In America, when girl bands get mad, they get even. Like the Donnas, they guzzle beer and stomp on distortion pedals. Anything boys can do, they can do better.
This, apparently, is not the case in England, where snarky girl pop has become a leading export. The Pipettes, a witty trio from Brighton, are the latest to join the diplomatic mission spearheaded by Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse. Donning polka-dot dresses and slathering on the three-part harmonies, the band, which headlines at Great Scott Thursday, doesn't just evoke the '60s girl-group sensibility: It replicates it completely, right down to those guttural "whoa-oh-ohs."
The group's concept falls somewhere between post-feminist statement and dinner-theater gimmick, but no one - including the trio's rabid fan base - seems to care. The Pipettes focus on the '60s, says vocalist Rebecca Stephens, because the songs from that era remain ingrained in the cultural consciousness, even to this day.
"Take the Shangri-Las," she says. "You can sing one of their songs, and people won't know who they are, but they'll know the song. The songwriting was so successful that these songs are obvious to people."
Written with that standard in mind, "We Are the Pipettes" is a short and unrelentingly sweet collection of pop gems that don't waste a minute or a measure. The band's message tends to be direct: either get to the dance floor ("Pull Shapes") or get out ("ABC"). The band's biggest crowd-pleaser is the handclap-heavy single "Your Kisses Are Wasted on Me," which is best described as a sugar-coated "She's Just Not That Into You."
"We formed against the indie-rock scene in England because we were bored with it," Stephens explains, lamenting the sad boy-rock of the Brighton scene. "We wanted to offer audiences another viewpoint."
The Pipettes's concert experience is certainly unique in today's drab indie-emo scene. For starters, the band actually includes two groups: the stage trio of Stephens (who goes by RiotBecki), Gwenno Saunders, and Rosay Dougall, plus a four- man backing band called the Cassette. All seven band members write the songs.
"The great dichotomy of our band," Stephens says, "is that you have this performance element and a behind-the-scenes element. [The men] can write the most emotional and feminine songs, and no one will know. None of the boys would write songs for us that they would write for themselves."
Unlike the '60s, though, the women are also writing the songs in the Pipettes, and they, too, can use the hyper-femininity of the band as a mask. "These are elements of our hidden selves," Stephens says.
If it sounds a bit academic, well, it is. True to their name, the Pipettes are a musical experiment concocted by the Brighton-based DJ Robert Barry, who goes by the stage name Monster Bobby.
As the band's founding myth goes, Bobby and his friend Julia Clark-Lowes founded the band in 2003 after noticing that party crowds went crazy for girl-group songs at parties. They recruited Stephens and Dougall, and Saunders joined when Clark-Lowes left. Bobby continues to play guitar in the Cassette.
"It's great having a theoretical head to keep us from getting too out there," Stephens says of Bobby, who studied critical theory in college. The band's post-modern, post-feminist message - if there is one - is murky, however. In this band, the men and the women are all puppeteers, and authenticity remains elusive.
Suffice it to say that while the '60s girl groups capitalized on their fabricated sincerity, the Pipettes hope to succeed on the sincerity of their fabrications. The band plans every show methodically, Stephens says, changing the set list with every gig and adding new dance moves.
"We think about the show as a whole, and we ask ourselves, 'What could make this more ridiculous?' " she says with a laugh, adding, "We really make an effort."
The typical Pipettes show is a high-energy affair, full of dancing and costumes - both on stage and in the audience.
"It's super energy, like the B-52s - highly caffeinated sugar pop," says singer Nicole Atkins, who is opening for the Pipettes for this leg of the tour. "Most of the shows have been all-ages, so there have been tons of younger girls who have little beehives and cat-eye makeup. They're practicing their dance moves before [the Pipettes] even get onstage."
The Pipette women are keenly aware of their effect on their young female fans, and if there's a clear feminist point they want to get across, it's that music is a fun and rewarding career for women. Stephens says the band is working against the image, propagated by the movie "Dreamgirls," that girl groups will be mired in ego and jealousy before long.
"It really infuriated me to see three girls all fighting and being bitchy," she says with a sigh. "I was thinking, 'Oh, come on, you can get along. This is such bollocks.' "
As for her own role models, Stephens often thinks back to the riot-grrl bands that inspired her as a teenager, especially Bikini Kill.
"I thought, 'This band makes me want to be in a band,' " she recalls. "This is my chance to attempt the same thing. That feeling is so powerful, I can't even describe it."
