New Belsen

No doubt blissfully ignorant of the clueless snarky few who would deem their rise to billionaire-hood yet another example of the cultural vapidity that litters a child's weedy garden of verseless, Wind in the Willows-less Americrud,they exist solely to soothe the savage snot-nose with video and/or audio pabulum in much the same dogged, Pavlovian, baby-controlling manner as Shrek. . . rewind . . . Shrek. . . rewind . . . Shrek.Tiny teen twin tycoons Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen—with photogenic presentation reminiscent of pre-pube anime vampire hunters and the super-trouper veteran souls of olde-tyme showbiz grit (said grit consisting of one part vaudeville-era living doll, one part grind-out-the-product factory worker à la Ani Difranco, and one part perfection personified courtesy of Shirley Temple)—have built an empire based completely on their ability to be the very best children that they can be.

Whereas past MK&A releases have relied on the old-school rhyming skillz of the chipmunk-cheeked twinz themselves, the soundtrack to the motion picture Holiday in the Sun(alas, no Pistols cover) calls on the stellar new wave rock of Mirainga, the American Girls, Noogie, the Flys, and more, so you know you're in good hands. MK&A do make a cameo on Empty Trash's cover of Weezer's "Island in the Sun" (how fucking timely! And how fucking much better is this album than Weezer's death rattle of a disc? Lots! Well, almostlots), and its sprightliness is the highlight on a disc that melds disco, girly sounds, Korean grunge, and astral-plane-inflected poetry-infused hip-pop with the deftness of a German equivalent of K-Tel. Any awkwardness that may have marred some of the twins' work post-sitcom legend Full Househas been ironed out and made to glisten in this, the third decade of Olsen supremacy.