Fischerspooner: #1 : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Like Britney Spears, New York performance act Fischerspooner generates theater, video, fashion and hype that's as much of a creation as the music itself. And like Spears' music, the debut album from Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner only sometimes stands on its own. Long stretches of #1 sound like the synth-pop soundtrack to a vintage video game: thin and static. But its woozy high points can make you forget the self-described "hypermediocrity" elsewhere. "The 15th" transforms Wire's lonely punk ballad into a pulsating keyboard lullaby. "Emerge" mutates 1980s aerobics-class beats and a self-motivation mantra to reach a perversely catchy, pogo-dancing climax. It's an alternative-galaxy hit in the glorious New Wave tradition - and all Fischerspooner's ridiculous wigs, Cats-worthy outfits and desperately artful pleas for attention are just icing on the spandex.

BARRY WALTERS
(From RS 917, March 6, 2003)