31 January 2008

in january it's so nice

mostly it's a month for playing catchup, or in whatever sense to deal with old music. because in januarys there is more or less no new music. few if any big deal new releases to speak of

[this year no bright-eyes, no strokes, no shins and of montreal; i guess the big stories were the magnetic fields' predictably accurately-titled non-return-to-form distortion - not too impressed yet, though (i hate) "california girls" is nice enough, but maybe i need to go listen to some jamc and come back to it - and vampire weekend, who seem very nice, but also seem to have enough people liking them for the time being; i'll be glad come back and like them some more in a little while. of course the biggest album released in january 2008 was radiohead's in rainbows, which i recently purchased for $9.99 - it's very nice, with cool and pretty if confusing packaging - but as we all know it's very much old news]

and even anything released in december is officially old because it's just gotten finished being endlessly included on year-end lists and recaps, or more likely not included on those things because people didn't have a chance to process it yet. so basically january is a chance to discover the music that other people were excited about the previous year, even though your enjoyment of it will inevitably carry a sort of tarnished feeling, since it will be decidedly, emphatically so last year.

in my case (and for more than a few, i'll reckon), i took a gander at that there pitchfork best of 2007 list and gaggled, huh-what is this "swedish" "pop" musics of which you speak? am i aware of these "fellow swedes" who were busy "concocting anthems for sunshine-soaked shorelines this year"? and wait whaddayamean "it was a balearic year"? uh-oh, was i listening to the wrong 2007? no, i just wasn't paying attention to p4k, rlly, what with stylus ceasing to publish and all.

anyway, so i just found out about this band the tough alliance. they took me a number of listens to "get" - and it's still sort of hard to describe their music (i said it's the intersection of swedish indie-pop, swedish synth/dancepop, and swedish spacey electronica - except they sound like they're pretending to be caribbean, or they're in the caribbean) - but they really are something pretty great and unique. i immediately wrote the official definitive biography about them, as per my job as authoritative expert on scandinavian pop music, which i mostly researched by looking at everything on the amazing sincerely yours website (that's the label they're on and run), where they assign a catalog number to everything, including mp3s, music videos, weird one-off merchandise items, and oh yeah records too. i kontakted the label and told them i liked their website, and they sent me a lovely gorgeous package with a sticker claiming it had been lost and/or damaged in the mails, but in fact that was not true, it just had copies of the tough alliance's a new chance, the honeydrips' here comes the future, air france's beach party, and jonas game's adhd. all of which are great, and which i will review soon. see, i'm as cool as pitchfork!

there's also this group studio, whom i had already heard of, and whom i haven't been listening to - in fact i passed up a copy to buy their album used (which i now regret), having heard them a bit and decided they were nothing special; fine but dispensable, atmospheric and jazzy and organic and groovy in a kind of jam band way that i have not much use for. honestly i think this is my problem with appreciating jazz; it's not that it's indulgent, i just feel like there's so much of it around that i don't need to worry about it - it's easy to come by, more of it can be easily generated, without the kind of investment and craft that goes into, for instance, pop songwriting (not that jazz doesn't involve craft, it's just a sort of craft that involves endlessly renewable well-springs), so that its value becomes hopelessly watered down. that said "life's a beach" is actually pretty sweet. (and by the way it's not jazz at all.)

mgmt, who i first encountered opening for of montreal lo these many years ago (august of 2005!), have finally grown up and released their debut album (on columbia records no less, and the first of a reported four-album deal - that's crazytalk!) i'm not sure what i think of it yet, but it does at least reprise two highlights from their EP that i bought way back then: everyone's favorite hit "kids" (made famous on my october is eternal mix) and p4k best-of-'07 inclusion "time for pretend," which has an unbelievably awesome video (seriously, one of the greatest music videos i've seen, which may not be saying too much) made by a friend of somebody who lives with my friends, that i was lucky enough to see at a weekly variety revue at their house two weeks ago. apparently, amazingly, that video is not available on the internets yet, but i will let you know when here it is (embedding disabled by request, don't wanna figure out how yr supposed to get around that.)

ingrid michaelson,
whose album was wxpn's cd of the month this month, and whom i saw perform at "free at noon" a few months back, and who gets photographed eating food creepily often (each with literally hundreds of comments about how beautiful she is - u have to be signed into myspace to see though), and who supposedly is emblematic of a new model of indie music success (i.e. song placements in tv shows and commercials), has this song, her "big hit", "the way i am," which is so minimal and slight that it's barely even there, with short simple verses (with lyrics that are banal, and worse, embarrassing - liz always talks about how it mentions rogaine) and even shorter, simpler choruses - the whole song is basically this tiny nugget of melody, 1-2-3-2, which is fit into a single syllable in its first three iterations ("i" "love" "you") and then stretched out to four words ("take me the way.") it's kind of brilliantly economical, and annoyingly catchy in a really obvious but understandable way. by the way, we don't think we like ingrid michaelson.

i heard the song on the radio and it made me get, in succession, regina spektor ("better"), natalie imbruglia ("torn"), and the cranberries ("zombie") in my head. not sure what to say about that.

meanwhile, i've been thinking about kylie and madonna. i was out somewhere recently and heard a song that i vaguely recognized, then realized was from madge's maligned 2003 album american life (i think it was "nobody knows me") - it sounded pretty good and it reminded me very much of blackout and the corresponding recent glut of vocal-twerking electro-pop productions (most of them by bloodshy/avant), and i wondered whether american life might have been ahead of its time, prefiguring that recent wave of innovation (if that's what it is) and unjustly dismissed as uninventive. relistening to it a little bit... well it's not a great album, mostly because the songwriting is somewhat wooden and of course the rapping is just embarrassing, and as appealing as the acoustic guitar + electronics formula is, it mostly sounds like it's attempting to recapture the glory of "don't tell me" and never quite hitting it. still, it's probably better than it's remembered as. "nobody knows me" is probably the best song.

this is totally weird: it is the only album in history to provide seven top-ten hits on the hot dance music/club play chart. (from wikipedia.) (even though it only included one #8 single on the hot 100, the bond theme "die another day," which barely counts - though it does also feature some of that bloodshy/avant steez.

you know what album's even worse though? kylie's body language, which is also from 2003. i remember being tremendously excited for both albums when they came out - i bought a bootleg copy of the madonna in the ny subway for $5 (only time i've ever done that), and waited and waited to order the kylie online at a halfway-reasonable import price - having totally swooned over their respective predecessors (i actually loved music when it came out in 2000, but fever was still a belated revelation for me when i first heard in '03 - it was the turning point for me in terms of embracing mainstream pop.)

but i never warmed to body language, as much as i was determined to, and it's obvious why - it's just not that interesting. apart from "slow," which is pretty nifty and unusual, but never got me that excited, i don't understand the singles choices at all. to me the obvious standout would be the rather blunt but funky (at least) "sweet music" or perhaps "obsession." otherwise i can't even remember how any of the songs go, looking at the track list, although upon listening i remember that "still standing" is pretty cool and catchy (though i would never have remembered that it's called that.)

but on the whole it's an astounding and inexplicable disappointment as the follow-up to fever, which was not just one of the greatest dance-pop albums ever made, but also among the most successful. it's probably relevant to note that almost none of the same songwriters return: cathy dennis and the duo of stannard/gallagher, who each had a hand in three of fever's standouts, get one co-credit apiece, on the two fine but unremarkable closing two tracks; and then there's kylie herself (who has four co-credits here rather than five.) it's certainly stylistically coherent (as fever was), but it's just nowhere near as compelling.

if you ask me, her two stand-alone singles from 2005 - the glistening, scissor sisters-produced futurism of "i believe in you" and the simple but effective pumping disco of "giving you up" (orphaned except for their appearance on the double-disc ultimate kylie) - are far superior to anything from body language.

and then there's x, the actually-not-that-interestingly-titled 2007 album, which is a "return" after kylie's succesful battle with cancer hoo-rah! and also after four years which is actually not that much time in blockbuster pop diva album terms (she's on course with madonna, for instance.) and, from what i can tell, it seems to be getting a sort of middling reception from critics for being stylistically scattered and unfocused and not projecting a clear persona that's recognizably kylie.

i guess if those things are true enough, if they bother you, but to me they overlook the fact that this album is just so much more vital and vibrant and fun than, for instance, (the generally well-received) body language. i mean, fair enough to have your specific preconceptions of what you expect a given popstar to deliver musically, but what with this recent glut of (especially english) diva-pop full-lengths (kylie, sophie, roisin, natasha, mutya, siobhan, sugababes, girls aloud) to work through, i'm just trying to stay focused on who's actually bringing the goods, and to my ear (and maybe my surprise), kylie's got this round covered (roisin maybe a close second, that'll take some more listening.)

i've been listening to x a bunch, and it's just tremendously listenable. that may be because pretty much every track stands out in some way or other, from the obvious highlight of guitar-based glam-schaffel lead single "2 hearts" to the jaunty, serge gainsbourg-sampling "sensitized" to the sparse, boom-bappin' "heart beat rock." sure, much of it is - obviously, gleefully - derivative, including "2 hearts" (shades of goldfrapp, though of course it goes further back than that), "speakerphone" and "nu-di-ty," which are cut from the same whole cloth as blackout (and yeah, recall "technologic" too), and slightly slight but appropriately immediate second single "wow," which is a second-hand "love at first sight." and whatever's not specifically derivative is generically derivative - hey, it's electro/disco/pop.

my current crush/favorite is "all i see," which is just a sweet lil love song written and produced by cutfather and jeberg, who also did "one step at a time" on the jordin sparks album that i blogged about somewhat randomly and intensively and which has exhibited considerable staying power ("no air" has really grown on me too, though i still haven't paid enough attention to determine why/whether the central metaphor makes sense.) and the two songs ("all i see" and "one step") are extremely blatantly similar, with the same step-step groove, very similar harp figures, and almost identical chord progressions. they've been playing off one another in my mind all the time - i never know which one is stuck in my head, since it's pretty much a trick question to begin with.

the thing i can't decide is whether this is a problem. is it okay for writers and producers to recycle their own material? what's the line between "sonic signature" consistency and unethical self-plagiarism? (do ethics even enter into it, or is this purely an aesthetic debate?) obviously if both songs were on the same album it would be pretty obnoxious (kylie is nearly guilty of this herself on fever, with "come into my world" following soundalike "can't get you out of my head" up the charts just a little facilely), but most kylie fans are unlikely to even encounter this random jordin album track, and vice versa. which may make it even more insidious. personally, i'm just interested in hearing more of what jeberg and cutfather have to offer, to find out whether it's more than this one particularly captivating, sentimental pony trick. (even as i consider that the seductive familiarity of "tattoo"'s opening synth-strings probably owes a little too much to the benificent omnipresence of the likewise stargate-produced "irreplaceable.")

hm. is that what i have to say about january? guess so.

25 January 2008

selling insights by the word (6¢ apiece)

...and now that i've weighed in on the ark, robyn's self-titled magnum opus is just about the only Pop album of the last few years that i absolutely adore, scandinavian or otherwise, which i haven't written about for amg. (though that's about to change.) it's been an immensely enjoyable process, though, as i say, a slow and painstaking one, since i seem to be compelled to explore and reconsider each album i review, even those i know and love intimately, to come up with at least one new nugget of insight - and in some cases it has substantially transformed my understanding of these albums.

so here's a round-up of some of what i have written there so far - call it round-up round one - with links to some of my favorite reviews and bios with excerpts that hopefully convey some of the insights i've gleaned. in the order i wrote them:

Margaret Berger: bio, Chameleon and Pretty Scary Silver Fairy reviews

Margaret Berger (or "Marble," as she introduces herself to us) reportedly wished her album to be "sweet but mean at the same time" -- hence the "pretty" and "scary" of the title -- a description that resonates with the balance she strikes between tones of innocence and experience. As befits a set of songs written by a 21-year-old reflecting back on her teenage years, these tunes convey a sense of carefree, youthful hope and boundless optimism that's often tempered (though never too harshly) by a more complex, knowing nostalgia.

[...] Recordings from her [Norwegian] Idol stint, as well as many tracks from her debut, reveal her to be a remarkably soulful, full-throated singer, but for the bulk of Fairy she modulates her voice into a more modest instrument. Not that it sounds thin or lacking in personality: although it would have been interesting to hear a song like "Get Physical," for instance, with a more commanding, emotive delivery, a simpler and sweeter approach is probably more germane to this mode of somewhat icy electro-pop; it also accentuates the mood of playful innocence. That Berger evidently chose to downplay her vocal abilities for the sake of constructing a sonically and thematically unified album is in itself a strong indication of her refined sense of pop craftsmanship.


Amy Diamond: bio, This Is Me Now and Still Me, Still Now reviews

Amy Diamond's tricky. She was a young teenager when this debut album was released -- a preteen, in fact, when some of it was recorded (though you'll have a hard time believing that when you hear her big brassy voice; and the cover photo makes it look like she's about six.) But her recordings are certainly more sophisticated than you would typically expect of "children's music." And - unlike the bulk of pop made by (and for) teenagers - neither do they attempt to mimic the forms and themes of "adult" pop, at least not in the familiar manner of teen-centric rock, R&B, and dance-pop. In that sense, Diamond isn't pretending to be something that she's not -- but it's still remarkably hard to determine who, exactly, she is, the album title notwithstanding: This Is Me Now may be chock-full of personality in a musical sense, but it's bizarrely lacking in identity.


Richard X: bio and Presents His X-Factor review

"The best album in the world ever! Massive tunes! All the biggest stars! All the biggest hits!" So proclaims voice-over artist and former BBC DJ Mark Goodier partway through producer/mash-up pioneer Richard X's sprawling spectacle of a debut album. It's a joke -- obviously -- and a decent indication of the cheeky, lighthearted tone with which X constructs his reverently irreverent recombinant electro-pop. But it's not hard to take the suggestion at least a little bit seriously, particularly slotted as it is just before one of the most genuinely "massive" tunes of the early 2000s (in Britain, that is): the Adina Howard/Gary Numan frisson-collision "Freak Like Me," which began its (bastard) life as a bootleg 7" on X's Black Melody imprint (as "We Don't Give a Damn About Our Friends," recorded under the name Girls on Top), before it was re-recorded by the Sugababes and debuted at number one on the U.K. singles chart.


Sway: bio, This Is My Demo and One For the Journey reviews

This debut album, which followed two rounds of "This Is My Promo" mixtapes, displays him as a fully formed and formidable talent: self-conscious and introspective (that much should be evident from his album titles), but never tediously chin-stroking or esoteric; delightfully witty and droll but almost always with a well-considered underlying message; streetwise but hardly thuggish; linguistically nimble but not ostentatious; decidedly English in rhetoric, references, and voice, but distinctive enough, and with enough sheer unqualified charisma, to transcend genre and geographic boundaries. Indeed, Sway strikes such a well-positioned balance between so many poles and potential pitfalls, offering a little something to appeal to almost any potential listener, that you'd expect him to come off as overly calculated. On the contrary, though, his casual, almost tossed-off earnestness is quintessential to his charm.


Minor Majority: bio and Candy Store review

Minor Majority's musical m.o. -- elegant, intimate, acoustic folk-pop -- remained virtually unchanged between their 2001 debut release and this 2007 compilation...the group swelled from a duo to a quintet over that period, so their more recent work is somewhat more fleshed out, or at least more likely to include drums; they've also picked up a bit of studio polish along the way.

[...] Like their similarly hushed countrymen Kings of Convenience, Sweden's Nicolai Dunger (circa Tranquil Isolation), and Iceland's Funerals, they manage to assimilate a distinctly American strain of rootsy melancholia into a style that only subtly hints at their Scandinavian origin.


The Veronicas: Hook Me Up review

The Veronicas -- who seem to be in control of their own career to an impressive extent for a pair of 22-year-old girls -- are the rare teen pop act for whom visual presentation is almost entirely incidental. (Note, for instance, that they haven't appeared on either of their album covers -- which is practically unheard of in teen pop -- and they're 22-year-old identical twin sisters.)

In fact, this album's glistening electronic trappings -- besides being enjoyable in their own right -- only serve to enhance the integrity of the Veronicas' aesthetic by elucidating the grand driving tension at the heart of confessional teen pop: the juxtaposition of adolescent angst with pop's transcendent sweetness.


Skye Sweetnam: Sound Soldier review

Since she first emerged in 2003 with the teenage rebellion anthem "Billy S." (probably the only song in history to contain a shout of unabashed glee about how much teachers get paid), self-described bubblegum brainiac Skye Sweetnam has toured summer camps, clubs, and stadiums (as Britney Spears' opening act) in support of her debut album Noise from the Basement; contributed her voice to The Barbie Diaries and her songs to The Sims; turned 16, 17, 18, and 19; emphatically protested the inescapable comparisons to fellow Canadian punk-tart Avril Lavigne (in Basement's "Hypocrite" she ironically refers to herself as "Avril-lite"; at one point her guitar sported an "Anti-Matrix sticker in reference to Lavigne's notorious production team), and amassed a reported seventy songs in preparation for her follow-up album with collaborators in Toronto, Los Angeles, and Sweden. In 2007 -- the same year that Lavigne unveiled a newly spunky, playful attitude and gaudy fashion sense noticeably similar to Sweetnam's own, and scored the first rock number one in six years with a song ("Girlfriend") highly reminiscent of her bratty, cheerleader punk-pop -- Sweetnam finally emerged with her second album (it had been delayed for well over a year since its originally scheduled release date), which turned out to have been produced and co-written predominantly by the self-same Matrix with whom Lavigne found her initial success. Such is life in the topsy-turvy, high-stakes, and jet-setting world of rock-based teen pop.


Tunng: This Is Tunng..., Comments of the Inner Chorus, Pioneers, and Magpie Bites reviews

"If it can be broke then it can be fixed/if it can be fused than it can be split" - it reads like a mission statement for resourceful sonic collage artists Tunng, who have built their career on breaking genre boundaries by fusing traditionalist acoustic folk with spluttering electronics...

It's a style that finds clear parallels in the work of New England's the Books -- in particular, the intermittent found-sound snippets and spoken word samples (that's Allen Ginsberg and Gregory Corso reading from their poetry in "Out the Window with the Window") make that connection unmistakable -but has few other obvious comparisons. Which doesn't mean it's hard to classify: indeed, the genre tag "folktronica," which had entered into general usage several years before Tunng's emergence, never had a more apt referent"


Marit Larsen: Under the Surface review

Her distinctive writerly voice encompasses both a sprightly playfulness and a self-consciously mature anxiety, as reflected in her penchant for outsized, almost bombastically melodic choruses tempered by more tentative, delicate verses. After the brief, sweetly understated preamble of "In Came the Light," the title tune rushes in with a frenzied swirl of schmaltzy, Disney-esque strings and bells, but its romantic exuberance is swiftly undercut by a yearning verse melody and a narrator so enraptured and yet so wracked by jealous doubt that she can barely even stand her lover's presence. This sort of crippling insecurity crops up repeatedly -- in the self-effacing unrequited lover/loner of "Recent Illusion," and the snooping, paranoid housewife of "This Time Tomorrow," a jangly waltz whose awkward second-person perspective and forced, unconvincing premise make it the album's sole lyrical weak link. In each case, it's made achingly more poignant by Larsen's resonant delivery -- there's so much warmth and sweetness in her voice that even in her most forlorn moments you can practically hear a smile determined to break through the pathos.


Rachel Stevens: Come and Get It review

Come and Get It is a marvel of pure pop craftsmanship, boasting inventive, fresh, engrossingly detailed productions, gorgeously layered vocals and synths, huge hooks, and infectious melodies... Especially in light of its lackluster reception, it comes across as a true labor of love, painstakingly constructed by and for discerning pop true believers, and destined for future pop cult enshrinement. With all this talk of craftsmanship, and all the talent that's on display, it's deceptively easy to overlook Rachel Stevens' role in all of this, to write her off as little more than a faceless, er, pretty face. And it's true that she doesn't present any sort of cohesive persona here, but that's due less to lack of charisma than to her conscious, consummate chameleonism, her own strongest point as a master pop stylist.

If this album offers us a glimpse of the "real" Rachel Stevens, it might very well be in its final track, the rather archly titled "Dumb Dumb," which belies its generic clubland groove with a ruminative third-person account of a gold-hearted, secretly despondent pinup who "sacrificed her image for her beauty." That's pure speculation of course, but it's hard to imagine Stevens tripping through the pop-star merry-go-round as she has, garnering such conspicuous potential and such compromised fulfillment, without picking up at least a touch of world-weary resignation.


Bertïne Zetlïtz: Rollerskating review

The album artwork depicts the glassy-eyed, nordicly stunning Zetlïtz wandering through a deep, dark, verdant forest improbably populated with cartoon bats, a man made out of vines, and an eerily illuminated slot machine. It's a bizarre, arresting series of images, aptly suited to the album's evocative if often inscrutable lyrics, whose dreamlike lucidity is also well captured in Zetlitz's dulcet but detached delivery. References abound to candy, butterflies, rollercoasters, and the like - but their sweetness is undercut by frequent allusions to guns, drugs, obsession, and all manner of emotional fragility and frigidity. Even the seeming reassurance of the stately, heartbreakingly poignant ballads "If You Were Mine" and "Broken" is couched in often disconcerting imagery ("it occurred to me you might be injured/cause my dress got stained from your touch.")

dancing about arkitektur

i've spent the last day and a half, roughly (while frank kogan was looking at taylor swift's dresses) listening to, investigating and writing about the ark, a swedish glam-rock/pop group who are just possibly one of the greatest bands of the decade. i don't particularly want to say anything about them right now, since i've just written well over two-thousand words, cumulatively, about their four excellent full-length albums and one mediocre pre-fame EP. not at all a bad way to make a hundred bucks, though not an especially efficient one. those links don't work yet - that is, my reviews aren't up - but they should be soon (although with amg's buggy and byzantine navigational system it's hard to be too sure about anything - supposedly the url "tokens" change from time to time, which just seems totally bizarre to me.)

they are fascinating, though, and as usual it's interesting to find out what sort of things their fans have to say about them. their third album (in my opinion their absolute masterpiece, though maybe just because it's what i heard and loved first) was a partial stylistic departure, while their most recent was either a retreat or a regression or a return-to-form, depending on your point of view - i'd go with the former but a lot of fans feel the opposite. i'm still not entirely sure how i feel about it, but considering it in the context of their whole career definitely changes things. it's interesting to try to reconcile that in an 'authoritative' review. a lot conditional clauses. (obviously my opinions hold ultimate sway in the reckoning, but i think it's good to represent other prevalent perspectives.)

also, i must say that ola salo, the ark's iconic, idiosyncratic, palindromic, perfervid, bisexual, brilliant, flamboyant firebrand of a lead singer and songwriter, is a truly amazing guy - why don't we have superstars like that in our country? (any more? mostly?) i highly recommend the interview with him here, for anybody interested in gaining insight into the band. (clicking will download as a pdf.)

incidentally salo is evidently best known to wikipedia (to americans generally?) for once having made a throwaway joke about george bush. he's probably best known to readers of pitchfork and stylus (who have never reviewed an ark album!) or to listeners of my ¡OhSiX! mix as the guy in this song (by robyn, though actually by christian falke - and cowritten by k. åhlund - original/video is here but they're not in it), in which he is totally underused and wasted, singing in an uncharacteristically low register and masked by robyn's vocal the whole time.

here they both are:


speaking of robyn, who is the other absolute visionary genius of pop music that sweden has produced this century ... except wait i forgot about dreijer & dreijer and karlsson & windbag [remember?]... okay well, anyway, did i ever mention that she's coming to america?? and i'm gonna see her, in, um, a week and a half. and there are still tickets available for her new york show - wtf, i thought ny'ers were supposed to be hip or something. well i'll guess i'll have more to say about that later. (in the meantime, you can help her throw red things at bees here - while listening to electro remix of "bee mine"...get it??)

17 January 2008

the chimerical brothers

chimerical -
1. Merely imaginary; produced by or as if by a wildly fanciful imagination; fantastic; improbable or unrealistic.
2. Given to or indulging in unrealistic fantasies or fantastic schemes.

Title: SupaSt*rDeeJayz
Format:
continuous DJ mix [79:50!], currently available on CD-R (18 tracks) or mp3 (2 or 18)
Date:
28 June 2007

Contents:
0. don byron introducing biz markie (from "schizo jam") (1999)
1. the magnetic fields "let's pretend we're bunnyrabbits" (1999)
2. rinôçérôse "la guitaristic house organisation" (1999)

3. stereolab "cybele's reverie" (1997)
4. björk "alarm call (alan braxe and fred falke mix) (1999)
5. mj cole "slum king"(2000)

6. basement jaxx "red alert" (1999)
7. daft punk "aerodynamic" (2001)
8. the chemical brothers "hey girl hey boy" (1999)
9. timo maas "ubik (the dance)" [from deep dish's renaissance:ibiza] (2000)
10. cajmere/green velvet "percolator 2000" (2000)

11. blur "song 2" [white label remix] (1997?)
12. bis "action and drama" (1999)

13. beck "mixed bizness" (1999)
14. beck "mixed bizness (nuwave dreamix by les rhythmes digitales)" (2000)
15. beck "mixed bizness (cornelius remix)" (2000)
16. beck vs. ac/dc "mixed bizness" ("highway to hell" mashup) (2000)

17. jay-z "nigga what nigga who (originator 99)" (1998)
18. alice deejay "better off alone" (1999)
19. the chemical brothers "elektrobank (dust brothers remix)" (1997)
20. garbage "when i grow up" (1998)

21. outkast "B.O.B." (2000)
22. the faint "worked up so sexual" (1999)

23. keoki "jealousy (dj dara remix)" (2001)
24. everything but the girl "compression" (1999)
25. roni size/reprazent "railing" (1997)

26. *nsync "digital get down" (2000)
27. beck "where it's at" (1996)

28. cornershop "butter the soul" (1997)
29. blackstreet ft. dr. dre "no diggity" (1996)
30. biz markie "just a friend" (1989)
31. missy elliott "funky fresh dressed" (2002)
32. yo la tengo "you can have it all (2000)

33. lauryn hill "every ghetto, every city" (1998)
34. the supremes "my world is empty without you" (1966)
35. al green "here i am (come take me)" (1973)
36. moby "run on" (1999)

37. wyclef jean ft. r. kelly & canibus "gone til november (the makin' runs remix)" (1997)
38. the high and mighty ft. mos def & mad skillz "b-boy document '99" (1999)
39. outkast "ms. jackson (mr. drunk remix)" (2000)
40. cibo matto "sci-fi wasabi " (1999)

41. beastie boys "intergalactic"/"super disco breakin'"/"body moving (fatboy slim remix)" (1998/1998/1998)
42. madonna "don't tell me" (2000)

43. pharcyde "officer" (1994)
44. don byron "the penguin" (1996)
45. pizzicato five "baby love child" (1994)
46. the roots "adrenaline! " (1999)
47. ol' dirty bastard ft. kelis "got your money" (1999)

48. notorious b.i.g. ft. puff daddy & ma$e "mo money mo problems" (1997)
49. marc ribot y los cubanos postizos "postizo" (1998)
50. cornershop "funky days are back again" (1997)
51. david byrne "like humans do" (2001)

52. jane's addiction "been caught stealing (12" remix version)" (1990)
53. <+}0 "pussy control" (1995)
54. the strokes "someday" (2001)
55. don byron and existential dred "mango meat" (1998)
56. they might be giants "no one knows my plan" (1994)

57. soul coughing "circles (ashley beedle [?] remix)" (1998)
58. afrika bambaata and the soul sonic force "looking for the perfect beat (instrumental)" (1983) 59. fatboy slim "praise you" (1998)
60. madonna "like a prayer (12" dance mix)" (1989)

as is typical, this dj-mix is doing double duty (at least): 1st and foremost, i created it specifically for ben galynker's bachelor party/weekend this past june. it was first heard that weekend (albeit in incomplete form - i'd only gotten as far as track 46 or so, and i later went back and made some substantial edits and additions) and we gave it an epically intense and exhausting seven-person carpeted-apartment dancefloor workout. aka the old college try.

the mix is an homage to and a celebration/recreation of ben's and my days of djing together as crunkadelia productions (2000-2003.) note, for instance, the plentiful presence of our holy dance music pantheon: beck, björk, beasties, the chemical brothers (ben's faves - i came in as more of a fatboy booster but he converted me to their chemical preeminence), madonna, moby (since discredited) and outkast. (it took us a little longer to get into prince.) i'm quite sure that every track on here got played at our parties at least once; most of them numerous times; and many of them carry some especial significance or memory or other, which are definitely not worth enumerating here...

[okay, well, just a couple: we sang "let's pretend we're bunny rabbits" together at merge records karaoke in chapel hill NC in 2004. "la guitaristic house organisation" was sort of our deejaying themesong; we had a special synchronized "posing" dance that we would do to it. ben used to make fun of me for playing "here i am (come and take me)" all the time, so it merited inclusion as the only pre-modern selection (i.e. pre-living memory, i guess, which in this case means pre-1989, except for the bambaata) - sly stone's "thank you" would also have been fitting. lastly, we memorably first heard "pussy control" at the after-party for one of the first-ever pig iron benefit events.]

2ndly, and correspondingly, the mix serves to celebrate and encapsulate a particular era in music history, at least as i experienced it. it marks the ten-year anniversary of the late nineties; the midpoint of 2007 being exactly, roughly, a decade after the beginning of that era. accordingly, the tracks date, almost exclusively, from 1997-2001, with the early-'00s entrants feeling more like an extension of the general late-'90s vibe than the beginning of something that would flourish into the new decade. many of the earlier tracks were things i hadn't heard until the era in question, and they're certainly things i was listening to/spinning out at the time.

the crucial rule for this compilation, more than actual release dates, was whether i was actually aware of (and into) the songs at the time; hence, there's no retroactive inclusions of tracks from these years that i only discovered after the fact. (most of them came out when i was in high school, but i didn't hear a lot of them until college.) obviously the multiple songs by one artist rule is out the window.

dance music in the late nineties and early two-thousands, as i remember it and as represented here, felt vastly different than it does now - it had a populist, boundary-defying, free-wheeling and fun-loving sensibility that's pretty hard to detect in the subgenre-dense, blog-dominated, post-post-ironic electro/dance/hipster-pop scene these days. it's definitely starting to make a comeback - i hear it in the party-hearty enthusiasm of bonde do role, justice, the go! team, and (especially) australia's muscles; the infectious disposability and youthful vibrance of pop-rap's recent regional micro-crazes; the gleefully omnivorous abandon of girl talk and a-trak's dirty south dance, and even some of m.i.a. and lcd soundsystem's looser, less pensive moments. but it's been missing in action for quite some time - electro-clash, dance-punk, microhouse, minimal techno, neo-disco, retro-italo, and the like all took themselves distressingly seriously, with a stake in their own coolness and muso-cred that is pretty much wholly absent in the bulk of the music included on this mix.

another striking difference is how blurred the lines could get between alternative/underground and "legitimately popular" (before both the dominance of "indie" and its recent, gradual emergence into mainstream acceptance/cognizance.) somebody like stereolab or cibo matto or roni size might have seemed like the province of the artiest, clued-in few; the cutting edge of hip - but they were all on major labels (as were almost all of the artists on this mix.) in the wake of prodigy and daft punk's breakthroughs, with the ascendance of u.s. rave culture, and, especially, the dominance of moby's play, big beat techno still felt like a viable commercial possibility. and i've written before about the "great failed hope" of the eclecticist pastiche party-music vanguard, which is repped all over this thing. moby and wyclef seemed like visionaries. and i was even excited about jazz!

and, of course, some of it is undeniable capital-p Popular, including the kind of rapturous, all-conquering hip-hop party jams that they just don't seem to make anymore, now that outkast and missy have all but fallen off. of course there have been plenty moments of ubiquitous pop magnificance throughout the '00s ("crazy in love" "ignition" "since u been gone" "toxic" "hollaback girl" "umbrella" et al.)... i don't want to feel like a curmudgeonly, past-worshiping naysayer here...but when's the last time commercial thug rap came up with something as glorious and gleeful and inescapable as "mo money mo problems"? and don't you dare say "gold digger." (or "crazy.")

by the way, for all its specificity of purpose and concision of scope, this is a strong contender for the craziest mix i've ever made. i think that, in keeping with the general attitude at play with much of this music, i was pretty much trying to see how ridiculous i could get and still get away with it. for instance, mashing up four different remixes of the same song. or an extended juxtaposition (well over three minutes all told) of probably the three premier dance-based electronica auteurs of the era (b-jaxx, d-punk, chembros.) or the preposterous cornershop/blackstreet/biz moment, which used to be much more rhythmically freeform before i bowed to peer pressure and shoehorned it into a nice dependable 5/4. or the beastie boys double-fake-out. or the back-to-back sequencing (unfortunately much more potent in theory than in practice) of roni size apocalyptic, best-album-intro-ever "railing" and *nsync's unjustly overlooked (particular vis-á-vis j-tim's wholesale critical re-appraisal) po-mo-pop pièce de résistance "digital get down" (very possibly the first teen-pop song i ever loved, way back when i heard my sister's copy of no strings attached.)

[and incidentally, layering "where it's at" over the double-time of "digital get down" as the transitional moment from lo-to-hi bpm is in honor of ben's doing the same thing with moby's "feeling so real" at our "hello and okay" party.]

it definitely gets a little overboard (a little?) at the very end bit, which came in a flurry of inspiration as i also realized i was running out of time to fit it all onto a single cd-r (an obvious necessity) - which required all the tracks to be layered on top of each other a little more than i'd have liked, and also necessitated a rather abrupt ending instead of letting the "like a prayer" remix play out longer like the inevitable anthem it is. (i never owned this and still don't, my pre-music madonna knowledge still being shamefully limited, but as every swattie knows it is the proper and necessary way to end this mix - albeit of course, this being crunkadelia, in remixed form.) the "praise you like a prayer" mash actually works surprisingly perfectly, except for the small (and damning) fact that they're in completely incompatible keys. which i could have fixed if i was making it on the computer instead of recording live from decks. oh well. next time.

apart from the many things ben introduced me to, or we discovered together, shout-outs are definitely in order for: listening to WBER "rochester's modern rock alternative" (in the car with my dad); working my way through Spin's top 90 of the 90s list, amazon.com's best-ofs from 1999 and 2000, and the end-of-decade lists from the british magazines i browsed while in london over new years; being turned on to all kinds of things via the Elvis Costello listserv e-mails; downloading from Napster via dial-up; obsessively looking for every remix by and of my bunch of electronica faves (fatboy, lrd, massive, air) - why were remixes so much better in those days?; repeatedly quitting and re-joining BMG music club; hearing music for the first time in my friends' cars (this never happens anymore) or even on the bus to school/track meets; attempting to DJ parties in my living room using a little four track mixer; making cassette mixes back when i wasn't such a stickler about not reusing the same tracks; hearing some incredible song i'll never be able to identify in a french clothing shop, and then being erroneously directed to the deep dish trance mix that i dutifully purchased, which had some good tunes at least.

and, of course, the almighty CYCLOTRON 3000: Disco Light for the Third Millenia. bought from eBay for $15 incl. shipping.

and one more time: "...let's play that house shit"...."what house shit?"...."you know..."the stupid house shit!"

download part one here.
download part two here.
zip files of the mix in the form of eighteen cd-burnable tracks, is here. (only 128 kpbs - sorry, only way it'd fit.)

'007 is sleeping in heaven

i think that about wrap(s)ed it up for capp(s)ing it off, 2007-wise. well ready to be done with it. well chuffed. the only thing that's missing in terms of replicating my round-up ritual from last year is a list of mixes - well, as it happens there's really only one that i care to mention (just didn't hear that many this year), and i have retroactively tacked it on to the end of my albums list. as for the mixes that i made (the ostensible subject of this blarg, remember?), they were few, but they made me happy at least: popsical/summertime, the theoretically-still-in-progress love is the dancer, and the nostalgia-trippin' supast*rdeejays, which i will finally get around to slapping up here, next post i promise. (also: marriage is hot..., musician plugs ii, and two volumes of ladies love for my sis.)

i just saw my idolator ballot today...well, for the first time since i wrote it, i suppose. (nevermind the results for the poll as a whole; they're as boring as they're supposed to be, which goes for the editorials as well.) my favorite part is that i got the chance to vote for rumble in the jungle, a compilation of early 90s british ragga/jungle which was possibly my only actual "favorite reissue" of 2007 (that actually came out in '07.) i don't think i ever managed to mention it here or anywhere but it contains some of the most exciting, life-affirming music i can think of, so much so that i broke down and ordered the thing at full price after just listening to the sound clips on the soul-jazz website (just listen them!)

was also glad to see that i saw fit to vote for "stay my baby" and "oh my god," even though neither made the new years mix. meanwhile, my essentially off-the-cuff comments said roughly what i needed to say in my lengthy apropos-of-albums commentary a couple posts ago, and more besides, but in only two paragraphs. "indecisiveness is a good thing."

finally, definitely the most fun part of the whole idolator pop thingummy is their collection of commissioned annotated mixtapes. which is dangerously engrossing (if you're me), and makes me want to hear them all, though i'm a little curious whether they all actually work that well as mixes. needless to say, i already made mine and annotated it, both in hyper-extensive fashion (the annotations took me nearly as long to complete as the mix itself, i think.) maybe you even looked at it. (you should at least listen to it - much more fun!) but i didn't really give you the track list in a very accessible fashion, so here it is again, without the interruptions. goodnight goodnight two-double-oh-seven. time to get away.

[1] cassie: "is it you?"
fantasia: "hood boy"
amerie: "gotta work"
amy winehouse: "you know that i'm no good"
sharon jones: "tell me"
the budos band: "ride or die"
[2] katharine mcphee: "love story"
dizzee rascal: "pussyole (oldskool)"
dj khaled, ft. pretty much ehrrrbody: "we taking over"
ashley tisdale: "he said she said"
justice: "d.a.n.c.e."
britney spears: "piece of me"
low: "hatchet"
aesop rock: "none shall pass"
nelly furtado: "say it right"
[3] gwen stefani: "the sweet escape"
tracey thorn: "it's all true"
hilary duff: "dreamer"
lcd soundsystem: "get innocuous"
matthew dear: "pom pom"
nôze: "love affair"
will.iam: "heartbreaker"
roisin murphy: "let me know"
[4] escort: "all through the night"
aly+aj: "like whoa"
rihanna: "please don't stop the music"
the chemical brothers: "a modern midnight conversation"
gui boratto: "beautiful life"
von südenfed: "fledermaus can't get it"
[5] bonde do role: "solta o frango"
calvin harris: "the girls"
muscles: "sweaty"
dan le sac vs. scroobious pip: "thou shalt always kill"
armand van helden, "nyc beat"
[6] sophie ellis-bextor: "me and my imagination"
stanton warriors ft. sway: "get 'em high"
m.i.a.: "xr2"
cornelius: "wataridori"
simian mobile disco: "love"
modest mouse: dashboard
fujiya and miyagi: ankle injuries
r. kelly ft. t.i. and t-pain: "i'm a flirt (remix)"
burial: archangel
[7] miley cyrus: "see you again"
candie payne: "one more chance (mark ronson mix)"
spoon: "you got yr cherry bomb"
the ark: "absolutely no decorum"
tegan and sara: "back in your head"
sally shapiro: "he keeps me alive"
[8] lethal bizzle: "police on my back"
shop boys: "party like a rockstar"
dude 'n nem: "watch my feet"
björk: "declare independence"
aberfeldy: "do whatever turns you on"
pop levi: "pick me up - uppercut"
skye sweetnam: "ghosts" (with tim armstrong)
[9] avril lavigne: "girlfriend (remix ft. lil mama)"
sugababes: "about you now"
paramore: "misery business"
the veronicas: "untouched"
maxïmo park: "our velocity"

11 January 2008

07 is sleeping 08 is burning!

(burning copies of the mix, naturally.)

picking up where we left off: dancing the night away to the toasts and jams of 2007.

oh-eight's just a baby... i wanna make it stay up all night!
Title: [...] New Years Dance Mix 2007 [....oh wait...]
Format: continuous DJ mix, 74 minutes. currently available on mp3 or CD-R
Date: 28 December 2007

my first attempt at making a mix using traktor, specifically using the "native mix recording" process - an almost entirely foreign working method to me - after a week or so of trying to figure out how or whether it was even going to be possible. i made almost the whole thing (at least 80% of it) on the 27th and 28th (i stayed up all night finishing it, and ended up not sleeping for over 40 hours) progressing very slowly as the program kept crashing and i gradually learned how to make it crash somewhat left.

turned out pretty good i think. it's remarkably similar to ¡OhSix! in overall shape and flow (and in many specific moments too) - unintentionally but largely just an artifact of my working process, which basically consists of making a big list of songs and sequencing them in order of ascending BPM. this time i didn't loop around from the top of the tempo range (160~180) to the bottom (80~90) [as i did towards the end of last years mix, and exactly in the middle of SupaStarDeeJays], i just let it get faster and increasingly unhinged towards the end to the point that it's almost (deliberately) comical. (and somehow we managed to keep dancing through the whole thing.)

in some ways it's not as complex and nuanced as last year's was (i made it much more quickly and with a less precise tool that allowed less flexibility with editing), but on the whole i think it actually came out better - smoother, more consistently danceable, less fussy - though it took me a couple of listens through to accept that.

anyhoo, i hope you dig. here's whatcha get [numbers correspond to the break points on the CD version]:

[1]
it's Ross of Love bitch !!

[standard obligatory wtf pile-on intro, featuring, as it happens, the two songs of year, as well as my two favorite songs of the year. also jojo/toto's "anything," which wasn't anything in particular of the year, but fit well with the journey and the groove and kicks off an overt sample-friendly meme that continues throughout. and also "house of cards," which i didn't actually pick for its lyrics, but its infamous opening line turned out to be almost identical to that of what i think is the actual opening song of the mix;]

Y cassie: "is it you?"
didn't know where to start, but i'm glad i landed on this. it has become very possibly my favorite single of the last few months, or else my first favorite single of '08, depending on what counts. nice to hear some guitars in r&b that actually growl and snarl and rawk, as opposed to the kinda turgid ones in "party like a rock star" and r. kelly's "rock star." relistened to cassie recently (my #15 album of last year) and it is truly wonderful - getting super-psyched for connecticut fever or whatever her next album's gonna be called.

fantasia: "hood boy"
amerie: "gotta work"
the fantasia technically came out in '06 (though it's the first song i remember hearing on the radio all the time in january '07), and who knows how to reckon where amerie falls anymore (what a fucky and a wtf her recent career handling has been), but these are two fantastic songs that don't deserve to fall through the cracks (yknow, the cracks between the years that are full of songs.) both proudly harness their '60s soul sample chassis (one motown, one stax) - '60s soul sounded bigger in '07 than it has in almost thirty years, i'd wager - to 2007 horsepower rhythm engines, rev up their best diva-style vocal passion, and leave us to wallow in their glorious dust. (um, how's that for an inane metaphor?)

amy winehouse: "you know that i'm no good" it didn't sound like a single to me the first fifty times i heard it, and i still maintain that it doesn't actually have a hook, but i heard enough people talking about "that tanqueray song" this year for it to worm its way into my head too. anyway, i'd already used "tears dry" (on my folks' mix) and "rehab" (on last year's model), and like it or not you can't properly evoke the soul of '07 without a splash of ms. wetwetwet.

sharon jones: "tell me" gotta be honest, i was a little underwhelmed by sharjo's offering this year - maybe just 'cause i knew what to expect. i saw her do her schtick for the fourth and fifth times in '07, to diminishing returns; my paper on her got rejected from emp; mark and amy went and got rich off her horn section; and she turned 51. still sounds pretty good though.

the budos band: "ride or die"

same goes for those lovable second-fiddles the budos. the good-sounding part that is. (no judgment yet on whether the songs still pass muster.) i had wanted to keep the funk going with their half-siblings antibalas, their semi-cousins tinariwen, and/or a cut from the impressively pedigreed superbad ost - prob. my movie of the year, btw - but this will have to suffice.

[2]
Y katharine mcphee: "love story"
it seems like it should be too dumb to work, but it just keeps sounding better. cops the exuberance and the basic template of "crazy in love"/"1 thing," without being as complex or interesting musically, which actually makes it more purely soulful (that ain't a sample yo.) still didn't chart why?

dizzee rascal: "pussyole (oldskool)" veering off from the soul/retro-soul/simulacra-soul train, here's...yet another song based on a very familiar sample. didn't hear this (or the rest of maths + english) until very late in the game, but it takes no time to warm to; only slightly more to recognize as reasonably righteous in its own right (not just for the deathless e-z rock/lyn collins crib.) based on not enough listens (to any of the three), m+e may be my favorite dizzee album, just because it doesn't sound like it's trying to be anything other than fun.

dj khaled, ft. pretty much ehrrrbody: "we taking over"

weird song. sort of epic, but pretty silly at the same time. i guess that's what happens when akon tries to be epic. what a weird dude to be dominating music the way he has - no wonder this year was so weird. i have yet to feel any inkling of akon being interesting as a person (or t-pain, or lil wayne for that matter though admittedly i haven't been trying. i do enjoy rick ross, and t.i. sort of although the most charismatic i've heard him was back on "rubber band man") my main association with this song is hearing it blasting from car windows at my fairmount apartment this spring. also this: memo to rappers.

>ashley tisdale: "he said she said"

this seemed like such a nothing, insignificant album when it came out. i still pretty much feel that way about it, so i've been surprised by all the attention/love it (or at least certain songs) it continued to get from the teenpop thread (or at least frank) throughout the year. it seemed like a much slower year for teenpop than 06 - which is my only expanation - but maybe that was just me.

justice: "d.a.n.c.e."
britney spears: "piece of me"
of course. two quintessential crossovers of 07. whatever that means. from pop to popular, or vice versa. they play pretty nice together too. and i've wanted to do that feist interpolation forever since i thought their "five" sounded more like "feist" (actually it's "fight.") what would be the correct cheeky mash-up title for this? "dance, britney"? "piece of justice"?

low: "hatchet"
ha! suckas. does this sound okay to you, cuz i've convinced myself it works. the synthpop reharmonization makes it creepier, inadvertently more in line with the rest of the album. btw the album version is actually dancier than the optimimi remix, though it's less groovy and less optimimi.

aesop rock: "none shall pass"
last time i really cared about an ace-rock song was when i put "no jumper cables" on 03 in pop; i actually liked this one before mixing it (and the rest of the album shows potential too, so i may attempt to digest it further), but its inclusion here still substantially boosts the chances that i'll remember it in a year's time.

nelly furtado: "say it right"
i got around to owning loose in 07; perhaps in 08 i'll get around to caring about it. in the meantime this daringly minimal, deceptively simple ditty did manage to conquer my headspace more effectively than either of its more hamfisted, loudmouthed predecessors. those i noticed long before i liked; this one took forever to notice, but by that time like/dislike didn't seem to be a relevant question anymore.

[3]
gwen stefani: "the sweet escape"
there's something obnoxious about this (maybe something to do with how oversaturated it became - but it somehow sounded oversaturated even when it wasn't) but i've got a pretty generous soft spot for it all the same, mostly because it is so sweet. no matter strident and cloying gwen and akon may sound, or how preposterous the lyrics are, it's got some real, messy, overexaggerated life to it.

Y
tracey thorn: "it's all true"
okay, here's finally one about which i have nothing conflicted or negative to say. unless its, as i've said before, that it's almost too perfect. it just glides. i love how the metallic kaleidascopy bits work in the context of this mix.

hilary duff: "dreamer"
i've written about this before. still cracks me up. had to let it play out long enough to get to the great deadpan second verse.

lcd soundsystem: "get innocuous"
plays "we share our mother's health" to "dreamer"'s "play with fire" (q.v. last year's mix.) fittingly enough since lcd was more or less to 07 as the knife were to 06, albeit with a bit more avuncularity, a bit less shock & awe. by the way, none of sound of silver's dance jams (which, after all, were much more than just dance jams) could touch last year's "kick out the chairs," the james murphy collab w/ whomadewho (as heard on popsical.)

Y matthew dear: "pom pom"
the clear standout from a very confusing, conflicting album that i really wanted to love, but couldn't quite hack. though it does have probably the sexiest opening moments of any 07 album. to be honest i guess i've never really understood matthew dear in album form. part of the problem here is that (like lcd) he's no longer really trying to make dance jams, though (unlike lcd), i can't really tell what he is trying to do. but a couple slipped out anyway. the nicely if typically inscrutably titled "pom pom" (it's more sound than sense) is poppier but less anthemic than, say, "dog days." and sometimes i dunno wtf is going on with his vocal sounds. still, it's hard to come by a lyrical hook as simple but arrestingly honest as this one: "i've got to figure out love!"

nôze: "love affair"

and i love how (and this wasn't really planned), immediately after dear utters that declaration for the second time, along come nôze, leading the way out of this pile-up of innocuous befuddlement with their goofy, cocksure, way-frenchy absolutely certainty about love. or at least about the necessary preparatory steps for a love affair. i also love how they pronounce the names of their body parts (i brush my teez? i clean my nôze?) and how perfectly the screwy, jaunty music suits the absurd lyrics. this tune is from a couple years ago, not actually 07, (was on an 06 singles comp and, coincidentally, hot chip's 07 dj-kicks) but i just found it and wanted to share.

will.iam: "heartbreaker"
hopefully i'll get around to writing up my list of reasons why will.i.am's songs about girls is superior to kanye west's graduation (west's absence here is quite deliberate, as was gnarls barkley last year - i thought about teasing the sample again, but it's just warmed-over daft punk anyway, and who needs that)...in the meantime just feel the groove. so smoove. so fly. so-so-so-so-sorry.

roisin murphy: "let me know"
disco is alive and well. "overpowered" may have caught more ears with its edgy acid teeter, but this one is a thing of beauty, pure and simple.

[4]
escort: "all through the night"
('fake') "authentic" disco. hey who's counting? sounds great - sounds a lot more happening that sharon jones right at the moment. my cousin plays drums on this. at the club last night the dj played a mash-up of it with a twista/pharell song. whoa, muppety video!

Y aly+aj: "like whoa"
it feels good, it feels good! teenrock confessional dance; slow-burn verses, pyrotechnic chorus. it didn't really occur to me before but this section of the mix is pretty enraptured - the michalkas sound about as hot and bothered here as the hyperverbal escort divas, after their fashion. good girls gone bad?

rihanna: "please don't stop the music"
07's fave bajan babe sounds practically relaxed by contrast. another potent sample here - takes some temerity (or utter shamelessness) to nab michael jackson's most overt, bluntest floor-filler. could have been obnoxiously overpowering, save for how it savvily only sneaks in about a minute into the track's masterful slow build, taking enough time for the full reveal that the handclap stomp and big stupid stadium synths have ample time to burrow into your brain before you realize what's happening. it sounds obvious, but it's deceptively impressive how gracefully this track deploys all the heavy artillery at its disposal. "umbrella" seemed like an unlikely smash at first; this one sounded like a no-brainer from the get-go, and it's only now starting its chart ascension (#26 this week after 7 weeks on the chart) - we'll have to keep an eye and see how prophetic the titular request becomes.

the chemical brothers: "a modern midnight conversation"
did you hear the lily allen is having ed chemical's baby. damn dawg. i listened to we are the night, the chem's 07 album (and their first i haven't owned...yet...i guess) a few times, and nothing really stuck except this one, an appropriately modern-sounding groover which seems to take some cues from so-called minimalism. not that it's especially minimal (or minimalist), but there's a healthy modicum of restraint within its typically expansive galactic funk. it actually sounds sleek, which they haven't managed in a minute or so. good looking out. more like this, and better luck next time.

gui boratto: "beautiful life"
certainly the hook of the year, house/trance/electro-disco-wise. euphoric but understated; pop-kissed but elegant. hearing it throb from the window of a passing rittenhouse square car on the way to unsilent night this year was as magically transformative as unsilent night itself - it made me feel like the whole block had suddenly entered one of those slinky, futuristic car commercial, in a good way. the problem is that the track itself, though it contains several excellent builds, is constructed somewhat poorly for actual dancefloor use, making it more useful as a headphones bliss-out than a bona-fide club anthem, or more properly perhaps, a necessary subject for remixes. unfortunately, i didn't hear any (there must have been some, right?) but i think i did a decent job of incorporating the most quintessential portion, even if i had to leave out the secondary hook ("i can feel life..."), which doesn't come in until the third round of waning and waxing. even the most pounding, propulsive part of the track comes off as a bit of a floaty respite in the context of the poptacular disco inferno that precedes it here, so it serves as something of a breather and a palate-cleanser.

von südenfed: "fledermaus can't get it"
and then we are rudely plunged down from that cosmic euphoria into what i think of as the 'hooligans' portion of the mix. who knows what mark e smith is on about here, but he certainly isn't being very polite about telling us whatever it is. meanwhile mouse on mars concoct what sounds like a fartier version of "losing my edge."

[5]
bonde do role: "solta o frango"
not quite as over-the-top as "office boy," but i guess a dab of subtlety can't hurt amidst all this loony chaos. not that there's ever anything truly subtle about the bonde. i like how the chorus mostly consists of them shouting "o-le!"

calvin harris: "the girls"
still digging on calvin, perhaps because i never got around to overplaying him, and this may be even better than "acceptable." i'm not too keen on the bit where he list of types of girls that he likes (which i tastefully left mostly obscured by bonde do role's yammering - which for all i know might be just as tasteless), but i like the rest of it; i like the phrase "oversubscribed with relationships," i like his bluntness that he'll play around "for sure, for sure!" (reminds me of jonah hill in superbad), i love that main synth hook, and i loved the way the girls at the new years eve party took to the refrain "i get all the girls" right way.

Y muscles: "sweaty"
but really now, that unwashed chauvinism gets pretty stinky pretty fast, and that's why i got muscles here (all the way from oz) to undercut it with a little of that old-fashioned peace love ecstasy unity respect. simply put, this song is awesome! and it is special! hooray for hooligans!

dan le sac vs. scroobious pip: "thou shalt always kill"
love. yeah, there are a couple of dumb lines, but even those become more endearing as you get to know it, rather than discoloring the whole thing. had to include a good long chunk of it here b/c it seems unlikely to get much of an airing anywhere else. on the other hand i also had to loop it and fade it after the "repetitive generic music" part. you're not missing too much good stuff after that anyway, it's just pop-song allusions and things that don't make any sense to us clueless americans (pheonix wtf?) incidentally, i'd like to point out how awesome the beat of this song is; it'd be a pretty sweet weirdo electro-funk workout on its own, without the slam-poetry punchlines.

armand van helden, "nyc beat"
just a basic booming beat and a killer bassline. hard to argue with that. i've even grown to like the admittedly totally vapid chant. i'll also admit that i watched the video more times than is healthy.

[6]
sophie ellis-bextor: "me and my imagination"
yay sophie. still don't really know what makes her special, of the assorted british pop diva ladies, except that she's probably the most posh i guess (i will likely delve into her albums soon for amg purposes), but this is one massively, stomping tchune. rather unsubtle electro-disco extolling the virtues of subtlety. "magic stays where myth remains."

stanton warriors ft. sway: "get 'em high"
this was a bonus track on this year's sway ep (which i probably wouldn't have noticed except that i reviewed it for amg) - not sure if it appeared on an earlier stanton warriors release or what. anyway it's neither of their best work, but it ain't too shabby.

m.i.a.: "xr2"
massive. pretty much definitely my favorite track to dance to this year. (the album version that is - better than the "turbo" version - single? remix? leak? - which turned up early in the year.) made both of my critpoll top ten ballots. freaked out to it on dancefloors more than once. still can't hear it without jiggling involuntarily. listening to it again, that's almost all due to the beat, or more specifically the beat plus that incredible dirty synth hook. i've got no problem with m.i.a.'s lyrics/vocals, it's just that they have relatively little to do with why this track is so great. i continue to struggle with the rest of kala - i do enjoy a lot of it, but for some reason it still doesn't do what i want from it as an album. dunno.

cornelius: "wataridori"
(what? i didn't hear anything, did you?)

Y simian mobile disco: "love"
another fortuitous lyrical dovetail (with "xr2"): some say "love is all you need to know." not quite sure what to make of the verses (s-p-e-ls fiasco?) except that they're very silly still pretty catchy, but the chorus is one of the year's more touching and beautiful. of course i take it at face value, what do you think? so i had to give it a bit of breathing room and let love rule for a little minute before moving on. except, i guess, for "i believe," i didn't like the singles from attack sustain decay release as much as most of the album tracks - go figure.

modest mouse: dashboard
barely listened to this after i initially heard it and thought it was pretty good. but then i remembered it, which will have paid off if anybody else remembers it too. was the album any good? i pretty much wrote them off after good news, but then i didn't even really care for the singles from that one.

fujiya and miyagi: ankle injuries
from last year (ish) and not too dancey (ish), but i have a soft spot for this one mostly because of the title. (also because of the way they repeat their own bandname incessantly.)

r. kelly ft. t.i. and t-pain: "i'm a flirt (remix)"
how the hell r. kelly manages to keep on making singles that seem like goofy novelties at first, but turn out to be compulsively, endlessly listenable, i think i'll never understand. if i had to guess, it's very possibly the song i listened to most this year; certainly its up there. i kind of regret how much i obscured its simplicity and laid-back bounce here by mashing it against assorted obscurantist british hipster-hypesters - but then, you've heard it before. also, the reharmonization is pretty nice, particularly the turnaround on the fujiya tune.

burial: archangel
still not convinced by burial in general, but this one at least has a nice skeletal two-step/d&b thing going on. very well suited to my purposes. (though my favorite thing to mash up with "i'm a flirt" is squarepusher's "my red hot car" - this gets at the same kind of groove juxtaposition, but it's not quite as much fun.) anyway, more of this sort of beat is a good idea.

[7]
Y miley cyrus: "see you again"
and now for the rock/indie/non-"dance music" detour. took this one on faith for a while, but no, it's true, this is an absolute stormer of a teenpop/rock/country/dance should-be/could-be/would-be smash. (bedbugs here on the phenomenology of its success.) so far i've still mostly warmed to miley/hannah on a per-song basis (only about three songs have managed to win me over to date, including the also-great "east northumberland high") but maybe i'll go see the concert movie or something, and figure out what all the fuss is.

candie payne: "one more chance (mark ronson mix)"

ronson, you dog. i find him vaguely repugnant for the same reasons as kanye, something about the obvious and formulaic nature of his working methods, but he is often damnably effective. been listening to candie's album a fair bit, and this one still stands out as by far the biggest pop nugget. indeed, possibly the best (and least overachieving) neo-girl group single we've had in this recent spate - beats the pipettes for both songwriting and sound (though it lacks the unfettered exuberance of "pull shapes"), and amy winehouse for credibility and non-obnoxiousness, while lucky soul haven't quite pulled out a truly smashing single (though "lips are unhappy" comes close.) it's no "he's a rebel," but considering this is 2007 it'll serve.

spoon: "you got yr cherry bomb"
yeah, this too. can you believe there are two separate segments of (neo-) soul music on this mix? and that's not even counting disco. black sixties pop is alive and well. and living in austin, tx. what the hell is this song about? "octopus for good"? oh right it's britt daniel. nevermind then.

the ark: "absolutely no decorum"

not really sure why i included this. nobody else is possibly going to recognize it or care that it's on here (except maybe dave); i didn't particularly like the album it came from; and i don't particularly love the song either, though it's not bad (the best thing about might be the title phrase.) mostly i just really like the ark, and wanted to give them another chance to shine. comes off ok.

tegan and sara: "back in your head"
this on the other hand - i didn't especially care for the song or the album (though i'll listen more), but i knew there'd be an appreciative audience (as there was, at least on new years.) and it just seemed like such an unlikely and idiosyncratic thing for there to be a hit like this (well, a semi-hit - at least among certain demographics it definitely was) - an odd conflation of folky, indie rock, teenpop, and ABM/NPR music, earning supporters from all of those camps and probably others. particularly since it's not really that remarkable of a song. but yeah, i like it okay too.

sally shapiro: "he keeps me alive"
this, on the other hand, i love. it's singular in a way that makes it feel kind of indelicate to just slot it in here, roughly juxtaposed against whatever happened to be in its BPM cohort. but by the same token it works its fragile magic regardless of the context, and is just as devastating and heartbreaking - maybe more so, with this additional injustice added to co-dependent self-injury.

[8]
lethal bizzle: "police on my back"

i think i almost like it more over sally's frosty disco synths than the fun but slightly grating clash sample. have you noticed that i've been giving at least as much space and attention to british rap (dizzee, sway) as the homegrown variety? i never even considered myself a particular fan of u.k. rap, but with bizzle added to the ranks i'm coming around to the idea that it feels a lot more witty, inventive, and just plain fun these days. this one's great - classic doofy scofflaw storytelling (had to let it play out so as not to leave you/him hanging in that shed) and his vocal tics and funny sound effects are ridiculously endearing. (though my favorite is on his other 07 single, "bizzle bizzle," where he lets out a snortled yelp of glee about being on somebody's "top 8 hitlist" on myspace.) t-t-totally dude.

shop boys: "party like a rockstar"

omg wtf. i can't quite comprehend how actually popular this was. the actual song neither rocks nor parties - it's just yr standard-issue dirty south drawl, with a couple more guitars - but the concept was too apropos not to include it just here.

dude 'n nem: "watch my feet"
björk: "declare independence"

party like a demented icelandic artstar. "declare my feet"? "watch my independence"? ("feet independence" is probably better, though it lacks the imperative intensity that is crucial to both of these tunes.) an unholy alliance of two wholly different impish rapscallions, united in their not wholly dissimilar assertions of blunt, bone-headed impudence. makes for one of my favorite, most gleefully unhinged moments on the mix (i want to spin it into a stand-alone mash-up; it practically is already, but it doesn't line up quite perfectly.) i've always been pretty much floored by "declare independence" - definitely my most lasting impression of volta, though recent return listens have reminded me there's plenty more to enjoy - and i'm glad i finally got away with sneaking it into a dance party. it also lends considerable urgency and darkness to the stupid-awesome "watch my feet," although i'm not sure how "dark" it's technically possible to be whilst eating egg-a-rolls in your hat hat and your shirt shirt.

aberfeldy: "do whatever turns you on"

pop levi: "pick me up - uppercut"
skye sweetnam: "ghosts" (with tim armstrong)
i'm considering rejiggering the whole mix from this point on, starting with the revised björk'n'nem remash. actually, when i was making it, it was about 6:00am when i got that point, and i was gonna stop and call it a night (morning), but something inspired to keep going and i cranked out this last fifteen-odd minutes in almost a single burst of sloppy rock'n'roll energy. which is why the songs play out longer than usual and the transitions are somewhat approximate. i could probably trim some of the excess and make it a little sleeker and more dancefloor-palatable. on the other hand i do like all of these songs. even if i should probably stop pretending that aberfeldy count for this year. even if pop levi is a total weirdball that i don't understand at all. even if skye sweetnam disappointed even her biggest cheerleader this year. actually, this is maybe the best and most infectious of these three - channels mid-'90s so-cal so perfectly, effortlessly. (n.b. skye's "music is my boyfriend" is easily one of my favorite singles of the year - and my favorite video as well, not that i'd ever make that list - but it was a little too intense and unhinged even for this mix, which is kind of inconceivable. er maybe it's just not dancy enough.)

[9]

avril lavigne: "girlfriend (remix ft. lil mama)"
actually nevermind, it gets back on track here. i really like how tim armstrong's guitar solo leads into this. and does anything more need to be said about the song itself? you remember right? [like how it was the first rock #1 single since 2001 (but nobody noticed because they didn't think it was rock for some reason?) but then lil mama came around and demonstrated that it's actually a hip-hop song?] right.

Y
sugababes: "about you now"
doesn't sound quite as massive coming out of "girlfriend" as i'd like - verse restraint be damned - but nevermind, it's still crushing. kinda strange that this is the sugababes, but who ever knows what to expect from them anyway. so sweet.

paramore: "misery business"
holy cow. cowabunga. now we're talking. and we're off to the races. hail hail rock and roll!

the veronicas: "untouched"
how does this possibly come off as an actual slight lessening of energy? must be a volume issue. should have extended the paramore ghost verse a little further into it i think, until the v's own guitars take over. (will get it on the rejigger.) actually, this is definitely not one of the better songs on "hook me up," but whatever. (it's the most intense, for sure.)

maxïmo park: "our velocity" [dj velociropter's "per second per second" retempo]
kind of a random place to end - and there's still a few minutes grace left for fully-stuffed CD-R maximization - but it was past 8:00 by this point and i still had editing and transferring (traktor>garageband>itunes>toast, probably not the most direct system but hey it works) not to mention packing left to do. plus there wasn't anywhere obvious to go from here - the most pragmatic step would be to loop back around for some low-key, low-tempo hip-hop/r&b (devin the dude? MIMS? was vaguely planning on UGK's "int'l playas anthem") but that would seem like an unnecessary comedown, and hardly a better way to end. (maybe i'll end up tacking on "stay my baby," just so amy can finally get her due - though i'd particularly wanted to emphasize that song's unexpected, "grindin'"-esque boom-bap.) so we close with the maxïmos, with, to be fair, probably the most urgent and blistering single of the year after all (and one of my favorite djing moments too, closing the night at the M room back in august), even if it retains the distinct whiff of XTCian prissiness. that just makes it cuter, right? and just to wring every ounce of patent dancefloor ridiculosity from it, i made it blast into the tempo stratosphear. could have done so even earlier and harder; sometimes too much is just enough...