A big, loud spectacle would be the best words to describe the show the group put on at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe last Thursday night. It seems as though Ricky Reed has the power to bring a party anywhere he goes.
“Spectacle is what we as a country fiend on. Not music, not even looks, not even sex, but spectacle. So as long as I’m contributing to the greatest spectacle in human history, like, nothing matters. Just be big and be loud," Ricky Reed said of electronic pop band Wallpaper.
It was almost unlikely that Wallpaper.’s performance would be such a hit amongst the crowd of reggae-rock fans who were anxiously waiting to watch the headlining band The Dirty Heads. However, once Ricky Reed took the stage in his MC Hammer pants and began dancing around like they were on fire, the audience went absolutely wild.
The synchronized drummers on stage were choreographed, banging their drums in perfect unison, looking in the same direction as they hit the drums and even raising their sticks together before each pound.
Wallpaper. began as a satirical pop band in Oakland, Calif. However, it seems Ricky Reed has changed his mind about what the band was — and is — all about. He explained, “I’ve always made music as real as I can and make music as fake as I can. I’ve tried to make real art and fake art at the same time, all the time, the whole time. More people know about us, so it’s more successful, but it’s all in the ear of the beholder.”
What the “ear of the beholder” will hear are high-energy pop songs with lyrics that are simple enough to remember and melodies that are irritatingly catchy. The band’s most popular song, “#STUPiDFACEDD,” was heard by millions when it was aired on the season 3 premiere of “Jersey Shore.”
“Jersey Shore” was the band’s biggest outlet for popularity. “The music kinda goes with the show, so it makes sense,” Reed said. This is incredibly true seeing as how Reed sings, “White boy wasted / Glue stick pasted / Stupidfaced-ed,” which very much reflects the lifestyle of the characters on “Jersey Shore.”
Apart from the show, Wallpaper. has also done some impressive projects to boost their number of listeners. Just recently, Reed teamed up with Rivers Cuomo of Weezer to write Cee-Lo Green’s newest single “Anyway.”
For a band with such wild and ludicrous songs, the name Wallpaper. begins to seem unfitting. Wallpaper itself is dull, as is pop music, Reed admitted when he said, “In general, (pop music) is a big old bowl of oatmeal with no sugar in it. It’s wallpaper; it surrounds us. It’s the soundtrack to our lives, but we don’t engage with it, we don’t connect with it … it doesn’t really affect us.”
“We called the project Wallpaper. because originally, we were trying to draw attention to that, but now we’re trying to make pop music better,” he said.
It is debatable if Wallpaper. is really improving pop music, but there is no argument that their music practically forces you to dance. The audience had a hard time resisting the sounds of Ricky’s party songs. The bass drum was so loud you could feel it in your throat each time it thumped out of the speakers, Reed’s crazy dance moves were contagious and his songs encouraged you to get out-of-your-mind inebriated. In fact, soon after he took the stage, the entire floor began to reek of alcohol.
It is no doubt that Reed will gain more of a following with his ability to get listeners out of their seats and move their bodies to his music. He truly has full-blown pop-star potential. When asked what the future might hold for the band, Reed said, “It’d be tight to have hella money. It’d be tight to be super famous. I was about to say, if I could just eat well and have a good home and make records the way I want to. I was gonna say this and that … but I guess I’ll just say: Get money and get famous.”
Spoken like a true pop star.
Reach the reporter at jocelyn.gee@asu.edu
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