Not much is known about Monica Rypma. The Dutchwoman didn’t exactly put herself on the map with a huge number of releases during her active career. Her most successful record, if you will, is definitely »Classifieds« from 1985, which is practically impossible to find in the original version nowadays according to the reissuing label BBE. Rypma financed the album’s release at the time with donations, and friends helped with the production, songwriting and composition. The result is a synthesiser pop gem on which Rypma reveals herself as a talented singer with a penchant for pathos. The pieces alternate in their direction of movement. On »Hey, Where You Goin’« melody and performer go on the offensive and sound just like the decade in which the album was made, the eighties. Even years later, you can still hear in every bar how the use of synthesisers still triggers an exuberant compositional euphoria, as tracks like »Ik Hou Veel Van Jou« are so playfully and lovingly embellished. But »Classifieds« is not satisfied with being labelled an eighties synthesiser-chanson record. It therefore repeatedly intersperses slightly disorientating interludes without Rypma’s vocals that contrast the live club atmosphere of the pop numbers. The interplay between the interlude »After War« and the surprising upbeat number »What’s the Sense of War« is most impressive. »How can you explain it, what’s the sense of war?«, Monica Rypma sings on it and formulates a timeless and childlike-naïve question.
Classifieds
