Pollen by Tennis

Tennis and I go way back. I think back to the time I wanted to be on the high school tennis team (this was the hey day of late 80s/early 90s tennis – think Reebok Pumps and Agassi vs Chang). Having had no training whatsoever, and no idea what it might take, I got the courage up to sign up for the round-robin tournament to get onto the team. Then the coach consequently forgot to put me in the lineup, and I had to muster even more courage to go ask him why. “Oh, I forgot, I’m sorry – here, I’ll have you play [name escapes me].” Turns out [name escapes me] was the literal best player on the team (and therefore had not needed to go through the round-robin either). We played a best-of-three sets match and I managed to eek out a 6-0 / 6-0 loss, surprising no-one, and resoundingly ending my budding tennis career there on the spot.

It’s a good thing Tennis, the indie-pop duo from Denver, is nothing like the tennis I know. Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley are husband and wife, and they’ve been releasing music together as Tennis for 12 years now. The phenomenal Pollen is their sixth album together, and the first one that’s resonated well enough with me to warrant repeated listening. Sometimes it just takes a while, you know?

Tennis have a shtick that may or may not work for you. Taking their album at face value, it’s full of solid pop music from start to finish. Nothing too flashy, but almost all of it catch and hummable. But then you look at their videos, such as the one above for “Let’s Make a Mistake Tonight”, or the other one released from this album, for the song “One Night with the Valet,” and it’s clear they’re totally goofing around. They’ve been doing it for their entire careers, so you’d think they’d get tired of it, but clearly not. These two videos are so fantastically bad they’re good, and that’s to say nothing of the great music featured.

Give the album a whirl. You can approach it from many sides – there’s some Chvrches in there, some Tom Tom Club, and even some Kate Bush for good measure. I know you’ll like it – and you may surprise yourself and love it enough to put it on repeat.