Gruff Rhys “Candylion” – This is a far cry from the Super Furry Animals’ high water mark “The Man Don’t Give A Fuck” — it barely rocks at all, lacks profanity and Steely Dan samples entirely, and is awash in a sea of whimsy rather than piss and vinegar. (Whimsy smells better, sorta like strawberries and laundry.) “Candylion” is basically straight up, totally unapologetic children’s music, and pushes Rhys’ penchant for gentle acoustic lullabies to a logical extreme of cuddliness. The lyrics are full of charming nonsense, but it’s not nearly as twee as it seems on the first listen — there’s a subtle and somewhat inexplicable darkness to the song, even in its most sunny and harmonic moments. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Simian Mobile Disco, Luke Vibert, and the Specific Heats.

The New Pornographers “Dreams (Live @ Webster Hall 10/12/2005)” – The band sounds a bit under-rehearsed and Neko Case giggles her way through a few lines, but it’s still a treat to hear the New Pornographers tackle this Fleetwood Mac classic. The arrangement plays it faithful and straightforward, and the emphasis is placed on Neko’s voice, which already sort of resembled that of Stevie Nicks. Some cover selections reveal hidden influences, but this highlights the obvious in the most pleasurable way, and comes off as a sort of fanboy fantasy crossing over into reality. (Click here to buy it from the New Pornographers’ store.)

Elsewhere: Slate’s Dana Stevens is right on the money about Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men. I agree with most everything that she has to say, though I’d like to add that if there has been a better science fiction film made in the past twenty years, I certainly never heard about it.

James Brown “Cottage For Sale” – James Brown’s greatest gift to the world was his ability to express an undiluted yet highly stylized sexuality via a funk so intense and visceral that it served as the foundation for entire genres of music, but that was not the limit of his talent, only just the summit of his achievements. His performance on the standard “Cottage For Sale” is a perfect example of his fearlessness as a vocalist — whereas most everyone who has recorded the tune has done so with a mannered stiffness that is far too polite and aloof for a song expressing such great sorrow and regret, Brown presented the lyric with a robust, wounded humanity that absolutely nailed its sentiment without any trace of over-emoting. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: Six years ago yesterday, Douglas Wolk (the author of the Live At The Apollo book in the 33 1/3 series and all-around awesome guy) recorded this six-hour all-James Brown radio show for WFMU. If you were only slightly familiar with the man’s work, that archived program would be a wonderful place to begin.

Shrag “Stop The Revelry” – Set to a tacky, cheap sounding track that seems as though it was made to evoke bad Christmas music and cheap holiday junk, Helen Shrag sings an anti-Christmas carol about a character who must suffer through the day alone with a family that she loathes, and without booze to “block out all the misery.” Delightful holiday misanthropy! (Click here for the Shrag MySpace page.)

Ed Shepp “Scenes From A Life: A Lonely Christmas” – Christmas may be a lovely time for many people, but being forced to bask in the glow of other’s joy and togetherness can drag less fortunate people down into the darkest depths of despair. In this clip, WMFU radio personality Ed Shepp tells the story of the most miserable Christmas of his life. (Click here for the Ed Shepp Radio Experiment archives, which include several recent Christmas episodes.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site and features holiday themed mp3s from the Where Will You Be Christmas Day? compilation and the Mary Timony Band, plus the Christmas miracle that is “Santa Claus Is A Black Man.”

Evanescence “Call Me When You’re Sober” – It won’t be long before my ballots for both the Jackin’ Pop and Pazz & Jop critic polls will be available online, and so I figured now might be a good time to preemptively explain how this Evanescence song ended up on both of my singles ballots in spite of never being mentioned on this site ever. I did write about the Evanescence record for Urge, but I’m probably correct in guessing that most of you never read that, though maybe that will change once they start putting the blogs on the Urge site rather than just having them embedded in an online store that can only be read if you have the current Windows Media Player on your computer.

I’m probably also correct in assuming that even though “Call Me When You’re Sober” ranks among the biggest rock hits of 2006, a majority of the people reading this either actively avoid any mainstream outlet for rock music (this is generally not a bad call if you live in North America) or tuned this out if they have heard it for, among other potential reasons, the simple fact that it is a song by Evanescence. I’m not going to front — it took two years or so for my feeling about them to shift from initial disdain to benign indifference by the time “My Immortal” was a crossover hit, and so I can understand why a person may have a problem with a Christian rock band that sounds more or less like Tori Amos and Tool collaborating on a musical theatre production of a semi-goth teenage girl’s livejournal.

I’m still not particularly fond of their previous album, and I suppose my new fondness for them is tied in with the fact that the band’s songwriting is now dominated by singer Amy Lee, and that Ben Moody, the chief architect of Fallen, is long gone. That guy’s tendency for the maudlin and the bloated weighed down several otherwise catchy numbers from that record, and though the new songs stick with the enormous, melodramatic sound that made them rich, the arrangements seem far more agile and lithe.

“Call Me When You’re Sober,” their best song and the lead single from The Open Door, is an immense power ballad that harnesses their heavy dirge riffs and penchant for extreme dynamic shifts in service of a powerhouse vocal performance by Lee that reveals her to be Kelly Clarkson’s nearest peer in contemporary rock music. It’s a perfectly constructed and highly effective song, especially in the way it pulls the listener into its emotional reality whether you relate to the tough love break-up scenario in its lyrics or not. I certainly can’t identify on a literal level, but the words and the music ring so true that it seems to be tapping into something archetypal like few other hits from this year. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Phoenix “Napoleon Says” – The other night, I was coming home a bit drunk (this is pretty rare!) from a Christmas party, and I made a note to myself that I should write about this song because, I don’t know, it just sounded really awesome at that moment. Maybe something similar happened to roughly half of the staff at Pitchfork too, because the album from which it is taken has somewhat inexplicably placed in the top 15 of their year-end albums list for 2006. Inexplicable because I know a lot of those people and didn’t realize they were fans; inexplicable because I don’t recall the publication giving Phoenix much flattering coverage in 2006; inexplicable because, let’s face it, it’s not their best album and it’s placing seventeen slots ahead of Belle & Sebastian‘s The Life Pursuit, and that actually IS their best album, and by a considerable margin.

I’ve spent most of this year stuck in my own weird, withholding relationship with It’s Never Been Like That. I’ve never disliked the music though I can’t get over the way it totally hits a wall in its final third, which is sort of ironic given that the last three songs on Alphabetical represent the peak of their career to date. It would be difficult for me to overstate how much I love Alphabetical — I really do think it’s one of the best albums from this decade, and it kinda sucks that it never actually found the sizeable audience of grown-up pop fans that it deserves. I’m not sure what I wanted them to do next, but at least initially, everything aside from the somewhat Alphabetical-ish lead single “Long Distance Call” wasn’t it, though it all sorta fits together in hindsight. They couldn’t keep going in that Timberlake-meets-Steely Dan mode without seeming repetitive, and applying their pristine aesthetic and carefully calculated arrangements to post-Strokes rock was a sensible creative choice, not to mention a more commercial avenue for them given that no matter how deeply un-indie their music got, they were invariably marketed to indie rock people.

Ultimately, the staying power and general appeal of It’s Never Been Like That is the same as its predecessors, i.e. Phoenix approach pop music with a highly developed sense of both craft and style analogous to a haute couture fashion designer. To the untrained eye, a suit is a suit is a suit, but with impeccable design, fine fabric, meticulous construction, and deliberate fitting, a suit can be quite profound and beautiful. As David Raposa says in his blurb accompanying the album in the Pitchfork list feature, the songs seem inconsequential at first but eventually display remarkable endurance and timelessness. Everything is just so, and their skill is such that they can imply a certain raggedness and looseness of spirit in spite of every moment being planned so thoroughly and executed with super-professional precision. It’s a delightful illusion of throwaway rock music, and now I’m glad to say that they had me fooled for so long. (Click here to buy it from Amp Camp.)

Elsewhere: Maura Johnston ponders the class allegiances of today’s journalists, Ken Freedman presents the “The Alternative Jesus Christ Superstar,” Frank Kogan dissects CSS’ “Let’s Make Love and Listen To Death From Above,” and the Face Knife examines the learnings of Borat.

Girl Talk “Smash Your Head” – Like even the best mash-ups and DJ mixes, Girl Talk’s Night Ripper loses some of its initial thrill power once you become familiar with its twists and juxtapositions, but like the best of them, it retains its listenability because the tracks are more than a collection of reference points — nearly all of them stand up as perfectly composed pop songs in and of themselves. “Smash Your Head” in particular comes across like a scale prototype of a future pop utopia in the way it flows from one idea to the next every few bars, yielding a surprisingly cohesive piece of music with its own character that nevertheless is in a constant state of mutation. As Eppy says, since artists like Gillis do not have to actually write the brilliant hooks of their source material themselves, they are free to focus entirely on structure, and as such can find new ideas that would be unlikely to emerge while working within the traditional songwriting paradigm. Obviously, this is fun for a person like me who is simply listening to the Girl Talk record as though it’s any other album, but I really hope that people who are actually writing their own music respond to this sort of challenge and attempt to apply its concepts to their original material. (Click here to buy it from Illegal Art.)

Also: If you were very curious about what I played in my DJ sets at the Delancey on Friday, here you go:

Set 1: The Waitresses “Christmas Wrapping” / Belle & Sebastian “We Are The Sleepyheads” / Peter Bjorn & John “Young Folks” / Velella Velella “Alex Boom Selector” / Klanguage “Never Over” / Cristina “Mamma Mia”

Set 2: Au Revoir Simone “Stars” / Of Montreal “A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger” / August Darnell “Christmas On Riverside Drive” / Amy Winehouse “Rehab” / Spank Rock “Sweet Talk” / Bollywood Freaks “Don’t Stop Til You Get To Bollywood” / Missy Elliott “Can’t Stop” / The Make Up “Pow! To The People” / The Pipettes “Pull Shapes”

Set 3: Talking Heads “Psycho Killer (White Girl Lust edit)” / In Flagranti “Genital Blue Room” / Clipse “Wamp Wamp (Pistol Pete remix)” / Spektrum “Don’t Be Shy” / Bonde do Rolê “Ma´quina de Ricota” / LCD Soundsystem “North American Scum” / Beyonce “Get Me Bodied” / CSS “Let’s Make Love and Listen To Death From Above” / The Knife “We Share Our Mothers’ Health”

JoJo “The Way You Do Me” – With each new track, Swizz Beatz is beginning to seem like an American equivalent of Britain’s Xenomania production team in the way that his arrangements pound bombastic hooks into the listener with merciless intensity while also coming across as sleek, slinky, and seductive. “The Way You Do Me” is a characteristically efficient machine, and it forces the generally middleweight JoJo to double her efforts on a song that could have just as easily fallen into the lap of a powerhouse like Beyonce. She does a good job, and it’s not her fault that she’s ultimately a secondary presence to Swizz on this track. I’ve heard this song at least forty times since October, and the thing I always remember is not her voice but rather the way the beat accelerates into the chorus like someone chasing a departing bus. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: Apologies to anyone who may have their feelings hurt, but Marathon Packs’ year end list is pretty much the only one worth reading thus far in 2006. The list element is besides the point — it’s just great to see the guy nail one record after the next with a remarkable economy of language.

Also: I will be DJing tonight for the Neon Lights party at the Delancey in Manhattan. I will be doing a little bit between the last two bands, and a full dancey set around midnight. The bill includes Olga Bell, Lismore, Thieves Like Us, The Ballet, and DJs Earfarm and Colleen Crumbcake.

Charlotte Gainsbourg “The Operation” – If this track was not actually co-written by Jarvis Cocker, one would be forced to accuse it of flagrant Cocker mimicry. Gainsbourg has no choice but to deliver his words with an approximation of his cadence and droll comic timing, but her breathy femininity is a welcome twist on his old formula. The singer imagines intimacy as a complicated and messy surgery that she performs upon her partner, and thoroughly navigates the metaphor as it cycles through moments of eroticism, sadism, and spirituality before reaching its bitter conclusion. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site, with mp3s from White Magic, Velella Velella, and Lullatone.

Ghostface Killah with Redman & Shawn Wigs “Greedy Bitches” – Okay, More Fish is kinda spotty and Ghostface surrenders a bit too much time to his proteges, but they don’t all need to be classics! At this point in his career, the guy has clearly stopped chasing success and aside from a token nod to the mainstream here and there, he’s content to just pump out records and follow his muse. That’s totally cool and totally valid and if it means every once in a while we get something as consistently amazing as Supreme Clientele and Fishscale, how can you argue against it?

Hip hop is dead set on killing its idols, but both that culture and music at large has a lot to gain from following its best artists beyond their commercial prime and into largely uncharted territory as they age. Jay-Z, whose Kingdom Come is a disappointment but by no means a total failure as an album, seems to be angling to grow into rap’s Frank Sinatra, and I sincerely hope that he eventually settles into that role. Ghostface on the other hand is more of a Neil Young type — restless, eccentric, prolific and capable of expressing virtually anything within his self-defined limitations.

Oh, and hey, Ghostface was kind enough to reserve some space on More Fish‘s best track for the sadly unemployed Redman, who is as delightfully boorish as ever on his third of the song. Also, as you can probably imagine, the lyrics of this song are not safe for work, so be careful, alright? (Click here to buy it from Amp Camp.)

Elsewhere: J. Robbins (who you may know from his work with the Channels, Burning Airlines and Jawbox) and his wife Janet (also of the Channels) are seeking donations so that they can explore further treatment for their infant son who was recently diagnosed with Type 1 SMA. The disease is rather dire, and the cost will very likely wipe them out financially. As you probably know, indie musicians are very seldom rich or particularly well-insured, so any support would be gladly welcomed by the Robbins family. If you have any money to spare, please consider a donation.

Bertine Zetlitz “Never Let You Go” – This is the moment after the break-up, when trauma sets in and awareness is blunted by intentional emotional blinders. The sound is shell-shocked and brittle, cool but not exactly collected. She initiated the split, and so she’s proud and hopeful that her life moves on quickly, and that maybe without him, she’ll “be a great lay.” He’s stoic and wounded, and confused by his sudden loss of what he’d assumed was a sure thing. They are both fooling themselves if they think they can fully escape the other, and that’s mostly because neither of them really wants it that way. (Click here to buy it from CDON.)

Klanguage “All This Time” – It’s almost easier to think of Klanguage’s music entirely in visual terms — every tone is a supersaturated color, and each dynamic shift pops out as if the song was recorded in 3D. There’s a lot going on, but it never seems busy since the negative space is managed so well, and elements zoom in and out of the foreground so quickly that you may feel that you need to dodge oncoming chord progressions. (Click here to buy it from Fnac Music.)

Also: R.I.P., Leslie Harpold. I didn’t know Leslie for very long, but her coolness, sense of humor, and range of knowledge was only surpassed by her kindness and generosity. She will be missed.

Katerine “Etres Humains” – Surely “Man Vs. Machine” is one of the more indestructable tropes of our age. No matter how many people beat the theme into the ground, there’s always going to be someone more than willing to base an entire work on the theme. Philippe Katerine’s Robots Après Tout reverses the title of Daft Punk’s most recent LP and spends much of its time dealing with stifling, mechanical conformity but whether it’s intentional or not, the stiff cadence of his “robot choir” never sound anything but completely human, least of all during the asthmatic orgy breakdown of “Etres Humains.” (Click here to buy it from Bungalow.)

VietNam “ApocLAypse” – There’s no getting around this, and so I may as well address it right away — this band sounds almost exactly like Neil Michael Hagerty fronting late-period Spiritualized. It’s a great combo, mixing up Hagerty’s gruff, expressive mess of a voice and loose noodling with soulful bombast and desperate melodrama. “ApocLAypse” flows directly from another song and is best heard in the context of the band’s debut album, but it’s their most arresting cut, twisting nostalgia and trauma so tightly that they become the same thing. (Click here for the official VietNam site.)

Elsewhere: Marathon Packs returns from a brief hiatus with a review of a somewhat funky Jandek concert in Indianapolis.

Nas featuring Chrisette Michele “Can’t Forget About You” – Sampling Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” is sort of a cheap grab for sentimentality, but in this song, that’s exactly the point. Nas, perhaps the one star under the age of 40 who ought to feel free to wallow in nostalgia, spends the entire track in an odd moebius strip of sentimental yearning by imagining himself as an old man looking back on his glory days, but either in the future or present tense that seems to mean “the early 90s.” The sample actually makes perfect sense in this context given that Natalie Cole’s “duet” with her father on this song was a huge hit during the period Nas is romanticizing, and so the source material becomes a shorthand for the Good Old Days twice over. (Click here to pre-order it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: A chorus of senior citizens perform a surprisingly awesome cover of Sonic Youth’s “Schizophrenia,” and it is simultaneously a new apex of WTFness and somehow totally logical. (Thanks to Brian Turner.)

Beyonce “Creole” – The production/arrangement by Rich Harrison on this track is as exciting and bombastic as you might expect from that guy, but it’s easy to understand why this didn’t make the cut for the B-Day album. For one thing, the celebratory mood is all wrong in the context of that set of songs, but more importantly, the lyrics deviate far from the impressively tight thematic focus of the finished record. So far, in fact, that it’s hard to tell what this song is attempting to articulate, though it seems to be some kind of post-Katrina tribute to New Orleans. That’s just an educated guess, though — it seems to be just as much about dancing, Beyonce’s ridiculous sexiness, and err, racial/ethnic integration. (Click here to buy the Japanese import of B-Day from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site with mp3s from Electric Six, El-P, and Good Friend.

Sonic Youth “Fire Engine Dream” – Unlike most odds-and-sods collections, Sonic Youth’s the Destroyed Room bypasses any pretense of completism in the interest of crafting a cohesive album from somewhat disparate source material as well as making sure that enough strong material is available for future reissues of their back catalog. Aside from a few tracks dating back to the mid-90s, the record is focused mainly on selections from the fertile O’Rourke era. Along with two other tracks on the Destroyed Room, album opener “Fire Engine Dream” is an outtake from 2004’s Sonic Nurse, though its narrative, horizontal sprawl comes closer to the sound of 2001’s underrated “Free City Rhymes” than anything from its musically strong yet creatively unambitious period. Though there’s certainly nothing wrong with the way “Reena,” “Pattern Recognition” and “The Empty Page” toss the listener immediately into the three most recent Sonic Youth albums, I definitely prefer this sort of cinematic world-building opener from the band. (Click here to buy it from Amp Camp.)

Spank Rock “Rick Rubin (White Girl Lust remix)” – Though it’s most likely unintentional, White Girl Lust somehow manage to twist Spank Rock’s backpacker banger into some sort of jingle bell rocker by replacing its electro grind with a sequence of perky sampled hooks that twinkle like Christmas lights and evoke a room full of drunk co-workers and awkward, ill-advised mistletoe maneuvers. (Click here to buy the original from Bleep/Big Dada, and here for the White Girl Lust MySpace page.)

Elsewhere: An impossibly twee Portland band (seriously, these guys make Colin Meloy seem rough and tumble) has a rough time in DC, thus sparking a fascinating/depressing comments thread on DCist that vacillates wildly between reactionary (and often blatantly racist) bullshitting and insightful commentary from residents of the District.

Also: “The record is capped with a cute Murphy-turn in the album closer “New York I Love You,” a little bit of Ben Folds-y piano lament.” This is ironic because Murphy is a guy who came to fame on the strength of a song that expressed a freakishly huge frame of reference, and now he’s getting reviewed by a generation of people for whom piano balladry = BEN FOLDS and disco = JAMES MURPHY.

Mos Def “Crime & Medicine” – Hmm. Strange. Mos Def essentially covers GZA’s “Liquid Swords” whilst re-writing the verses into something else entirely, treading an odd middle ground between doing his own thing and scoring easy love with Wu-Tang nostalgia. This would have failed in most hands, but Mos Def’s skill and charisma go a long way, and his decision to tip the chorus toward its reggae roots is clever and effective if not extremely inventive. Needless to say, if you are Dave Chappelle, you will probably love this. (Click here to pre-order it from Amazon.)

Muscles “Chocolate, Raspberry, Lemon & Lime” – This one’s a bit of an electro-pop Rorschach test — hyper-twee declaration of new love, or possessive, regressive creep-out? It mostly depends on how you would feel if someone told you that they wished that they could shrink you down to pocket-size so they could “play with you all the time.” Either way, the synths are about as fruity as the title suggests, and it’s a good time even if you’re freaked out by the lyrics. (Click here for Muscles’ MySpace page.)

Elsewhere: Pageblank writes a bit about the awkward identity issues of Clipse’s “Mr. Me Too,” Tom Breihan perfectly articulates the appeal of the Long Blondes’ “You Could Have Both,” Rob Mitchum rightfully tears apart that new OC soundtrack (though I should note that the show itself has recently become fun again), and J. Edward Keyes eviscerates another weak episode of the Gilmore Girls.

Pavement “Black Out (Wow Out 7″ Version)” – For most (if not all) of the tour for Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, “Black Out” was included on setlists as “New Gold Soundz,” which is fair enough given its general vibe, though this early draft is more along the lines of “New Stop Breathin’.” Interestingly, with its original chorus (which incidentally repurposes the lyric “haunt you down,” and makes me wonder whether or not this was recorded before or after the “Haunt You Down” 7″) the song takes on an accusing, wounded tone whereas the final version is notable for its contented aimlessness. Several lines that made it to the finished recording appear in a slightly negative variation — “your own hall of shame,” for example — and the implication of “the lessons you’re learning” shift over to a darker sort of self-revelation. Malkmus’ voice couldn’t quite handle the demands of his own arrangement (though I think he could probably do okay with this now that he’s grown into a more confident vocalist), but I would kinda love to hear someone with a full, commanding voice take on this version of the song. (Click here to buy the Wowee Zowee reissue via the Wow Out site — this 7″ is now out of print and unavailable.)

The National Gallery “Barbaric, Classical, Solemn” – Though every era produces its fair share of weird, ambitious projects, it must have been very amusing back in the ’60s when people seemed to have no idea what pop art was capable of and thus went off in all sorts of wild directions, attempting to harness the power of the zeitgeist for just about any purpose. In the case of The National Gallery, the idea was to produce an album of psychedelic pop songs that were “musical interpretations of the paintings of Paul Klee.” The songs are catchy and amiable, but their style seem arbitrary in relationship to Klee’s work, which seems to be at odds with the album’s prim and chirpy arrangements. Lyrically, the words come across as snippets of dense, enthusiastic reviews of the paintings, and so when the songs work, it is like a peculiar sort of arts criticism. Maybe that should be someone’s mp3 blog shtick — a serious review site in which everything is expressed in the form of original songs. (Click here to buy it from Dusty Groove.)

Clipse featuring Slim Thug “Wamp Wamp (Pistol Pete Remix)” – Judging by the sound of Hell Hath No Fury, the Neptunes must have saved up every last top-drawer quasi-minimalist track that they’ve written since 2003 for the Clipse, most likely because they’d be going to waste with any other talent. The best cuts on the album provide an abundance of negative space to be filled up with the duo’s intricate raps, which are far too catchy and colorful to be crowded out by busy arrangements. Non-rhythmic instrumental motifs are used sparingly, and the most effective of them are basically drones — the keyboard choir that lends an airy vacancy to “Keys Open Doors;” the sluggish synth that drags “Hello New World” into inertia; the sustained high pitched piano tone that rings through most of “Ride Around Shining” like a nagging doubt. In most ways that matter, Hell Hath No Fury is as much the Neptunes’ masterpiece as it is the Clipse’s, and so it’s a bit perverse that I’m featuring a track that pretty much guts their contribution and takes one of the album’s top selections in a very different direction.

When I first heard this mix by Pistol Pete (who most longterm readers will remember for his remixes of Missy Elliott, Ghostface Killah, Dead Prez, and Crime Mob), I wasn’t exactly sure what to make of it — I’ve been listening to Hell Hath No Fury more than anything else for the past two weeks, and its rhythms and movements are pretty much drilled into my consciousness at this point, so switching out the Neptunes’ steel drums and atmosphere of cartoonish dread for a hyper electro track required a bit of adjustment. (Hint: Play it very, very loud.) Pete’s arrangement is jittery and quick, picking up its pace as it goes along, ramping up its energy with frantic fills without throwing off the vocals. Whereas the original provides the listener with the vicarious thrill of imagining oneself as a glamorous coke dealer, this mix simulates the effect of the drug itself. (Click here to buy Hell Hath No Fury from Amazon, and here for the Pistol Pete MySpace page.)

Elsewhere: There is an excellent new Charlotte Hatherley song on Chromewaves, and a live set from Giant Drag (Now just Annie Hardy?) featuring two new songs over on the recently resuscitated Rbally blog, which also has a top-notch R.E.M. recording from the Green tour. (Be sure to listen to Stipe’s intro to “Stand” at the end of “Academy Fight Song.”)

Also: The Cold Inclusive provides an outline for a “successful, mutually-beneficial, life-long partnership” with Mary-Kate Olsen.

Gwen Stefani “Now That You Got It” – This song asks no questions; it’s a list of demands. Those demands, however, raise a question: At what point does right-on assertiveness tip over into selfishness and petulance?

On one hand, Gwen Stefani’s needs as expressed in the lyrics are reasonable and what any self-respecting person should ask for from a serious relationship, but on the other, she’s also asking for unyielding submission to her will without offering any sort of reciprocation. The gist of the song is basically: I am unfathomably great, and if you want to maintain a relationship with me, you’d better display selfless obedience to me from this point onward. Like all too much pop art from this period, it confuses self-respect with entitlement and domination, and conflates comfort (ie, a total lack of personal sacrifice or compromise) with mature, adult relationships.

I could have anyone, so what I want / perfect, get it right, never wrong / so you gonna step it up or you gon’ be gone

This line from Gwen’s mid-song rap isn’t a far cry from the chorus of Beyonce’s current hit “Irreplaceable”:

You must not know ’bout me / I could have another you in a minute /matter of fact, he’ll be here in a minute

Of course, there’s a key difference in the context — Beyonce’s song is about a bitter break-up, and her character is attempting to build herself up to dig at the confidence of her ex, and Gwen’s song is from the point of view of someone who is in a stable relationship, presumably not unlike the one she has with her husband, That Handsome Guy From Bush. People say all kinds of cruel things in order to salvage their self-esteem and get back at someone who has hurt them, and it goes a long way toward making Beyonce’s line come across as something sympathetic rather than arrogant and cruel, but what is Gwen’s excuse? Her words don’t seem immediately harsh, but that could just be due to the fact that her disposition is so sunny and that Swizz Beatz’ brilliant track overflows with snappy beats and good vibes in the service of a chorus melody that implies girlish swooning, tipping the listener off that maybe she’s only browbeating this dude because she really loves him and doesn’t want any reason to give him up. (Click here to pre-order it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site, with mp3s from Cannonball Jane, Maps, and A Place To Bury Strangers.

The Specific Heats “Are You For Real, Mehgan O’Neill?” – I have never dated a musician, but I reckon that hearing the words “I wrote this song about you” from a significant other must be one of the more nerve-wracking musical experiences that a person could have. The odds that the song will be awful are very, very high, and even if the song is good, what if the lyrics about you are just totally creepy or steeped in unrealistic expectations or maddeningly vague or sort of inaccurate, as if they just don’t know you at all? Also, God help you if you’re dating an emo boy.

Mehgan O’Neill, who is proven to be “for real” and closely connected to the Specific Heats if you run a cursory Google search, has kinda lucked out in this area. This song isn’t mindblowingly great, but it’s solid and smart and above all else, totally totally sweet. It’s charming and cute in an old-fashioned sort of way, but not over-calculated, and though the singer hides his words and his chords behind a wall of reverb and distortion, the effect is closer to blushing shyness and discreet sentimentality than embarrassed evasiveness. (Click here to buy it from Total Gaylord Records.)

Elsewhere: Preview two songs from the forthcoming new Au Revoir Simone album on their MySpace page. I am especially fond of “Fallen Snow.”

Also: Said The Gramophone’s Jordan Himelfarb ain’t too proud to beg.