Hilary and Haylie Duff
“Our Lips Are Sealed”
2 minutes, 38 seconds
I always felt The Go-Gos’ original “Our Lips Are Sealed” lacked something, particularly given the subject matter of keeping secrets — it lacks a needed cherubic impishness, that skirts the line between horn-rimmed, houndstooth-bedecked librarian and saucy 1900s French coquette. Luckily, the Duffs’ production itself dances between generic, over-produced synth fluff and a level of meta-sarcasm heretofore unencompassed by their latter-day pop cohorts.
This is perhaps the first pop song I’ve heard that begins with its own bridge. The coruscating, snaking arcs of rhythm electric guitar build towards a palpable crescendo of a starkly understated nature — Haylie’s crisp, ’80s power pop vocals over a solid, working rhythm line. She trades vocal duties with her younger, more popular sister Hilary, whose own voice resembles Haylie’s (except for the retention of an ultra-post-modern grrl-anthem-worthy teeny-bopper chirp).
The reverb underscores the hollowed-out, labyrinthine corridors of a preteen girl’s mind and its candy secrets, in which Barbie dolls and the call of a sophisticated adult image lay abrogate. The drumline is never too aggressive a timekeeper, and the snare is pounded with sturdy aplomb.
At 1:27, the bridge we were teased with kicks in: hush my darling / don’t you cry. The cognitive dissonance of this dueling mother/daughter symbolism is as intangible as the wave-particle model of the photon. (Though Hilary and Haylie would likely find distaste at the obvious “double-slit experiment” quip.)
In an era where celebrity — particularly the musical variety — can be manufactured at a label’s whim, it’s a pleasant change of pace to hear a little raw talent shine out from under the now-overused Spector Wall of Sound. (Indeed… at what point is it so manufactured that it stops being sound?)