INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS

Introduction to Business



Introduction to Business

The success of Best Coast was due solely to the cover-cat star power of “Snacks,'' Best Coast frontwoman Bethany Cosentino's photogenic feline, the group's sold-out show Friday at the Paradise offered proof that its knack for candy-coated hooks also has something to do with the accolades.

The Los Angeles-based Best Coast, whose retro-dosed 2010 debut album, “Crazy for You,'' has been an indie-pop sensation since its release last summer, is riding that rush of adoration with a coheadlining tour that also features fellow indie faves Wavves. But Friday's succinct, marvelously self-assured 60-minute set made it clear that, cobilling aside, this is Best Coast's moment.

The lineup — singer-guitarist Cosentino; guitarist-bassist Bobb Bruno; and ex-Vivian Girls drummer Ali Koehler — was as capably compact and stripped-down as the material, the bulk of which was drawn from “Crazy for You,'' save for surprises such as a frisky new number, “Sunny Adventure,'' and covers of Loretta Lynn's “Fist City,'' and Lesley Gore's “That's the Way Boys Are.'' Interestingly enough, the latter two seemingly incongruous songs — Lynn's classic country confrontation with a man-stealing interloper contrasted with Gore's suburban teen dream pop confection — suited the band well, and showed just how far back Best Coast's aesthetic touchstones go.

Although less reverb-drenched than the echoing walls of sound that surround her in the studio, Cosentino's lithesome voice nevertheless evoked a strong whiff of alt-country siren Neko Case on the back-to-back pining pleas of “Our Deal'' and “I Want To'' — that is, if Case sang Brill Building-penned, girl-group songs about summer in 1963 and indulged an unhealthy obsession with Phil Spector. The band's catchiest number, “Boyfriend,'' about waiting by the phone and yearning for a boy out of reach, emitted a sweetly guileless wonder you couldn't help but wish would ...