How To Get To Purest Hell

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They “Lowlife” – With a pulse-pounding beat and jittery horns, They Shoot Horses… evoke the fun sort of paranoia, i.e., the kind that does not directly involve yourself. This is more like the vicarious thrill of watching characters get put through the wringer in pulpy genre fiction, safe from the possibility of actually being the person at risk of being knifed by a lowlife in some noirish scenario. (Click here to buy it from Buy Olympia.)

Mark Ronson with Alex Greenwald “Just” – With the help of the horn section of the Dap Kings and the singer from Phantom Planet, DJ Mark Ronson foregrounds the R&B grooves that were always present in the Radiohead original, resulting in the very best Radiohead cover (with vocals) that I’ve heard. The transposition of Johnny Greenwood and Ed O’Brien’s lead guitar parts to trumpet and saxphone is particularly inspired, and though I do wish the vocals were more soul/R&B to match the rest of the arrangement, Greenwald does a fine job. It’s definitely a lot better than my performance of “Creep” with the Super Karaoke Fun Time Band last night! (Click here to visit Mark Ronson’s MySpace page.)