I, for one, am thrilled for Natalie Portman's Shaved Head getting to tour the country with Lily Allen, because their album, while messy and not exactly sonically revolutionary, is wall-to-wall fun (if I could write "wall-to-wall fun" with bright green and yellow and orange highlighters, surrounded by doodles, I totally would) and because freaky, funny things just sorta seem to happen to them. Grandy has written that they "try too damn hard to signify how terribly 'fun' they are, with wacky outfits, side-ponytails (quirky enough to warrant their own song!), and a glossy but ultimately preset electro-pop style that sounds like every crap track on Hype Machine." That's kind of hard for me to believe, since everything that I know about Natalie Portman's Shaved Head indicates that the whole being-in-a-band-together was kind of random and accidental and a joke. And the rest of the world just started taking it seriously, possibly because they didn't let up and also because of that irresistible name.

Evidence: Back in 2005, the writing center for young people in Greenwood called 826 Seattle was starting up, and one of the smarter, sweeter high school seniors, Claire England (how could a kid be so lucky to have that name?), was helping throw the grand-opening party, for which there was a budget of $0. She was put in charge of finding some entertainment.* So, she asked a couple of her friends to play keyboards and sing made-up songs, and these three friends of hers (poster children for puberty-in-progress) showed up and played keyboards and made-up songs, all while making fun of themselves: they wore headbands, they sang songs about fruit snacks and testicles, and they plugged in a fog machine. A bunch of adults stood there looking at these kids and their headbands and their fog machine and just couldn't believe it was happening. Their songs were HORRIBLE. (If I could write that in highlighter, too, I would.) And they called themselves Natalie Portman's Shaved Head, which the staff at 826 Seattle thought was the funniest, most random band name ever. Behold: THE POWER OF GOOD WRITING! Sometime later, Claire joined the band.

Their album, Glistening Pleasure, which came out last summer, has been on constant rotation in my life lately because (1) it's so much better than any album I ever expected from those weird kids; (2) it's high-energy and easy to jog to (when a lot of my music-listening happens); (3) they still sing about, like, Shamu and sideways ponytails and getting boners all the time, which is adorable and in keeping with how I think of them; and (4) they are very young heirs to the electronic-based, jump-around-the-stage, let's-just-be-crazy-happy United State of Electronica thing. U.S.E.'s members are also relatively young, but they're dinosaurs compared to NPSH. When you're that young, it's not a pretense to make songs like the songs NPSH makes. What else are they going to do to entertain themselves? They can't get into bars yet.**

* I wanted to see if the internet knew about 826 Seattle being the band's first gig, so I went to Wikipedia. Wikipedia, hilariously, says their first gig was at "Seattle's Club 826." There is, obviously, no such thing as Club 826. (But it sounds fancy!)

** It's possible they can get into bars now. Not sure. Haven't heard from Claire in years.