve to play simple pop music. "Passion Play" is a miniature epic brimming with passion and sporting a fittingly dramatic arrangement, "Holiday" is a bouncy, hooky romp, "The Way You Walk" is a sultry ballad that wouldn't sound out of place on Rumours, "Hey Hey You Say" is a song that will stick like glue in your head with it's flypaper chorus and insistent rhythm.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 5,10,11,13 and 17)

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Disc 2

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