Please, don’t anyone tell Silversun Pickups that it’s almost 2007. We want the L.A. (Specifically Silver Lake — also home to MTV Artist Of The Week alum Rilo Kiley) foursome to keep making dreamy, fuzzy, unfussy indie pop-rock like it’s gonna be 1993 forever.
Like The Pixies, Breeders, Smashing Pumpkins (pre Zwan, of course) and My Bloody Valentine before them, Silversun Pickups blend boy-girl harmonies, determined guitars and the occasional somber strings into that rarest form of earnest, honest and pure alt-pop – the type that lacks pretentious pomp and unnecessary perk or pep.
Their first full-length album Carnavas staked out impressive footholds on the Billboard Top Independent Albums and Top Heatseekers charts. Not bad for a band that may’ve never existed if founding members Brian Aubert and Nikki Monninger hadn’t randomly met on an airplane. And if we had a car – or fittingly, an old VW van retrofitted with a CD player or just one of those iPod lighter adapters – we’d pop it in and drive up the 101 ’til we ran out of gas, because it’s quite possibly one of the best “driving and thinking” albums since Whiskeytown’s Pneumonia… But right now we’ve got a party to go to, and so do you.
Check out two of Silversun Pickups’ MTV Artist Of The Week on-air sleepover spots, which include puppies, party pranks and poolside performances. And a cookie shrine to Jared Leto. You can see their spots all week on MTV, and you can watch them all here.
Of course, tell us why you love sspu, and remember: don’t fall asleep first.