November 28, 2000
Dolphin Blue
Ooberman remain as irritating as a child star tap dancing on your forehead...
And so seasons change, moods swing, and Ooberman remain as irritating as a child star tap dancing on your forehead. This is, after all, a song about escaping modern life's cruel realities by becoming a dolphin; a song that features the lines "Underneath the oceans my legs will turn to fins/Can you hear the echoes?/It's music to my nose"; a song that makes you long for the masterful socio-political comment of 'Octopus' Garden'. Pram manage this kind of saucer-eyed kiddie trauma very well, but Ooberman are just an indie production of Blue Remembered Hills, grown men and women wearing T-bar sandals and bunches way past the age of consent. For all the aquatic effects and coralled beats, their faux-naive schtick soon wears thin and the respect you feel for them because they clearly don't want to be Radiohead soon fades when you realise they all want to be Bonnie Langford instead.
"The dolphins are calling", coos Sophia sweetly. And so, unfortunately, are the tuna nets.
Victoria Segal
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