Let’s make love and listen to CSS

Lovefoxxx (center) and CSS: ice cream hassles (Credit: Roberta Ridolfi/Sub Pop)

It’s a DIY twist on a numbingly familiar story: Cansei de Ser Sexy’s status as an über-cool Brazilian buzz band was great for glowing press clips, but hell on CD sales. While every blogger worth their bandwidth spent the summer of 2006 touting them as the next cool thing thanks to quirky tunes like “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above,” CSS had sold fewer than 500 CDs by the fall of that year. But then a British teen used their song “Music is My Hot, Hot Sex” in a homemade iPod spec commercial and posted it online. The 30-second video went viral on YouTube, and Apple was quick to capitalize, tapping said fan to create an official version of the now-famous TV spot. The attention elevated CSS from buzz-band status to soccer mom playlists and solid sales numbers.

Stumbling into stardom seems wholly appropriate for this band of art students from São Paulo, who initially got together to have an excuse to drink and make music for the fun of it. They’re also probably the only band to have lost a member over a growing carbon footprint. (Original bassist Ira Trevisan left CSS earlier this year, telling the Guardian: “People should care more and do something. I decided to fly less. CSS will always be in my heart.”)

Now that a lucky break has given them an opportunity to turn their party into a career, the rest of the gang have expanded their frantic world-party sound on “Donkey,” CSS' second full-length on indie label Sub Pop. Grungy, guitar-driven rave-ups like lead single “Rat is Dead (Rage)” play nice next to skippy new-wave dance numbers (“Beautiful Song”) and even twisted digital folk (“Believe Achieve”).

But the band's secret weapon is singer Lovefoxxx, whose larger-than-life persona and manic stage antics elevate CSS shows from concerts to full-on raging house parties where something is bound to get broken. (Often it’s Lovefoxxx herself.) Coupled with the band’s penchant for sticky melodies (see the chorus of “How I Became Paranoid”), it would seem there's plenty of life left after iTunes for CSS.