ANDREW BONAZELLI
Whatever happened to the days when the boys picked up a guitar to score chicks and a mike to call ’em bitches and hos? Commercial hip-hop and hard rock swapped archetypes last year like every day was Freaky Friday; the n-grunge/n-metal droogs saw ladies as little more than sperm receptaclesannoying ones at thatwhereas bling-blinged thugs were scouting prospects “Big Poppa”-style who should be havin’ their baby, baby. This mix represents both endlessly confounding, entertaining spectrums:
1. Fabolous, “Into You” (Elektra) Amid some reasonably legit cries of sellout, the rail-thin rapper finally crossed over into Ma$e territory with sellout acquiescence specialist Ashanti chiming in on the chorus. Sighing that “being a player was becoming too stressful,” F-A-B-O asked the object of his desire what she’d think “if both our names had Jackson on the ends” and leagues of voyeurs swooned in unison. Makes monogamy sexy and intriguing in a way that archconservatives never had the tongues, beats, or brains to advertise and does so to a relaxed, smooth, modest summertime groove.
2. 50 Cent, “21 Questions” (Shady/Aftermath) I could listen to Fitty poke caged deer Ja Rule with AK butts all day, but this clever romantic barrage was just as responsible for his explosive sex appeal as the endless six-packin’ rag covers. It’s the slow jam for the modern prom and should hold up a decade from now just as well as “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” and comparable ’80s dreck does today. Em’s prot駩 keeps us blushing with silly, affable similes (“I love you like a fat kid love cake”) but peppers the titular queries with unexpected depth and foresight. Another excellent best-of-both-worlds pairing, courtesy of Nate Dogg’s easy rider choral crooning.
3. Snoop Dogg, “Beautiful” (Priority) Snoop D-O-double-G? Well, the man’s a budding porn mogul and a self-proclaimed modern-day pimp, and women accuse him and his crew right and left of misbehavior that makes Arnold Schwarzenegger look like Clay Aiken. Yet, along come overexposed Pharrell and Chad, who not only delay their own inevitable backlash but prolong the budding reality-TV star’s fading MC career with a soft, tenderhearted groove so simple, well, shit: The title says it best. Yeah, yeah, technically the record came out last November, but Snoop’s live performance of “Beautiful” was the one savinghell, nearly transcendentgrace of MTV Films flop The Real Cancun.
4. Pharrell ft. Jay-Z, “Frontin'” (Star Trak) Speaking of Pharrell, you bet we’re all sick to fuckin’ death of his bare chest and trucker-hatted dome muggin’ like Diddy 2003 all over our MTV. And sure, he’s the least likely player in the game to brag about slapping his girl around, but the Jacko-influenced, mature guitar swing of “Frontin'” is rivaled only by “Into You” on the pure sweetness tip. Nice idea, admitting that posturing is just that, and behind the facade there’s a real man ready to be, yes, just that. This kind of modest stocking stuffer is exactly why the Neptunes not only can’t be discounted, but are still ensconced at the top of the game.
5. Nas, “I Can” (Columbia) Like 50, another example of a proud soldier taking a sabbatical from a mixtape death match to somehow concoct an impeccable sugary delight. The singsong empowerment anthem is an inspiration to kids without being juvenile or condescending. His light-speed yet completely comprehensible African-history lesson is the obvious talking point, but the most responsible and kindred? Encouraging little girls not to “pretend to be older than you are,” although his vision of said girls getting hitched and being another man’s “queen” is, admittedly, more than a bit outmoded.
6. Korn, “Right Now” (Sony) Korn haven’t been convincingly menacing or surprising since their influential 1994 debut. This was a welcome, if upsetting, return to form, a blood-soaked, ugly, misanthropic single about unmitigated hate. In the strobe-ready bridge, Jonathan Davis hisses, “You open your mouth again, I swear I’m gonna break it,” before unloading “Shut up, I’ll fuck you up!” While it’s fairly clear that his sounding/striking board isn’t necessarily his lady, “Right Now” has that creepy, do-they-really-know-how-they’re-coming-off vibe Linkin Park exuded when they introduced themselves via “Shut up when I’m talking to you!” Careful, fellas. There’s a thin line between satire and perpetuation.
7. Limp Bizkit, “Eat You Alive” (Interscope) Fred Durst has recently propagated his own fading celebrity by owning up to a litany of long-shot celebrity crushes, including Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry, and Thora Birch, starlet of this track’s video, in which she’s kidnapped, bound, and informed via megaphone, “There’s nothing wrong with wanting you. You got that straight?!” before the more tender concession: “Damn, you’re so hoooooot!” Met only in offensive hilarity by the Bizkit’s as-yet-unreleased “Just Drop Dead,” a thinly veiled Britney bitch-slap. Freddie’s one of the more disturbing rock and roll “ladies men” since Vince Neil, likely headed toward the same all-you-can-eat buffet of infamy.
8. Cold, “Stupid Girl” (Interscope) Vocalist Scooter Ward looks and sounds like Staind’s Aaron Lewis after a few lipo sessions. His band has long played to Uncle Fester type, and nobody gave a damn until they enlisted Rivers Cuomo to co-write this turgid single. As if we needed any further evidence of Cuomo’s inability to say anything remotely pertinent or witty post-Pinkerton, “Girl” flaunts the most puerile, goofy opening lyrical salvo of the year: “Wanna love ya, wanna bug ya, wanna squeeze ya, stupid girl.” Only a stupid guy could’ve put it so, er, maladroitly.
9. Nickelback, “Figured You Out” (Roadrunner) Unlike his obvious idol, Jesus Christ, Nickelback leader Chad Kroger is one of those guys who’s so overtly macho that he snorts like a dragon when damsels are in distress (“Too Bad”), but ultimately blows actual relationships so badly (“How You Remind Me”) that manipulation is easier than keeping it real. This latest thudding single features n-grunge’s saddest attempts at blatant, carnal sexuality possibly ever”I like your pants around your feet, and I like the dirt that’s on your knees”then gets inadvertently weird when Kroger fesses to the same lady, now unconscious, that “I love my hands around your neck.” Ah, dames!
LAURA CASSIDY
1. & 2. Les Georges Leningrad, “Georges Five” and “Le Chienne” (Blow the Fuse) More than nearly any other record this year, this release made me feel sanctified, redeemed, and really damn glad to be alive. The Montreal outfit is the band of the year, and “Georges Five” is the single: detuned and retuned discordant nonsense set to broken propeller beatsand yes, of course, darling, you can dance to it. At one point on “Le Chienne,” singer Poney P utters the title like she is violently spitting it out as one does rotten fruit. The moment recalls another gloriously dirty and needful moment: John Lydon’s endless stream of sing/talking “Annalisa,” ending with him nearly turning himself inside out in the excruciatingly affected enunciation of the name. Poney P gives Missy E a run for her money on that one when her dirty, guttural, quiet scream channels a Quebecois mafia wife in exile on Hollywood Boulevard. “Gucci watch, Gucci bag, Chanel dress,” she slurs. Imagine walking into a Toulouse-Lautrec painting while high on heroin in Paris, 1919the primitive percussion will have you back to the future in no time, honey, and you’ll be in dumpster haute couture the whole way.
3. The Vulvettes, “Sunny Backyard” (Dragnet) With hypnotic rhythms, creepy, keyboard-heavy instrumentation, and the ambiguous yet telling refrain “It’s always summer in your backyard,” this is X-Files art punk. From neither here nor there and as elusive as all get-out, the Vulvettes existed from ’96-’98 in San Fran, and word is they’ll reunite there in early ’04 for the release of these avant-garde smart bombs. Daily I search the Internet for cheap flights and wait with bated breath.
4. The Rapture, “House of Jealous Lovers” (DFA/Strummer/Universal) Weird. I thought that, aside from Out of the Races and Onto the Tracks (Sub Pop, 2001), I didn’t care for the Rapture. I was wrong. While I still much prefer the combative, sharp edge of Races, I dig their ’03 disco rock boogie, tooand this is the obvious dance-floor shakedown. So sue me.
5. OutKast, “Hey Ya!” (LaFace) Just because I’d just as soon shake to “Warm Leatherette” or Wolf Eyes and most of my music comes purloined from MP3 databases older than the average “punk” band, this does not preclude me from enjoying one of the best songs in pop history.
6. Simply Saucer, “Bullet Proof Nothing” (Sonic Unyon) Where the hell was I in the mid-’70s and why wasn’t I in Cleveland seeing obscure garage-punk bands? Theremins, rockets from tombs, punk blueprintsdamn, I missed all the fun.
7. Popular Shapes, “Speedboat” (On/On Switch) Take track 5 from above. Add track 4. Mix in track 6. Raise it up in Renton or one of those Tri-Cities where the landscape stretches out like a dirty shag carpet day after day after day. Subtract any and all art-school bullshit (if these guys met at school, it was in a suburban metal shop class) and then, because their now-wave, hyperspeed angles are so goddamn pretension-free and perfect, hang it on a museum wall. Stir.
8. Clone Defects, “I Rock I Ran” (In the Red) Included here mostly because it’s so damn prescient, this is really just a dumb punk songactually, a cover of a Toxin 3 track from a late edition Killed by Death compbut when I hear it, I feel volatile in a really good way. “I didn’t want to go/I didn’t want to go/I didn’t want no war,” goes the refrain, while the instruments rock and run in an overtly Ramonesian way. While it seems Detroit’s Defects will never match the accidental punk abstraction of their wonderfully titled Italian 7-inch “Scissorschop,” this one still makes a fine anthem. It also serves as an excellent transition for the next song.
9. Warhead, “Hey Big Oil” (Frontier) Included on a rerelease of material by seminal ’77 L.A. punk band the Weirdos. Warhead were actually a side project of the Weirdos’ Denny brothers, and this outr鬠ominous, oddly beautiful extrapolation of dishpan clanking and geographic genocide hallmarks the brothers’ intelligent experimentation.
10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Modern Romance” (Interscope) I am not a fan of this Karen O person’s “Boy you just a stupid bitch/And girl you just a no good dick” stuff, but this simple love song does something for me. Aside from the sentiment and swaying instrumentation, it’s O’s vocal cadence that gets me; I just love the way she breaks up the word “mod-dern” in her Billieburg slang/drawl.
11. Michael Yonkers, “Boy in the Sandbox” (Sub Pop) Proof that there is justice in the worldhowever tardyMinneapolis psych-rock songwriter and vibrato-toned experimenter Michael Yonkers and his 1968 recordings found their way out of obscurity. His is a long story worth researching, but as he protests Vietnam and exalts trippy love, Yonkers forms a holy trinity with Arthur Lee and Roky Erikson I’d worship any day.
12. Country Teasers, “Deaths” (In the Red) As with other Teasers records, this one could have stood some editing (a bunch of little songs does not equal a bunch of good little songs). Nonetheless, on “Deaths,” frontman Ben Wallers serves as a name-dropping Mark E. Smith grievance counselor over a looped box of Kleenex, and the effect is soothing, scholarly, and wonderfully disturbing. Someone get Flannery O’Connor on the phone, please.
13. Brainbombs, “Street Cleaner” (Tumult) Although in some countries I would probably have my ears chopped off for listening to this record, I am afflicted, wonderfully, by the Swedish band’s servile, subversive Chrome-meets-Throbbing Gristle anticanticles. Too bad this single is their last.
14. Six Organs of Admittance, “Close to the Sky” (Holy Mountain) Because someone has to be the bastard child of Will Oldham, Ravi Shankar, and Syd Barrett.
15. The Shins, “Those to Come” (Sub Pop) Although it’s the barest track on the album, this absolutely covers me with familiarity and welcome warmth. Further proof that James Mercer is one of the most oblique and pre-eminent songwriters of our time.
CHRIS LORRAINE
1. The Postal Service, “Such Great Heights” (Sub Pop) 2003’s perfect single opens with tiny synth blips and adds a fuzzy bass slide, then fake hand claps, then a drum loop that’s just a little too fast. Ben Gibbard is happy to play catch-up, blurting a melody that interrupts itself at the end of each line, soaring to the very limits of his tenor. By the time the chorus explodes, the song has existed forever, or at least since 1982.
2. Ted Leo/Pharmacists, “Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?” (Lookout!) In which indie rock’s most unabashedly tuneful curmudgeon laments the absence of commitment signified by British second-wave ska (Specials, Beat, Selecter). A song about listening to old songs on your iPod made to listen to on your iPod.
3. The New Pornographers, “The Laws Have Changed” (Matador) Fountains of Wayne’s “Stacey’s Mom” relied on a shopworn power-pop joke and a hot video to get over. Vancouver’s reigning pop co-op writes better songs, crafts tighter arrangements, and employs Neko Case like a video game power-up. Extra life!
4. Rainer Maria, “The Imperatives” (Polyvinyl) Caithlyn De Marrais wants to give up everything she owns and move into a monastery with her beloved. Then she realizes that the catharsis of singing at the top of her lungs will probably do the trick. After all, if she were to give up everything, she’d have to give him up, too, and she’s not quite ready for that yet.
5. Elliott Smith, “A Distorted Reality Is Now a Necessity to Be Free” (Suicide Squeeze) Not all of Elliott Smith’s songs were sad, but even the sad ones never wallowed. This 7-inch release spits a defiant “you don’t impress me” before unleashing as many singer-songwriter tricks as on the whole of Let It Be . . . Naked, right down to the George Harrison guitar solo. R.I.P.
6. The Blow, “What Tom Said About Girls” (K) Further blurring the line between indie rock and electro-dance, Khaela Maricich starts a Casio loop on her sampler, then delves inside a frat boy’s head, discovering that he’s got the urge to dance like Rerun from What’s Happening!! You go, boy/girl.
7. Clearlake, “Treat Yourselves With Kindness” (Domino) Used to be the best British bands were giants at home and near invisible in the states. But Clearlake’s got a low profile even in the U.K., and that’s a crying shame. This stay-positive pep talk set to the saddest chord progression in recent memory will make you feel simultaneously better and worse.
8. Evan Dando, “My Idea” (Bar/None) Don’t call it a comeback! Oh, OK, call it a comeback. On his first album in seven years, Dando retains his folk-pop stumble and his signature scruffy charm: Here, girls dumps boy, boy asks permission to tell his friends that it was the other way around. I believe you, Evan.
9. T.V. Eyes, “She’s a Study” (Emperor Norton) What former Jellyfish members Jason Faulkner and Roger Manning Jr. probably intended as a New Order homage sounds exactly like Go West. No problem. It’s catchier than anything either ever did.
10. The Rapture, “Silent Morning” (DFA/Strummer/Universal) The playing is just ragged enough to discern the band working really hard to pull it off. Next-big-thing studio dollars may change that, but for now, this is the sound of a band changing landscapes with two shovels and a wheelbarrow.
11. Fannypack, “Hey Mami” (Tommy Boy) For their follow-up record, Cat, Jessibel, and Belinda will insist on greater creative freedom, Linda Perry will be paged, independence will be asserted, and the record will tank. Until then, we’ve got this string of laughed-at come-ons from guys who got the girls’ attention just long enough for them to record this song. Funnier than “Cameltoe,” and just as catty.
12. Ladytron, “Oops (Oh My)” (Emperor Norton) Transforms Tweet’s sly “What have we here?” self-booty call into a chilling suppressed memoryclothes just come off as though removed by a ghost, or worse. The snaky rhythm and distorted vocals don’t narrate as much as remember, growing increasingly uncomfortable until the merciful cutoff, so shook we have to catch our breath. But waiteveryone was dancing this whole time! Electroclash isn’t overjust undergoing therapy.
13. Evanescence, “Bring Me to Life” (Wind Up) I was minding my own business when I looked up and saw Amy Lee tumble barefoot out of a window on the top floor of an old, gothic apartment building. I started to run. I had to save her! She needed me to save her from the nothing she’d become. But she was inside the TV, and I was outside. There was nothing I could do! No wonder this song starts like a lullaby and ends like a nightmare. Lee didn’t hit the ground, though. She used all the other n-metal bands to break her fall. I, on the other hand, smacked my head against the TV screen and lost consciousness.
14. Coldplay, “The Scientist” (Wind Up) Forget the usual comparisonsRadiohead are never this sentimental, U2 never this pragmatic, Oasis never this universal. When Chris Martin sings, “Nobody said it was easy/No one ever said it would be this hard,” it doesn’t sound like a clich鮠It sounds like the truth.
15. Christina Aguilera, “Beautiful” (Jive) “Dirrty” titillated almost no one, but the follow-up keeps it (mostly) cool instead of layering on somersaulting melisma. The resulta standard every 13-year-old celebrity boot camper needs under their belt before they dare audition for American Idol: The New Batch. Now that’s giving back to the community.
16. Eisley, “I Wasn’t Prepared” (Warner Bros.) Three home-schooled sisters from rural Texas reimagine Thom Yorke’s creepy modern dystopia as a primeval faerie world: A jilted lover finds her ex because he’s covered in pollen, and she gets a swarm of bees to lead her to him. Or was that last week’s episode of Smallville?
17. Michelle Branch, “Are You Happy Now?” (Maverick) Yes, she is different from Britney and Christina. Yes, she writes her own songs. Yes, she listens too hard to her handlers and probably thinks her biggest flaw is that she’s too smart for her own good. And yes, I have had this stuck in my head since August.
18. Beyonc頦t. Jay-Z, “Crazy in Love” (Sony) Finally, high-school marching bands score themselves a recent hit. Beyonc頤oesn’t miss a beat while dancing furiously on her butt, and Jay-Z’s phoned-in cameos still sound better than most rappers’ best workwhen he really tries, yes sir, he’s cut from a different cloth. So is she.
19. Hilary Duff, “So Yesterday” (Buena Vista) This brilliantly awkward, G-rated kiss-off is nothing if not 100 percent logical: “Come tomorrow/It will seem so yesterday.” Duff reveals a still-smarting heart at the song’s core, something no onenot Avril, not Liz Phairhas been able to do with a Matrix composition. Songs about not turning back rarely sound so forward-looking.
KATE SILVER
1. The Flaming Lips, “Can’t Get You Out of My Head (KEXP Version)” (Warner Bros.) Coyne’s flip of Kylie’s new classic is a tale of the paranoid, rather than the paramour. Bedded in a thick bass rumble and flush of keyboard, Coyne’s famous falsetto inspires visions of furry animals thwarted by the disco pulse of the mind. In the end, it’s the Lips who wash that confetti right out of their hair.
2. Beulah, “Landslide Baby” (Velocette) This game of he said/she said unfolds via a two-way mirror: She says love’s a cop-out. She says he’s tearing her down. She says he needs a new heart. He says at least he has the boys to keep banging out a lush three-part harmony and Big Star guitar riffs while she leaves the house and his ghost behind.
3. Broadcast, “Before We Begin” (Warp) While much of Britain caves under the pressure of the Yanks’ faulty towers, these Birmingham experimentalists pay homage to the United States of Americathe joking, toking, Joseph Byrd kindwith a thoroughly modern electronic revamp of Byrd’s American metaphysical trip. Flush and fluid, this is a sonic blanket fit for all those Sunday mornings coming down.
4. The Books, “Take Time” (Tomlab) Like Freud Speaks! skipping on the old Victrola, this glitchy and scratchy lesson in time’s properties hypnotizes like a game of follow the pendulum. Once you’re embedded in the fabric of the Books’ fool-the-ear pop, you really don’t care what time it is.
5. Deerhoof, “Panda Panda Panda” (Kill Rock Stars/5RC) The kids in the garage are playing along with “Foxy Lady” on 45 rpm. They think it sounds better that way, and with made-up lyrics and a homemade diorama of pose-able animals to illustrate the song, it does.
6. Sicbay, “Spazz” (www.sicbay.com) Minneapolis power punks find fool’s gold in this Elastik Band Nugget. The lesson learned? You can dance if you want to, even if people on the street think you’re a spazz. Vocalist Nick Sakes’ buzzed-out “That’s right/Uh-huh” spittle chorus is enough of a lure, but it’s the blues-guitar skronk that really gives this tune its jimmy legs.
7. The Strokes, “Automatic Stop” (RCA) Just when you thought Julian might soften up with the quiet, nearly mechanized drum break, he goes all Spicoli on us: “So many fish there in the sea/I wanted you, you wanted me.” The rest is a languid, detention-hall lullaby.
8. Exploding Hearts, “Sleeping Aides & Razorblades” (Dirtnap) Because when you’re in love, every song on the radio is a little offbeat ’80s tune, and they all hurt like that busted tape-reel in your chest. May every tune jangle with such co-dependent urgency, like the dug-up mixtape you made for her but never shared. Next to pills, Buzzcocks and Undertones songs are often the best medicine.
9. Ted Leo/Pharmacists, “I’m a Ghost” (Lookout!) Leo says, “You can’t make a sound from six feet underground.” But you can still take your ghosts for a walk, even take them out for a Guinness, and sing “Jailbreak” now and then.
10. Giddy Motors, “Sassy” (Fatcat) Gaverick de Vis is the Henry Higgins of punk rock. With a glottal delivery that takes the center of this industrial romp, his voice slips between a mewl, a yowl, and a full-scale tantrum. Both gorgeous and antagonistic, the Brit trio takes a series of elementary bass riffs and hollowed-out drum fills, constructing a jungle gym of a punk fiasco.
11. Guitar Wolf, “UFO Romantics” (Narnack) Tokyo greasers tune in Art Bell with emasculated guitars and instead channel the original teen-beaters with this Who-inspired rave-up. An apocalyptic rocker of Plan 9 From Outer Space proportions.
12. Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros, “Coma Girl” (Hellcat) Despite the poetry in the line “Mona Lisa on a motorcycle gang,” it’s Strummer’s strangled vibrato straddling a ragga-fied bass and filched doo-wop “Du-lang du-lang” chorus that prove she’s a rebel and he’ll always be tougher than leather.
13. Cinerama, “On/Off” (Scorpitones) David Gedge and company pack up the Mars and Venus books and head back to the beach. There’s too much sunshine in the band’s surf licks to believe Gedge when he says, “People say to have your heart broken is easier than breaking someone’s heart.” But then he punctuates, “They’re wrong.” As usual, he’s right.
14. Jack Pine Savage, “Ladysmith” (Adonis) The banjo meets the sequencer at the back porch for one last goodbye in a whiskey-soaked sunset. For this Minneapolis-cum-Maine duo, Jim O’Rourke and John Fahey room together in the same Yankee hotel. “As long as we’re drinking, they’ll call us drunks/As long as we’re thinking, they’ll call us out of touch,” croons Tom Elko lazily, as guitarist “Big” Mike Rossetto shrugs off some feedback. The urban bumpkins revel in the can’t-win, and take another swig.
15. Do Make Say Think, “Auberge du Mouton Noir” (Constellation) The hookiest, catchiest wordless melody this side of Debussy trying to crack a new demographicif only opulent, seven-plus-minute ruminations like this one went gold more often. Would surely crack the Top 40 on some XFM broadcast from the dark side of the moon.
ROD SMITH
1. Massive Attack, “Future Proof” (Virgin) The guitar on this down-tempo pop drifter could be thicker for sure, especially during an insufficiently ferocious solo that wafts when it should come down like a knife. Still, it’s an effective foil for the song’s bubbling electronics and vocals that sound like the end of the world happened yesterday.
2. Goldfrapp, “Yes Sir” (Mute) Allison Goldfrapp needs outlets for her relatively newfound Prince fixation, and she’s gonna find ’em no matter what. Here, she and Will Gregory trim the funk down to a few monolithic gestures on an inspired resuscitation of a sophisticated disco gem by Spanish flamenco turncoats Baccara. The singer’s deadpan coo is Marilyn Monroe perfect for the first verse’s “Yes sir/I can boogie/But I need a certain song,” especially with Goldfrapp’s fake Eurodrama accent spicing up the joint nearly as much as its ultramagnetic bass line.
3. Jean Grae, “Excuse Me Miss” (Babygrande) Grae palms the hard-earned chip on her shoulder long enough to engage in a little playful flirtation with none other than (an imaginary) Jay-Z himself in the midst of the 45-minute megamix that makes her phony EP a superior listening value. Even her jabs sound so warm and relaxed, you’d think Grae had a crush on the Hova or something
4. Sir Mix-a-Lot, “Daddy’s Home” (iMusic/ArtistDirect) One of hip-hop’s more distinctive voices dumps the old bumpy flow in favor of a fluid attack that serves his stentorian proclivities admirably. He’s unlikely to regain the “baller crown” that serves as this comeback clarion call’s grail, and Mix’s atypical tastes in headgear and footwear will probably catch on right around the time Ronald Reagan returns to public life. Still, “You need a breather from these trick beaters/And rhyme with big leaguers/’Cause you mackin’ in Adidas/Where you running meters?” stands as the pop year’s most cogent fashion commentary.
5. Client, “Happy” (Mute) It’s amazing that the “I’m happy/She’s happy/So why the fuck are you not happy?” chorus of this midtempo exercise in punk analogics hasn’t propelled Client onto karaoke machines from Modesto to Sioux Falls. Still, it’s good to see that the Slits are getting some recognition in the midst of the ’80s bilge bonanza.
6. Delgados, “All You Need Is Hate” (Beggars Banquet) If John Lennon and George Harrison weren’t already pushing up strawberries, this unabashedly Beatloid paean to humanity’s least popularand most commonemotional state might inspire them to exit via the nearest overpass. Producer Dave Fridmann turns orchestral flower power on its pistil, while Alan Woodward warbles “Hate is everywhere/Look inside your heart and you will find it there,” as though life really were just a bowl of paisley. Resist all you want, but you can’t help but smileand agree.
7. The Dismemberment Plan, “The Jitters (Ev Remix)” (Do Soto) A trumpet solo is always a risky thing in rock; when it’s inserted by a remixer, the stakes rise exponentially. We’ll be lucky if a little splash of brass does as much to decorate a song as nicely as James Olcott’s does in Ev’s stylish adaptation of this understated classic even once again all decade.
8. Denali, “Real Heat” (Jade Tree) Wickedness has never been so beautiful. Granted, Maura Davis’ lyrics bob in and out of audibility, but the way “Take a spot/Here among/Those who taste/Anything they want” oozes honeylike past Davis’s starry tonsils is worth 20,000 times its weight in Marilyn Manson albums. Guitarist Cam DiNunzio drives the bacchanal home with the sort of slash-and-burn solo Robert Smith might have dreamt about 20 years ago, just before waking up with an erection.
9. Cex, “The Wayback Machine” (Jade Tree) Ryjan Kidwell’s ongoing case of lyrical Munchausen syndrome finds its finest moment to date in his tale of accidental death and reduction to decaying roadside attraction status, but it’s the song’s sinister laptop fandango and sneak acoustic guitar attack that put the cake under the frosting, with a synth-saturated break toward the end that’s like menthol ice cream for the ear holes.
10. The Desert Sessions Vol. 9 & 10, “In My Head . . . or Something” (Ipecac) The lyrics come nowhere near those of “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret” in the overtness department, which doesn’t diminish their spectral luster in the leasteverybody needs a good succubus song from time to time. The chugging, guitar-driven hooks that bristle around Josh Homme’s limpid vocals pretty much assure that this hummer will end up being a Queens of the Stone Age hit next summer. Good, because it’ll be nice to hear a blown-up mix on car radios. Bad, because Homme is almost always more spectacular when those other fuckers aren’t in the way.
11. The New Pornographers, “It’s Only Divine Right” (Matador) “It’s an epic!” chief pornmonger Carl Newman told me over the phone about this lighthearted jab at the daughters Bush a few months ago. “That song is like a Frankenstein monster. I built it out of a bunch of crazy shit, including a riff I’d been messing around with for years. I think it was a little influenced by ‘Remake/Remodel,’ by Roxy Music, where it’s divided into sections that escalate as the song progresses.” But even during their Eno-in-feathers phase, Roxy couldn’t have mustered the geeky abandon that propels “Divine Right” into its closing spazzmodelic frenzy.
12. Basement Jaxx ft. Lisa Kekaula, “Good Luck” (Astralwerks) One day, God looked down at Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe and said “Lo! I’ve been looking at this Kish Kash proposal you e-mailed me. I’d have Lisa from the Bellrays sing on ‘Good Luck.’ You don’t want to divafy her on the track. Forget about house music. Go for soul power. Make the track enormous. Fill up the mix. Make it dirty and fast. And most of all, make it rock.” “Gotcha,” said they. “Anything else?” “Yes,” God answered. “The drums should clip a little every once in a while.”
13. Year of the Rabbit: “Say Goodbye” (Elektra) People can piss and moan about the continually Cobainian predilections of top bun Ken Andrews, best known for his post-grunge work in Failure, till the cows come home to roost. So what if they’re right? All the hand wringing in the world does nothing to make “Say Goodbye” any less rich or any less stately. And a year or so hence, when the herd decides to start partying like its 1991, guess who’s gonna be sitting in the catbird seat with a wad of 50s fat enough to choke a hippo? Meanwhile, “Say goodbye/Accept this fate without any anger/Say goodnight/Turn off the light and close the door on your way out” makes for better bar-closing fare than anything in Semisonic’s most lucrative dreams.
