The Pipettes have finished their new album! It looks like, after Rose and Becki quit, neither Anna nor Beth worked out as replacements, so it's just the two Saunders sisters, Gwenno and Ani, along with Monster Bobby and the boys.

They just put up the video to their new single "Our Love Was Saved By Spacemen" on their website, http://thepipettes.com. There's also a link there to a free MP3 download of the song.

It's quite a different sound from their first album - imagine Xanadu-era ELO, but with '60s girl-group vocals instead of ONJ.

I like it!

Edited for embedded video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrAoTW_7QXA[/youtube]

Thanks for posting, Hank; this is great! Can't wait for the new album.

That video kind of looks like an ELO album too.

Huh. Big departure from the first album (which is one of my all-time faves...)

Thanks, Hank. This sounds really fun. I loved the first album but wouldn't really have wanted another one that was more of the same.

Thanks for sharing, Hank.

This is welcome news. I too, liked the first album, but I'm glad to hear that the second album won't be a rehash. Let's hope they stay intact for much longer this time.

I think that since they appear to have given up on having a 3rd Pipette, there's a good chance that this lineup endures. I mean, they're sisters, so that can help hold things together. Just look at Oasis.

Oh, wait...

But in all seriousness, I don't think they'd add a 3rd girl at this point unless Rose or Becki wanted to come back.

Look at Bananarama, who have managed to stay together as a duo since 1991, releasing a great new album last year.

Click the below link for a 30-second snippet of another new song! This one is REALLY good.

http://www.popjustice.com/index.php?opt ... Itemid=279

According to this article, the album will be entitled, EARTH VS. PIPETTES

The Pipettes – Return with new album for 2010
Posted on 15 February 2010 by Emma

UK Pop band return with brand new album ‘Earth vs Pipettes’

New single ‘Stop the Music’ released April 19th via Fortuna POP! Records

Format: limited edition red vinyl 7″/ CD EP + digital bundle

Girls singing retro-tinged tunes with synchronised dance moves? A Machiavellian pop experiment inspired by KLF’s The Manual cooked up in a Brighton boozer by the mysterious Svengali Monster Bobby? Well yes, but there’s been an evolution – a change in the genetics. The Pipettes are back, and now they’re a big shiny pop group. Or at least, that’s what they’d like you to believe.

In their first incarnation, donning polka dot dresses and referencing the girl groups of the late fifties in the heyday of skinny tie indie music, The Pipettes had remarkable success. A top ten album in Japan where the single ‘Pull Shapes’ was only kept off the number one spot by J-Lo, top ten radio positions all across Europe, two Top Forty hits in the UK and a Top Ten in the US billboard indies. They played on the main stages at Reading and Glastonbury, blazed a British trail across SXSW, conquered the world and sold a heap of records.

Having destroyed the male cock rock hegemony of the noughties and after Ronson, Winehouse, Duffy et al, the whole mini-movement that snowballed inexorably from that first polka-dot sleeved 7″, one might think the sensible thing for The Pipettes to have done, would be to simply sashay back in town with a sound as close as possible to the one we know them for and reclaim their rightful place at the head of the table. Not The Pipettes. They had promises to keep. A manifesto to follow. A five year plan.

Those promises were going to have to be kept with the loss of some personnel. Drummer Joe Lean left to find his Jing Jang Jong as Rose Elinor Dougall and RiotBecki left for solo careers away from what the band term “self-manufactured pop”. No bodies under the floorboards, no dramas, just the usual churn in pop bands… Rose, Joe and Becki had their own talents to explore whilst The Pipettes remain focused on exploring pop. And besides, The Pipettes retain a great vocalist in Gwenno Saunders, the lead singer on The Pipettes biggest hit to date ”Pull Shapes” and living proof that the Welsh, from Jones and Bassey onwards, have the best pipes. Gwenno’s sister Ani was recruited to reinforce that theory and Alex White (of The Electric Soft Parade and Brakes) completed the new line-up on drums.

The Martin Rushent-produced new single ‘Stop The Music’ is released on the Fortuna POP! label responsible for last year’s indie smash The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and includes a remix by Justus Köhncke of Kompakt. The track is a gleaming disco ballad inspired by the dance scenes in Spike Lee’s film ‘Summer Of Sam’. It continues the themes of their debut – speculating wildly on why boys remain a constant source of trouble – but projects these issues into a different place and time. The girls who once doted on the harmonies of the Ronnettes now play out their relationships to the beat of the discotheque. Studio 54, Larry Levan and Philly soul influence the beat and strings, frustration and sadness make the melody, creating a slab of dramatic pop with a classic chorus hook that never ages. From Thelma Houston’s ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ to Robyn and Kleerup’s ‘With Every Heartbeat’, sadness and a fat beat always make for the best pop. Once again The Pipettes are ready to use the past to trail blaze into the future.

The Pipettes: Gwenno, Ani, Monsterbobby, Seb, Alex and Jon

New video ‘Our Love Was Saved by Spacemen’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrAoTW_7QXA

Website: http://www.thepipettes.com/

The full version of "Stop The Music," as well as another song, "So I Say Goodbye" have been posted at http://www.myspace.com/thepipettes.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zg_ri_vHuUo[/youtube]

Official video for Stop The Music has been released!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9i28NoBdrM[/youtube]

Heard some of this. Didn't like it at all, unfortunately.

The e-mail I got from Fortuna about it sums up what I didn't like:

Thanks to a change of line-up and a hop, skip and jump into 2010, they’ve reinvented themselves as a big shiny pop group, leaving behind the realm of the three female harmony girl-group and moving towards the sounds of Chic-inspired seventies disco and eighties chart music.

New video:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHRNGxYRiUg[/youtube]

I think on this one, they've shed any and all gimmicks and are just a straightforward dance-pop band now, thoroughly modern sounding and looking. No gimmicks. Which isn't a bad thing, no matter how much we loved the three girls in polkadots last time 'round.

Not only are the polkadots gone, though, it's only one of those original three girls. I know the same backing musicians are involved and that they're supposed to be the masterminds behind this act anyway, but to me this just ain't the Pipettes.

Actually, NONE of the original three girls. Gwenno joined kinda late.

The should have renamed the band, IMO.

Oh well, nothing can take away from the brilliance of that first album.

Gwenno was on the original album, though, yes? I like these new tracks for entirely different reasons than I did the first album. Brinig it on, I say!

Correct. IIRC, she was on all but the first single or two, but is missing from nothing that most people have heard.