Archive for 2004

2004: My Year In Movies

I feel as though I saw many more films from 2004 than what is on this list, but this is everything that I remember. I had a much better year with television by far, thanks to my buddies Tivo and Netflix. With the exception of Anchorman and possibly Eternal Sunshine, I doubt that any of these films will ever mean as much to me as the recent seasons of The Sopranos, The Office, Peep Show, Angel (I saw the entire series in 2004), Gilmore Girls, Six Feet Under, and especially Arrested Development.

Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy - Oh dear God, I love this movie. Much like The Big Lebowski, Anchorman has its own bizarre internal logic and a seemingly endless stream of hilarious, highly quotable dialogue. Will Ferrell co-wrote this film with director Adam "The H Is O" McKay, and as a result it is an undiluted, superconcentrated dose of the Ferrell aesthetic. The movie's best gags are strange turns of phrase ("I'm in a glass case of emotion!") and moments of extreme absurdity, such as the scene-stealing Steve Carell murdering another news man in a back alley brawl with a trident. An instant (cult) classic. - A+

Before Sunset - Though this is in fact a sequel to Before Sunrise, it works perfectly well as a stand alone film. In lesser hands, this could have been a pointless excercise in fan-fic, but this reunion of star-crossed lovers is significantly more interesting and insightful than the original. The movie plays out in real time, as Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke's finely nuanced characters reconnect over the course of an hour before Hawke must leave to catch a plane. The conversation is intense but extremely naturalistic as it hits on big ideas and covers a range of emotions with effortless grace. - A

DiG! - Full review here. - B+

Dodgeball - Almost everyone involved can do better than this, and the concept could have been executed with more style and humor; but as far as disposable sports comedies go, this is fine enough. - C

Dogville - I'm not certain whether this film is simply overlong, or better viewed as a series of vignettes with substantial breaks between each chapter. Seen as a whole, Dogville is overwhelming, and its flaws and quirks become very grating after the first hour has passed. Nevertheless, the film has its own misanthropic charm. I saw this the same day that I saw Kill Bill Vol 2, which made for an interesting double bill given that both movies are about the intense suffering and eventual righteous, bloody vengeance of the female lead. B-

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - The story is as clever, thoughtful, and poetic as I would expect from a sci-fi romance by Charlie Kaufman, but what sticks with me the most is how Michel Gondry pulls it all off visually. The scenes taking place inside of Jim Carrey's dissolving memories are brilliantly concieved and photographed, but the simpler scenes on the frozen lake, the snowy Montauk beach, and the LIRR train are among the most lovely and sublime in all of the cinema that I've ever seen. Kate Winslet (who has never looked more beautiful than in this film) is particularly excellent in her role, as is the uncharacteristically understated and sullen Jim Carrey. - A+

Fahrenheit 9/11 - I expected this to be sloppy and didactic, but it's actually a much more coherant and restrained polemic than one might reasonably expect from Michael Moore. Obviously this wasn't strong enough as a piece of propaganda to get Bush out of the White House, but how can you expect very many people outside of the Democratic base to pay $5-10 to see this? It's not as though many left wing partisans would want to pay to watch The O'Reilly Factor at a multiplex. TV, newspapers, and radio are far better venues for propaganda. Nice try. - B-

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban -Thanks to director Alfonso Cuarón, this is the most aesthetically successful film in the Potter series to date, though it is marred by structural flaws inherant to JK Rowling's original text. The movie is full of great moments and some impressive visuals, so I can forgive its plot holes and anticlimactic ending. Bonus points are awarded for an increase in screen time for the series' best character, Hermione Granger. - B+

I Heart Huckabees - Without question, I Heart Huckabees is the most unfairly reviewed film of 2004, with most of the negative reaction being the result of a kneejerk anti-intellectualism that either missed its point entirely or begrudged the film for even having one. I find it particularly odd that anyone would accuse this film of being smug, since I find it to be remarkably compassionate, at least much more so than most other contemporary satires. The comedy is very sharp, and the film is full of surprisingly great performances from actors I don't normally like. Naomi Watts is especially great, which suggests that she has been wasting too much time screaming and crying in shameless Oscar bait when she ought to be doing more comedy. - A

The Incredibles - A fine film, though it is vastly overrated by critics beaten down by the onslaught of painfully awful "family entertainment" movies. I normally dislike digital animation, but the design and direction is generally strong enough for me to forgive the parts that look like a video game. The writing and acting is well above par for an animated feature, though the jokes are a bit stale if you're like me and have been reading postmodern superhero comics since you were eight years old. It's impossible for me to say anything nice about this movie without sounding as though I'm damning it with faint praise, but it is definitely worthwhile. - B

Jandek On Corwood - Such a disappointment! The Jandek story is quite fascinating, but it is much better suited to print media. The majority of the film is repetitive and pendantic, featuring a steady stream of mostly insufferably pretentious fringe music critics explaining to the viewer what Jandek's music sounds like while Jandek's music plays in the background. Almost no one in the film has anything particularly interesting or insightful to say, and were it not for the inclusion of a recording of the only known Jandek interview, it would come off like an avant garde version of a fluffy E! celebrity profile. But hey, at least Douglas is in it, and that's kinda cool. - C+

Kill Bill Vol. 2 - I am very grateful that Quentin Tarantino split Kill Bill into two distinct films, mostly because I appreciate that the first film is nothing but undiluted, ridiculous violence. I appreciate the greater depth and humanity of the second film, but if it were edited into one big movie, the material from Vol 2 would have dragged down the fun bits considerably. I will probably always prefer the stylistic excesses of Vol 1, but there is very little that I don't like about this movie. - A

The Ladykillers - Totally forgettable. In fact, I barely remember any of it and am mildy surprised that I went to see it at all. Not awful, but completely inessential, even to hardcore fans of the Coen brothers. - C

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou - I feel as though I need to catch this one again, as my first viewing was probably spoiled by the weight of enormous expectations and a generally weird mood on my part on the day that I saw it. My friend believes that The Life Aquatic will inevitably be considered Wes Anderson's best work by his hardcore fans in the future, similar to how Wowee Zowee is so beloved by diehard Pavement fans like myself because that album is the purest essence of the band's aesthetic. He's probably right. If you're into Anderson's style, you will find plenty to love about this film, even if it lacks the heart and soul of Tenenbaums and Rushmore. When I saw the film, I was let down because the emotional moments did not resonate enough for me, and because I was not nearly as engaged by this set of characters (well, except for Jeff Goldblum's "part-gay" Alistair Hennessey) as I was by Max Fischer or the Tenenbaum clan, but an observation made by another friend of mine makes me want to disregard all of that when I see the film for the second time. He says that the film's key exchange is when Cate Blanchett's character tells Bill Murray's Steve Zissou that her fetal child will be 11 and a half in 12 years, to which he replies, "that's my favorite age." My friend's point is that all of the emotional moments in the movie are like a sensitive 12-year-old's idea of an emotional moment. I get the feeling that he understood this film far better than I did. - B+

Mean Girls - This movie is the entire reason why I have any good will for Lindsay Lohan. Mean Girls has its flaws, but Tina Fey's script is a funnier, less hateful version of Heathers, which is exactly what this new generation of teenagers deserves. - B

Meet The Fockers - Occasionally amusing, but mostly quite embarassing. Nearly every joke from Meet The Parents is recycled in the most tasteless way possible, and every punchline is telegraphed well in advance. A terrible recurring joke about a baby who can only utter the word "asshole" is beaten into the ground, as though the producers were deseperate to score a catchphrase for merchandising. Barbra Streisand and Dustin Hoffman commit to their thin roles admirably, but their talents are entirely wasted here. C-

Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster - At its best, Some Kind Of Monster is like a hilarious, real life version of This Is Spinal Tap full of bizarre, too-good-to-be-true moments and mind boggling dialogue. I would have been satisfied if the documentary only made the band look ridiculous, but there are moments throughout the film that make me feel genuine sympathy for Metallica for the first time in my life. The movie is about an hour too long, but I was never bored. B+

Napoleon Dynamite - Amusing, but soulless. It was rather like bad fast food - reasonably tasty during consumption, but it doesn't digest well and leaves an unpleasant aftertaste. Most of my favorite contemporary comedy (Peep Show, The Office, The Best Show On WFMU, Arrested Development) finds humor in sympathetic portrayals of loathesome characters, whereas Napoleon Dynamite gets its cheap laughs at the expense of its harmless, clueless cast of rubes. The movie can be funny, but it's all bully humor. If you like to pick on misfits, minorities, the poor, and the handicapped, then this is the movie for you. - C+

Nausea II - Though its pacing is occasionally clumsy and its production values are roughly on the same level of the hardcore porn that it spoofs, Guy Richards Smit's Maxi Geil rock opera is one of the sharpest, funniest art films that you'll probably never get to see. As many of you are already aware, the music in the movie is top notch, especially the showstopping "Please Remember Me." The story is a cutting satire of the contemporary art world, but it is entirely unnecessary to be invested in that scene to enjoy Nausea II's droll wit and spectacular low budget set pieces. - A-

The Perfect Score - Formulaic and aggressively dumb, but what would you expect? I'm not quite sure what Scarlett Johansson was doing slumming in a movie like this, but I suppose that we all have to pay our bills somehow. The only memorable performance in this movie is by Asian stoner dude Leonardo Nam, who delivers every funny-on-purpose line of dialogue in the film, including a bizarre riff about the lizard guy from Mortal Kombat. - C-

The Saddest Music in the World - I wanted to like this film more than I do because of the praise for it written by some of my friends, but ultimately I find that I admire its visual style, ideas, and witty dialogue far more than I actually enjoyed it. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of brilliance on display in this film, even if I was not fully engaged. I read something (I can't remember where...) recently that suggested that this was like the cinematic equivalent of the WFMU aesthetic, and that seems about right, at least in terms of the brand identity that the station has created over the years. - A-

Saved! - Very underrated and subversive. Those of you who complain about its familiar teen movie narrative structure are missing the point enormously. If this film was even remotely arty, it would turn off the people who need this movie the most - average American teens who have been raised in very mainstream Christian homes and have not fully made up their own minds about their faith. I don't think that this film is judgemental of faith, only of zealotry. It's remarkably compassionate and very funny. - A

Sideways - This is Alexander Payne's best picture to date, which is saying quite a lot given his brief but uniformly excellent filmography. At this point, I thought that I was completely burned out on the "sad sack character sketch" subgenre, but Payne and Paul Giamatti bring a great deal of empathy and humor to the lead character, a failed novelist divorcee who blurs the line between wine connoisseur and wino. I've noticed a lot of buzz about Virginia Madsen's supporting role, but I wasn't nearly as impressed by her as I was by Thomas Hayden Church, who is a revelation as Giamatti's party dude foil. - A

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow - In a better world, a Fantastic Four movie would be shot using similar special effects. Strictly in terms of visuals, this is my favorite film of the year. The story is good fun, though its fetishization of serials, comic books, and pulp leaves little room for subtext. Impressive work for a first time writer/director, though Kerry Conran would be wise to collaborate with a proper writer in the future unless he aims on becoming his generation's answer to post-Return Of The Jedi George Lucas. - B

Spider-Man 2 - I imagine that much of the "best superhero movie ever!!!" hype around this movie is mostly due to it not sucking even though it's a sequel to a massive hit. Sensibly, the second film in the series doesn't stray very far from the winning formula of its predecessor (basically: be as reverential to the spirit of Stan Lee/Steve Ditko comics as possible), but I think that Spider-Man is a much better character when his lighthearted wit is emphasized rather than his hard luck. I hope that Spider-Man 3 is a lot less emo than this. - B

Starsky & Hutch - Another enjoyable but totally forgettable mainstream comedy. Not a bad way to kill time, but nothing special. Obvs, I'll see most anything featuring Owen Wilson. C+

Word Wars - It is somewhat difficult for me not to think of this film as being like a poor man's Spellbound. The structure is almost identical - the first half of the documentary shows us the daily lives of a selection of hardcore Scrabble enthusiasts, and the second half shows them in action at a national Scrabble tournament. The subjects of the film are mostly depressing loner types who have some measure of quirky charm, but clearly not enough so that I can remember many details about them several months after seeing the movie. - B

Fish Out Your Placenta and Pop It In a Blender

Salt 5 "Get Up! Rapper" - I honestly can't recall which song introduced me to the wonders of J-Pop, but I would like to find out so that I might shake its antropomorphized hand. In terms of providing the purest mainlines of sugary-sweet pop ever, it's very hard to trump the Japanese. Salt 5, rather than being a pop group unto themselves, is made up of members from various groups that operate under the larger Hello! Project banner (which also consists of pop giants such as Minimoni and Morning Musume).

At least, these are the facts as I understand them. The main hinderances of delving deeply into J-Pop, for those of us who live smack dab in the middle of the non-metropolitan US, are the language barrier and lack of domestic availability. The better P2P programs can circumvent the latter problem, but an inability to distinguish kanji from katakana will keep the avid English-speaking fan from learning much about J-Pop via the mostly Japanese fan sites. I would posit, however, that the biggest obstacle that this music faces in finding widespread popularity even among the newly pop-friendly enclaves of the underground is that so much of it is pop turned to 11. "Get Up! Rapper" is a mild Splenda kick compared to the hyperactive sugar rush of, say, "Minihamuzu no Ai no Uta" by Minimoni. Which, as I've come to discover, is maybe just a little too sweet for the uninitiated. But if this sounds like your cup of Jolt, I can't recommend further J-Pop exploration highly enough.


Bumblebeez 81 "Microphone Diseases" - Bumblebeez 81 (or simply Bumblebeez, as they're known in their native Australia) have made an appearance on Fluxblog before, months before the release of their Printz album (a collection of two prior EPs) in the US. Since that time, a video for one of the weaker songs on the album ("Pony Ride") has aired on television and, between negative reaction to the video (which led many to erroneously dub the 'Beez as nothing more than a cut-rate Beck clone) and album reviews that mostly range from mediocre to awful, it would seem to the casual observer that the band could easily be written off as a dud.

Which is why I was happy to see that Anthony Miccio (a former Fluxblog guest writer) gave the album a positive review in Stylus and put it high in his 2004 Pazz & Jop poll. It makes a body feel just a little less crazy when there's another guy who's seeing the same shit.

So, yeah: I'd put Printz pretty high up on my list of albums from the past year. And I'd put "Microphone Diseases" even higher on my list of songs of the year. I played it almost weekly on my college radio show from the time I first discovered it and never got tired of hearing it. Like the album as a whole, it's an admittedly derivative and slightly amateurish affair, filled with ramshackle beats, bratty, tossed-off rhymes, and a boundless, energetic sense of fun. Which is pretty much the criteria that most of the bad reviews I read used to warn away listeners. In my world, that's practically the formula for good times. (Click here to buy it from Amazon)

Deric Holloway maintains the visuals for Fluxblog. He is currently an art student and hopes to put his training to work in making Fluxblog a feast for the eyes as well as the ears. Tron In Morocco is his fledgling music blog.

Where Shall I Send Thee?

Kelly Pace, Aaron Brown, Joe Green, Paul Hayes, and Matthew Johnson "Holy Babe" - This is a bit late for Christmas, I know, but since this song is less about the holiday and more about the actual Nativity, it doesn't have an implied expiration date like most modern secular Christmas tunes. I'm no musicologist, so I have no idea if this song predates "The Twelve Days Of Christmas" (my guess is that it does not), but it follows a similar lyrical structure. That's where the similarities end, though - it's hard to imagine anyone performing "The Twelve Days Of Christmas" with as much soul and jaunty charm. This was recorded in 1939 on a farm in Gould, Arkansas and was recently unearthed and reissued on the excellent Where Will You Be Christmas Day? compilation. (Click here to buy it from Dust-to-Digital.)

Ron Rogers "Yaya" - Like any good celebration of the id, the lyrics of this song are deeply ridiculous and full of silly nonsequitors (I really do hope that I get to slip the phrase "let's change the subject and talk about whiskey!" into a real conversation someday) while the music takes the business of revelry and hedonism very seriously, as though it were some kind of divine mandate. (Click here to buy it from Ze Records.)

Elsewhere: As part of his nearly complete analysis of The Fiery Furnaces' Blueberry Boat, Eppy at Clap Clap Blog has recut the album into what he believes to be the proper chronological order of the lyrics and has posted the whole thing as mp3s here. If you haven't already read through his essays about each of the songs and have a bit of time on your hands, I highly recommend that you do so, since his annotation and analysis are very helpful tools in making some sense of the album's labyrinthian structure and many obscure lyrical references. His recent entry for "Mason City" is particularly useful, since it decodes the seemingly unknowable third section of the song.

Overdosing On Reality

Harry "Tastes Like Kisses" - Harry wants to be a rock star. She wants it so much and so badly that desperation practically oozes from every record she pushes onto the market by way of A&R exec 'favours' and slots supporting Crazy Town in 2001. I can almost imagine her as a child, wishing upon that falling star, gazing from a poetically steamed window saying, "One day, I'm going to be famous. I'll sell millions of records and travel the world and fuck rock bands."

One out of four ain't bad.

Brazenly masterful in its utter irrelevance, the song snatches the underlying synth signature from Peaches 'Set It Off' and layers on the heavy electrics and languid wistfulness. The entire track is a peripheral orbit of laboured rhyming patterns and lyrics that are simply laughable ("We lie like lovers and break like sinners/ Hate like Hitlers"), yet combined with the sheer wanting that soars through each aching verse, and that hypnotically repetitive bridge, and oh, how I'm transfixed.

For all that, it's the sheer desperation that compels my pity and admiration. 'Tastes Like Kisses' is that sluttish girl who rolls up her pleated skirt with one hand, revealing only pasty flesh and shaving cuts (the other never pauses as she stuffs over-salted crisps towards darkly-lined lips); her dark bra too-tight under the school blouse so that flesh bulges in bands across her back. It's that look of numb desperation in the eyes of an underage girl in the 2am club, as a skin-head fifteen years too old gropes her lycra-clad buttocks in a sickening grind.

Something's just not right, but I can't look away because the horror and beauty of the lengths people will go to just compels me to watch with complete awe. (Click here to visit the official Harry website.)

Holly Valance "Down Boy" - Why Miss Valance, what languidly seductive offering is this? So breathlessly musing, so sensually vibrant. Oh, how you exude the smoky-kohled eyes and artfully draped posture of a true pop minx!

We British have a strange love affair with a certain breed of Australian poplets. Having spent our early evenings watching the sweet girl next door/feisty mechanic go through their first loves and losses in the perpetual 'Neighbours' soap sunshine, we're only too happy to welcome them into our charts to grin inanely at tumble-dried Saturday morning hosts. But alas! Fickle are we also, and thus pretenders to the original Ms Minogue's throne eventually recede into the murky waters of anonymity (or, in Natalie Imbruglia's godforsaken case, dating Lenny Kravitz. Serves her right for 'White Lily Island'.)

And so, while Holly may presently be hawking collect call services with all the style of a third runner-up Miss Skegness contestant, her brief and stunning musical forays shall forever live on in the devoted pop memory. From the opening stutter - half chord/half beat - and sinuous breathy drawl, I am enrapt. Her verse intro is coquettishly mused, as if she can barely spare the energy from all that lounging on silk sheets in a tangle of limbs. The whispered line echo builds with staccato electronics, and oh, the chorus! Devastatingly understated, hypnotically repetitive.
This girl is writhing on her pedestal with all the careful abandon of one who knows precisely the power she wields. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

Abby McDonald blogs her sarcastically devoted pop musings at Poptext

Space Is The Place

Les Baxter and His Orchestra "Moon Moods" - I've always loved lounge music, which probably has more to do with growing up around jazz and showtunes than in any conscious anti-rock rebellion or nostalgia for a conservative age (explanations bandied about at the height of the mid-nineties lounge revival). One of the things that fascinates me about exotica specifically, though -- besides the fact that it's just plain weirder than Dean Martin or Julie London or anyone else on the Swingers soundtrack -- is that it's so deliberately functional. It's designed purely as "mood music" and aims to transport its listener to faraway lands not through recordings of actual ethnic musicians but through familiar signifiers of "the exotic" grafted onto pleasant, effervescent cocktail tunes. You want to evoke Africa? Cue bongos and have a couple guys holler like natives.

Les Baxter, who I first discovered through a friend who wrote a high-school zine called "Exotica and Boxing" (recto: profile of Yma Sumac, verso: profile of Sugar Ray Leonard), is by most accounts the granddaddy of exotica, although his most famous composition, "Quiet Village" (1959), was made popular through a recording by Martin Denny. "Moon Moods," on the other hand, was written in 1947 by Harry Revel and only arranged and conducted by Baxter, but it's very much in line with Baxter's later work.

From the opening swoop of the wordless, mixed-gender choir (the kind you only hear nowadays in radio ads for car dealers or jewellers) signaling mankind's optimism about the coming space age, the piece then shuffles its lush melodies between a hepped-up Django Reinhardt-esque guitar, lazy French horn, excitable vibes, and -- standing in for the cold and lonely cry of the moon -- an eerie theremin. The recording is early enough and was popular enough that it may have been some Americans' first exposure to the instrument, apart from the 1945 film scores to Spellbound and Lost Weekend. Without a doubt, it's one of the first exotica recordings period. An early review of the record it appears on (Music Out of the Moon, originally released on 78 rpm) stated: "The music has character and meaning, and once the public becomes familiar with the unusual mode and structure, it is certain a demand for this fare will sprout." (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Holger Czukay "Cool in the Pool" - This 1979 recording by the founder of Can uses many of the same elements as "Moon Moods" -- nonsense syllables, wobbly horns, and tricky jazz guitar licks -- to exhibit a different sort of futurism: music as melting pot. It's this intention, along with the song's lite Afro-funk, that also aligns it with David Byrne and Brian Eno's 1981 project My Life with the Bush of Ghosts. As sampling in general was becoming more prevalent through hip-hop breaks, Czukay and Byrne/Eno pioneered the idea of peppering already-built grooves with short snippets of other recordings -- shortwave radio broadcasts, film clips, scratchy opera records -- a trend that can be traced forward to artists like Beck and the Books, among hundreds. What ultimately distinguishes "Cool in the Pool" from Ghosts, however, or even the other tracks on Czukay's Movies, is how goddamn funny it is. Throughout much of the song, Czukay coos in a breathy German accent lines like, "Let's get hot / On the dancing spot / Hot / Ooh, is it hot? / Wow, man / Then let's get cool in the pool." As he sighs over an ice cream soda, klezmer saxes explode like circus fireworks, then quickly drop out. Cartoon sound effects sparkle and dissolve. Dogs bark. In both songs I've chosen, part of what I'm responding to is an element of sublime ridiculousness, which I think is an underrated quality when it comes to music. I like songs that make me cry as much as the next person, but I also love songs that knock me out with the absolute beauty of their absurdity. (Click here to buy it and here to visit Holger Czukay's personal website.)

Bonus shout-out to my favorite 2004 single, unsigned band category: Velvetron's "Snooze Bar" shimmers like fellow Chicagoans the Sea and Cake at a late-summer beach picnic. (Click here to visit the official Velvetron website.)

John Cunningham writes the blogs Seaworthy Southeast Thesaurus & Shouting The Poetic Truths Of High School Journal Keepers and plays keyboard in the band Canasta.

There's Nothing As Sublime

August Darnell "Christmas On Riverside Drive" - Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I hope that you all have a pleasant weekend. Consider this to be my holiday gift to you - a joyous disco ode to Manhattan at Christmastime, circa 1981. (Click here to buy it from Ze Records.)

After A Dramatic Pause, He Says "My Name Is Santa Claus"

Justus Köhncke "Wo Bist Du" - It seems that without exception, the schaffel that I enjoy the most is always the very fruity quasi lite-FM stuff. This is probably the fruitiest bit of schaffel yet, even beating out Köhncke and Meloboy's "Frei/Hot Love" from the Kompakt 100 compilation. (Click here to pre-order it from Kompakt.)

Eyeball Skeleton "Santa's On The Run" - This seems to be reaching a bit too aggressively for the left field novelty Christmas record brass ring, but it's all in good fun. Basically, this is a couple silly kids and their dad doing a very catchy little song about a fugitive Santa Claus, complete with a few baffling echo-heavy interludes that sound as though one of the children is singing from the bottom of a well. (Click here for more from Eyeball Skeleton.)

At Least Your Breasts Cost More Than Hers

Amy Winehouse "Fuck Me Pumps (Mylo Mix)" - This is a scathing little character sketch full of intergender contempt, with only a tiny bit of empathy in the form of condescending pity. If you've got any impulse for cattiness, this is the song for you. It's practically the musical equivalent of Gawker and Go Fug Yourself. Holiday bonus points are awarded for sounding as though it's going to break into "Winter Wonderland" just before the chorus. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Pas/Cal "Last Christmas" - Christmas song, or love letter to Protools? You be the judge. Pas/Cal cover the other George Michael's* Christmas hit arranged with a taste for excess that stops just short of bringing in a digital children's choir. (Click here to buy it from Darla.)

* Y'know, the singer/songwriter.

You've Been Drafted By The United States

El-P & Ghostface "Hide Your Face (Remix)" - This is yet to be released, but this inspired team-up feels like some kind of wonderful holiday gift to us all from the hip hop gods above. Ghostface brings out the very best in El-P, who holds his own with Ghost on his verses and delivers an excellent track built around a filthy funk guitar riff. Like the best songs off of Supreme Clientele, this song feels indestructable and extraordinarily confident; sort of like a superhero doing a pimp strut.

Mia Doi Todd "Casa Nova" - If I didn't like this song, it would be very easy to mock it. "Stuffy folk girl goes on an island cruise!," etc. But the song works, and the tension between Todd's austere folkie aesthetic and the mellow ska horns results in something quite pleasant and unexpected. The production on Todd's record is amazingly crisp and clean, enough so that I think I'll be using it for reference the next time I go shopping for stereo speakers. (Click here to visit Mia Doi Todd's official website.)

Elsewhere: Newish mp3 blog Popadopolis has the album version of M.I.A.'s "Bingo." It's really great, though it's somewhat difficult to divorce this song from the "Big Pimpin'" beat in my mind.

And: Pitchfork's Top 50 Singles Of The Year is probably the best year end list that you're going to see in any high profile publication this season. Not only does it have Annie's "Heartbeat" at #1, but it features several artists and songs that have been featured on this site over the past year.

The People That You Meet Want To Open You Up Like Christmas

Scissor Sisters @ Hammerstein Ballroom 12/19/2004
Laura / Better Luck / Lovers In The Backseat / Tits On The Radio / The Skins / Magnifique / Rock My Spot (Crevice Canyon) / Mary / Comfortably Numb / Filthy/Gorgeous / Return To Oz // It Can't Come Quickly Enough / Take Me Out / Take Your Mama / Music Is The Victim

Scissor Sisters "Magnifique (Live In Brighton)" - I don't think that I've ever been in a better audience than the one for this Scissor Sisters show. Even up in the mezzanine, I was surrounded by enthusiastic, unselfconcious dance-happy people. Pretty much everybody in the house was dancing for "Comfortably Numb" and "Filthy/Gorgeous." I've never seen an entire floor at a rock show move like that - it was very inspiring. Of course, this was a crowd who had been dancing right through VHS Or Beta (who were good, but sounded maybe a bit too much like old Cure dance remixes) and the between set DJs (who were fucking amazing, by the way) and were obviously waiting the whole night for those two songs to come on.

The Scissor Sisters totally deserved this audience - they gave exactly as good as they got. They were even tighter and more fabulous than they were when I last saw them waaaay back in January, with a level of showmanship rivaled by few others in the business. The show ended with an incredible spectacle - the stage filled with a dozen crazy dancers in costumes ranging from a human Christmas gift to topless reindeer-headed go-go dancers. As the song concluded, Jake Shears (dressed in silver tights like some kind of snow pixie) was being humped by a guy in a Santa Claus suit. I wish that I had some pictures of this. Either way, you kinda had to be there. (Click here to pre-order the live DVD from the Scissor Sisters official site.)

Tom Scharpling & Andy Earles "The Depressed Office Worker & The Christmas Party" - From the lofty heights of ecstacy we move on to the deepest, darkest depths of despair, as a caller tells Tom all about his miserable holiday season, including an anecdote about the most horrific (and hilarious) "Secret Santa" office Christmas party of all time. (Click here to visit the Best Show On WFMU website or here for Andy Earles' site.)