I LOVE YOU BOYZ | I WANNA BUY I LOVE YOU BOYZ

Five songs from this CD

Download ten songs from the CD in a single zip file here.

Is that not one of the greatest CD covers of all time? I really don't know how to classify I Love You Boyz. Parody? Hip-hop? Canto pop? They're all of this and more. I superamount hearts with colorful glitter love them, though their CDs are wildly uneven. But some of this stuff sounds like nothing else, unless you listen to a lot of WFMU, maybe. But it's more awesomely, if not stridently, pop. Or, they need a word all their own: Pawp.

Found in Brooklyn's Chinatown at my favorite local CD/video store near the corner of 8th Ave and 53rd Street (which has now become more of a bookstore than a CD/video place, alas). Four bucks. Four bucks!

I remember the day I got this (and a number of other CDs), afterward going up 8th Ave a bit to a Szechuan restaurant, and getting into this whole, complicated discussion with the waitress, who turned out to be the owner/cook's wife. She saw the bag my CDs were in and wanted to see what I'd gotten. So I spilled them all out on the table, she saw this CD, and blurted out: "Oh! Where did you get this?"

"Just down the street. You know that video store at the corner of 53rd?"

"They have it already?"

This led into a whole discussion about Cantopop and Hong Kong and how much she missed being there. At which point she sort of bit her lower lip and explained that she and her husband were, yeah, not actually from Szechuan, but Hong Kong, and had moved to the states--how many years ago, did she say? It must have been a while, because the CD is from 2004. So, if she thought it was amazing that the store had this CD already in 2009--well, you get the picture.

As she talked, I thought about the Robert Sietsma rave review clipping in the window of the place (had he used the word "authentic," and had it been, like several times?), and made a "twist-mouth" face.

Did they have dan-dan noodles? I asked.

She looked at me sheepishly, shook her head and sort of half-shrugged. "We're from Hong Kong," she smiled.


Absurd ILYB comedy routine


Somewhat less absurd ILYB music video