“Hey Boy”
from the EP Poor Aim: Love Songs
2004
iTunes
If Khaela Maricich, the woman behind The Blow, were in an arm-wrestling match that featured Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, and Avril Lavigne, she would kick their asses. Though this is a collection of love songs, as the title says, you shouldn’t expect Maricich to torture you with the cheesy, generic crap that you get from these famous divas. Maricich is too honest for that. The favorite moment is in the first song, “Hey Boy,“ which is all about a guy who didn’t call back. “A, you’re gay / B, you’ve got a girlfriend / C, you kind of thought I came on too strong, or / D, I just wasn’t your thing,” she ponders, in order to explain it to herself. How often do you hear a love song that reminds you of what it actually feels like to be in such a situation? All of this plain talking is expertly backed by electronic beats that straddle the line between hip-hop and feminist punk, and brought to you by Maricich’s lovely and deceptively innocent voice.