The guitar-heavy punky sass of classic female led-bands such as Elastica, and The Divinyls echoes long and loud through The Infamous HER’s new single, ‘Hula Hoop’.
It could in fact be argued that lead singer Monique Staffile channels the late great Chrissy Amphlett with ‘Hula Hoop’. Her vocals are raw and gravelly, brash, and sexual, while maintaining a level of teasing campiness that draws in the listener, hanging on every note. Flirtatious and suggestive lyrics, such as where she says she can “go all night”, can be interpreted any way you like – but it’s just about having some fun hula-hooping, surely?
Both the song and the video have their roots in an old VHS Tape, which shows Staffile at her sixth birthday party, hula-hooping in front of her friends and family, as if her life depended on it. In the new video, directed by David Dutton, everyone challenges Monique to a hula-hooping contest, but she is the ultimate hula-hooping queen, because, while they say they can go for minutes, she can go for hours, and proves it.
The band sets up the song with a heavy guitar riff, and Monique jumps and growls out a series of naughty double-entendres, teasing the listener and viewer that once she starts, she can’t stop. Full of vintage fun, the clip feels every bit as if it’s a low-budget MTV video, with the quick cut pandemonium and early computer imagery. It’s just so cool every second of the way. Speaking of the video, The Infamous HER says,
“We make the viewer know we are just having fun and not taking anything too seriously. The only thing we took seriously was actually trying to hula hoop on camera.”
While the band try their darnedest, it’s soon clear that Staffile will retain her hula-hoop techniques – until we are let in on some green-screen BTS shots.
Check out the groovy clip for ‘Hula Hoop’ below, and follow The Infamous HER online for more about the band and their music on their official website, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
