Best Coast

Crazy for You (Mexican Summer)

By Emily Becker
Published: July 27th, 2010 | 7:00am

Thanks to a string of 7 inches and EPs, Best Coast established an enthusiastic fanbase in less than a calendar year, and all those newly minted fans are fired up and ready to receive the full-length debut, Crazy for You. Though formed as an L.A.-based duo, at the moment Best Coast is a trio comprising singer-guitarist Bethany Cosentino, multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno, and recent Vivian Girls defector Ali Koehler on drums. They’ve even got an unofficial mascot in Cosentino’s cat, Snacks, who graces the album’s cover.

Part surf punk and part girl group, Best Coast’s music deconstructs popular song and repurposes only the choice cuts. Crazy for You blends the best elements from the Beach Boys’ Surfer Girl, Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville, and the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Stoned and Dethroned. Cosentino and Bruno upped the production values, allowing more melody to surface instead of burying it under layers of fuzzy noise as they had on the band’s earliest 7 inches (“Crazy for You," “Our Deal”).

A musical moving target of happy songs about feeling blue, Crazy for You is next generation beach blanket bingo aimed at Millennials for whom Annette Funicello remains a cultural abstraction. The album’s old-fashioned simplicity and playfulness speaks to every woman, like when Cosentino sings, “I lost my job / I miss my mom / I wish my cat could talk” on “Goodbye.” We’ve all been there, and though she’s only 23, she’s already mastered infusing her songs with intimacy (“Bratty B,” “When I’m With You”). Whether she’s a crazy ex or a chatty best friend, she seems like someone we all know.

Cosentino’s obviously the band’s heart with plenty of charm to spare, and comes across like the slurred wordplay between her name and the band name. (Imagine saying “Bethany Cosentino” while stone drunk—you get “Best Coast.”) But don’t mistake her “easy breezy” Twitter bio for an honest self-description. No one can write songs this good and be high all the time. She's a former child actress who’s crafting a persona—a very loveable, lazy, talented persona. She might just be the canniest performer on the scene since Jenny Lewis did “The Frug.”

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Best Coast official Web site

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Mexican Summer