Annie
Don't Stop (Smalltown Supersound)

Annie calls her sophomore album, Don't Stop, “pop with strange edges”; it moves with twists and eccentricities so surprising that the tunes persistently demand a double take. Both immediately listenable and utterly beguiling, this "pop with strange edges" is mainstream and underground, all at once. Sometimes expressive, sometimes funny, but always totally fresh and utterly human, Annie’s new album, Don’t Stop, puts on something of a show.

Recorded over the last three years, Don’t Stop will pull off the tricky task of pleasing Annie’s existing fans, while, just maybe, making her a bit of a household name. Think of that first album, Anniemal, which sold more than 100,000 copies and established Annie’s name as one to watch throughout Europe, America and the Far East, as the blueprint; now think of Don’t Stop as a faithful amplification of Anniemal’s winning charms.
Complementing Anne Lilia Berge Strand’s pick ‘n’ mix, genre-hopping pincer movement are an array of handpicked associates: Don’t Stop reunites Annie with Timo Kaukolampi and Richard X - collaborators from Annimal – and introduces a host of new friends like Paul Epworth (known for his work with Bloc Party, Primal Scream, The Rapture, Florence and the Machine), Brian Higgins (Xenomania) and Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos. It’s a twelve-course feast for the modern musical connoisseur -- a frenzied, but undeniably solid proposition, an effortless and organic blend with Annie center stage.

Annie’s journey this far has been a long one. It started when she was a teenager living in Norway’s tune capital, Bergen, long before she founded the legendary clubnight, Pop Til You Drop, or her debut single “The Greatest Hit” sent the planet’s online community into a frenzy. Before all that, during dark days fronting a terrible Norwegian indie troupe called Suitcase, Annie would send her band’s demos to Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley. “Fortunately he doesn’t remember them at all because they really were very bad,” Annie laughs now, “but by the time Anniemal came around Saint Etienne asked me to tour with them.” Annie’s friendship with the band continued as Anniemal and its lead single “Chewing Gum” put Annie on the brink of global stardom in 2005. Annie toured America, Japan and Australia, then got down to writing for the second album. Eventually, Bob Stanley introduced Annie to the producer Brian Higgins, who was a fan of Annie’s breakthrough U.S. hit, “Heartbeat”. This introduction led to the two working together on the new album last summer in Brian’s Xemomania studios in the Kent countryside.

Flashforward to 2008 and Don’t Stop is a schizophrenic, but undeniably solid proposition. Future single "My Love Is Better," comes with a deliciously angular guitar hook courtesy of Alex Kapranos, all thrown into a melting pot of blazing pop beats, sing-along choruses and hilariously competitive couplets (“underneath your smile you don’t want to lose / Babe I’ve got the style, you’ve just got the shoes”). Though the track sizzles with Xenomania's trademarked everything-but-the-kitchen-sink sonic style, one of the production team's surprises on this album is an object lesson in well-judged sparseness.

Continuing one of Annie’s recurring lyrics themes (“that love and horrible things don’t always come together,” she laughs, “but they seem to for me”) is “Heaven & Hell”, which is the sort of song Annie hears playing as credits roll in an imaginary romantic comedy. It’s a breezy number which reflects Annie’s developing passion for the best bits of French pop – Brigitte Fontaine and Serge Gainsbourg, for example – and is complemented on the album by "Marie Cherie". That song was recorded with Timo in the same studio as much of Anniemal, and tells the doom-laden tale of a girl who commits suicide because she’s been abused by her father, and whose disappearance is noticed by nobody. “Bad Times”, with its haunting observation that “the loneliness reminds you that everything fades”, is one of Annie’s autobiographical moments and another of the album’s “love and horrible things” songs, evoking the glacial, hypnotic power of “Heartbeat”. Don’t Stop also boasts Annie’s first true four-to-the-floor anthem leading to dancefloor abandon, the Richard X-produced club banger "Songs Remind Me Of You".

Additionally, Annie worked with Paul Epworth, who remixed Annie’s “Heartbeat” in 2004, in his London studio. Together, they worked on the title track, “Don’t Stop,”, “I Don’t Like Your Band,” and the stomping opener, “Hey Annie”.

And let's not forget the enjoyably ridiculous, "The Breakfast Song" where Annie spends most of the song shouting “what do you want – what do you want for BREAKFAST!” amid ear-splitting synths and clattering drums. “I wrote it while I was making breakfast,” Annie confirms. “It’s about getting up, starting the day, and just doing what you have to do until the day’s over.” The song’s life-on-autopilot message is reflected, rather more ominously, in the atmospheric “Take You Home”, with its grim chant of “I cannot lie, my fear of you is strong, I don’t love you, I want to take you home”. “The album works against itself,” Annie says. “I like there to be two things happening at once; pop and cool, happy and sad.”
Don’t Stop cements Annie’s position as the postergirl for the end of the decade's remarkably varied musical landscape. Making perfect sense of pop's brilliant extremes, it’s a stunning collection of irresistible pop songs and Annie loves its stylistic contradictions. This is, after all, the work of a woman whose cat Joey was named after bothher favorite Ramone and her favorite New Kid On The Block.

back to top