NEW YORK, NY—Despite being stuck in the early evening opening slot this chilly wintry night at Manhattan’s Mercury Lounge, local quintet, The Majority Rules, nearly stole the show for a packed crowd of rabid fans, industry types, and curious club denizens. Dealing out well-crafted pop numbers with the greatest of ease, these dazzling upstarts unfurled several amiable originals that’d feel perfectly at home on commercial radio.
Before bringing up glamorous lyrical lead lady, Alana D, diminutive pompadour-haired bassist-composer, Bryan Spitzer (decked out in a silver jacket), prim suit-and-tied rhythm guitarist, Gabe Pressman, lanky leather-jacketed lead guitarist, Jordan Jaeger, and casually dressed snow-capped drummer, Tony Risgica, worked up a funky groove. Just as the band settled into electro-buzzed guitar-powered overture, “Just Alright,” the confidently swaggering Alana entered stage right to deliver its exhilarating emotional verbage and bellowed choral demands.
Dressed in a black party dress with silver sash, the sexy pony-tailed singer’s sultry come-hither charm co-modified Madonna’s disco-bound party-starting spirit, Gwen Stefani’s cutie-pie kewpie doll dramatics, and Patti Smyth’s Scandal-era new wave appeal. Her gushing overwrought theatricality and wide-eyed smiley-faced grimacing gave each succeeding tune in this eight-song 45-minute showcase a gleaming sensual uplift. She hopped and bopped through the insouciant melodicism of “Your Girl,” rendered sweet-voiced sentiments during hard pop-candied sparkler, “So Loud,” and gave hook-filled “super brand new” love trinket, “Summer Love,” a delightful swirl.
Throughout, The Majority Rules showed wonderful clarity of vision and uniformity of purpose, climaxing with caressing multi-harmony hand-clapped jingle, “Enough.” Elsewhere, Pressman’s fiery six-string lucidity shone through the sweeping orchestral synth-strings of poignant balladic turnabout, “Come Out Play.” And Spitzer’s chewy bass boom dug deep into the chugga-chugga riffage adorning playful closer, “Boys Will Be Boys” (which Alana “dedicated to the super horny”).
As eminently centrist as the best mainstream pop, The Majority Rules’ sticky cotton-candied confections and glossy straight-ahead dance rock stimulants proved instantly likeable. Alana’s adorable pixilated frolicking dripped with spellbinding lovelorn sincerity and her friendly instrumental troupe returned the favor by staying focused. Maybe they’ll soon find favor with a widespread audience just like No Doubt did in the ‘90s.
