Tag: 80s

  Operator Please was formed in 2005 for a battle in the bands contest in Gold Coast, Queensland. After winning, the five members independently released the ep On the Prowl. Their second Ep Cement Cement thanks to lots of radio play, word of mouth and probably just good luck got the group to a table sponsored showcase in New York. This showcase got the group signed to Virgin/EMI records.

Honestly, the music is great. The two label backed projects the put out are solid projects. The song that ‘blew them up’ Just a Song About Ping Pong feels like a can of red bull.  It’s silly and the myspace link in the song description just is the most 2000s thing ever. The band was referred to as ‘..The next big thing” by Perez Hilton. The band is baby faced and the song Is catchy. Who knew a song that was just about ping pong could actually be popular at any point in time?

Their second label backed record I think is one of my favourite pop-y electronic records. I think if it came out now it would be so much more popular. But alas, they were ahead of their time. The album Gloves by Operator Please came out in 2010. To not that much critical acclaim. The more monotone blunt lyrics weren’t appreciated as much as the in your face pop punk tunes about table tennis. Some praised the album for it’s more mature writing compared to their first record. I even saw a review mentioning that this band could be “one of the biggest pop groups”.   Say what you will about the record but it’s a easy to digest 80s inspired pop record that shows an air of maturity and I think if better managed by their label the group would have been much bigger and much more mainstream.

The band isn’t around anymore :/ The never officially broke up but they haven’t done anything since 2011. I love talking about them purely because of the almost super big band that could have been that started off like a bad high school movie. I first heard Just a Song About Ping Pong on twitter and fell down a wikipedia hole. There is something about the vocals and the fact they were a mainstream group with a violinist was something super new to me when I first discovered them.I could have probably picked a music suggestion that was a little bit more obscure and a less in depth review but…… I genuinely have been thinking about how I wish this band put out more records forever and have no one to talk about it with.

Another interesting bit is it was one of the first groups I got into that had demos available to compare to released songs! I love listening to both versions of Back and Forth: 

If you went ahead and read all of this, go listen to my current favourite songs by this band 🙂