The soundtrack of this site: Holly Beth Vincent

You better tell that girl to shut up
Tell that girl I'm gonna beat her up
You better tell that girl, tell that girl, tell that girrrl.

Holly Beth Vincent's "Tell that girl to shut up" doesn't quite fit Sam's situation, but we're all postmodern quotists now, and any excuse will do for a good song.

Holly Beth Vincent, vocals, guitar, and songwriter for Holly and the Italians is one of the great power pop "might have been"s of the 80s. She could write, play, and sing to match the best, but by the time the Italians' album, The Right to be Italian, was released the right moment had passed, and the timing, plus the band's name, made them seem manufactured to those who didn't pay close attention to the credits.

Her subsequent solo album, confusingly entitled Holly and the Italians, is a work of genre-transcending brilliance, and Holly does virtually everything on it. Mandolins and trumpets join rock instruments in a melancholy wall of sound.

Both records have been re-released on CD. (Buy them now!)

(Martha and the Marbles are supposedly the closest present-day equivalent, but I remain to be convinced.)

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