Tune of the Week - “Just A Song About Ping Pong”

I heard the new single from The Thrills during the week. This, you will be glad to hear, is not it.

God, The Thrills suck. In the pantheon of lousy Irish bands, they slouch tall. Yes, even in the midst of such mighty triumphs of mediocrity, The Thrills stand out a mile. The new single sounds just like every other Thrills single I’ve ever heard. It’s so depressing. I mean, is there a point to The Thrills?

Which is why this song from a bunch of Australian teenagers called Operator Please is rocking my world so much this week.

It’s just a song, as the title says, about ping-pong. Nothing more, nothing less. But it sounds so absolutely fantastic and life-affirming and upbeat and bright and sweet and ridiculously fun that it made me smile. This is what pop music is supposed to be about, isn’t it? Great big smiles on your gob.

Here’s what you need to know about Operator Please.

They are, from left to right above, Sarah, Timmy, Taylor, Amandah and Ashley.

The five of them met in Elanora High School in Brisbane and started to rehearse during their lunch-break for the school’s battle of the bands competition.

They won the competition and went away with a box of doughnuts.

They decided to keep playing together and writing songs.

They’ve already signed a couple of record deals (Brille Records will be releasing “Just A Song About Ping-Pong” on various plastic formats in July in this part of the world) and will be playing the Reading and Leeds fests in the UK in August (Electric Picnic bookers, please pick up the phone to their agent and do the business right away).

Taylor plays the violin.

You can hear “Just A Song About Ping Pong” here, watch the fantastically yellow video here or purchase the song right now from iTunes.

You can take it as read that The Thrills will never ever sound this vital, this exciting, this young or this fun no matter what they ever do with themselves.