If You Wanna, Let’s Skip The Sauna

Mutronium “I’m All Over You” – As the northeastern United States settles into a deep freeze, it’s probably a good idea to break out some summery pop for the sake of escapism. This song is an excellent Cars pastiche complimented by some noisy lead guitar straight out of the Joey Santiago playbook and dynamic programmed percussion that flirts with Big Beat, but remains grounded in contemporary power pop. In terms of pop-rock music, this is the song to beat in 2005. (Mutronium is an unsigned band. If you would like to contact the band, please email mutronium @ hotmail.com)

Benny Sings “Little Donna” – I suppose that a lot of my extreme fondness for this song is a direct result of growing up listening to lite FM radio. Like Phoenix, Benny Sings is unironic about this sort of pop music, and write and perform their material with considerable skill and intelligence. Unlike Phoenix, modern pop sounds are kept to a minimum, so songs like “Little Donna” could possibly pass for an actual AM radio hit from the 70s to most laypersons. Be warned – this song is insanely catchy. I feel like I’m never going to get this song out of my head, and I don’t really mind. (Click here to pre-order it from Dox Records.)

Alone On A Mountain Top

Au Revoir Simone “And Sleep Al Mar” – It’s actually kind of refreshing to hear something as creepy and lecherous as this song come from an all-girl band. There’s no shortage of songs about older men desiring sexy young boys and girls, but good luck making a top ten list of songs sung from an adult female perspective about lust for teenage boys. This song is considerably darker than Au Revoir Simone’s previous material, but the band doesn’t overdo it, keeping the sinister vibe fairly subtle and cinematic rather than over-the-top and theatrical. It’s rather like a feminine version of Thom Yorke’s piano-based songs on the last two Radiohead albums. (Click here to visit the official Au Revoir Simone site.)

Architecture In Helsinki “Do The Whirlwind” – Though I normally use the word “joycore” as an adjective these days, this song would fit into a hypothetical genre of the same name rather comfortably along with recent music by the likes of United State Of Electronica and The Go! Team. “Do The Whirlwind” sounds like a direct descendent of the Tom Tom Club’s classic “Genius Of Love” not just in its floaty, low-key funk, but also in how it employs cutesy vocals to deliver deceptively heavy lyrics. (Click here to buy it from Remote Control.)

The Trendsetters Make Things Better

M.I.A. “M.I.A. (Arular Version)” – One of the things that I find most impressive about M.I.A. is her ability to make a string of seemingly random (but highly specific) images, references, and slogans seem like a fully formed polemic while rarely ever making any direct statements. Anyone who is even remotely informed will be able to read between her lines – there’s not a lot of room for ambiguity here, though obviousness is in short supply. It’s not entirely absent – “you can watch tv, watch the media/President Bush doing takeover” is pretty blunt, but it isn’t didactic. It’s just matter of fact. American imperialism isn’t big news to M.I.A., which is refreshing given that on some level, most anti-Bush/anti-Iraq war songs produced by Americans seem vaguely surprised about it. (Click here to visit the official M.I.A. website.)

Masha Qrella “Last Night” – In my experience, most hybrids of folk rock and electronic music have resulted in tepid yuppie pop that often sounds like standard AAA singer-songwriter fare with a tacked-on “trip hop” beat. Masha Qrella’s approach to merging acoustic and electronic elements is far more organic and much less selfconcious. “Last Night” is particularly inspired as it bridges two sections that sound like My Bloody Valentine if they did MTV Unplugged with a stunning, understated instrumental bridge which ranks among the most beautiful things that I’ve heard in months. (Click here to pre-order it from Boomkat.)

Elsewhere: Everybody knows that UK indie rock types are almost uniformly thin and pretty. But do they wear nice shoes? Find out over at Popstars Feets, a blog which gives new meaning to the word “shoegazer.”

All the Good Times I’ve Been Misusin’

The Wonder Band “Whole Lotta Love” – This is the A-side of Stairway to Love (Atco, 1979); the B-side is a whole lotta “Stairway.” It’s about as disco as Nazareth’s Expect No Mercy or Ram Jam’s “Black Betty,” which is to say there’s plenty of trouser-cuke buttrock boogie and poly-pantsuit-wedgie boogie in each. This would still get a teenager pantsed in most American high schools, but even with a Love Boat beat and some fem-vox behind it you can’t get more Neanderthal-jock than asserting you’re gonna give a girl every inch of your love.

Thelma Houston “96 Tears” – I haven’t heard Aretha Franklin’s version of the ? and the Mysterians cover-band stalwart, but I love her early-‘80s bubblegospel take on “What a Fool Believes”. Thelma’s “96 Tears” eats at the same table, but forsakes some of Aretha’s multi-voiced camaraderie and party-jam looseness for the dinky artifice of low-budget fuzo-disco circa 1981. She doesn’t have a lot of momentum for her voice to ride on here; the song unpacks at a relaxed midtempo and not much happens. The real money is the lyrics. All good soul girls have schadenfreude and instant karma in their library of stock emotions, and Thelma, world-class pro that she is, works it. (Click here to buy the Aretha album. The other two records are currently out of print.)



(Jody Beth Rosen is the author of Freezing To Death In The Nuclear Bunker and is the editor of Southside Callbox, which is currently on hiatus.)

Just To Dull The Shine

The Prime Ministers “Summer Shoulders” — There’s a particular trait common to those of us who were born, raised and still reside in the Midwestern portion of the United States — we don’t trust good weather. You see, in order to survive the long winter, one must turn their back on the sunshine and learn to embrace the cold air and grey skies. What begins as resentment towards those who live in warm weather states eventually morphs into a strong sense of community with your brethren who also bury themselves deep within their down comforters for months on end. But when the weather turns in May and thermometers creep past 70 for the first time, things begin to change. Not slowly, mind you, I’m talking overnight. And by that, your Uncle Grambo means that girls start showing SKIN, yo. You know that dame who you see in line for coffee at Starbreezy every day? The one who’s always bundled up in scarves and has salt stains on her boots? Turns out she’s not frumpy after all, that bird is fit (but she knows it)! And that girl from accounting who glances at you during your Tuesday morning status meeting? Glamorous gams revealed!

In short, that feeling is what this song is all about. Long unappreciated in their hometown of Detroit, The Prime Ministers are to the Midwestern suburbs what the Fountains Of Wayne are to those who live in the shadow of the skyscrapers of Manhattan — a band whose richly expressive, hook-laden power pop songs explode when they hit the speakers and make you glad to live where you live. (Click here to buy their latest LP, “Go For Glory”)

The Holy Fire “Hate Your Smile” — Despite the perception that Detroit’s music scene consists of angry white rappers (Eminem, Kid Rock) or angry white garage rockers (White Stripes, Von Bondies), we actually have some other angry white musicians round these parts. And, SURPRISE, a few can write a catchy rock song with the best of them. All kidding aside, a band called The Holy Fire is perfectly positioned to capitalize on all the attention that major labels are showing bands from The D™ these days. Only THIS band has got a trick up their sleeve. Sure, they play loud, they play fast, they look the part. But, more importantly, they’ve got the undeniable songwriting chops that will allow them to survive the impending giant flush that will signal the end of the garage rock era. Don’t be surprised if you hear this unreleased song (slated to appear on their upcoming full length LP) on rock radio by year’s end. When you add crashing guitars and an instantly memorable chorus to a subject that’s universal in its appeal (the feelings one experiences in the wake of a relationship gone awry), get ready to catch the next train leaving on the Buzz Central line. Obvs! (Click here to buy their debut EP from Insound)



Your Uncle Grambo is the dashing raconteur responsible for curating whatevs.org, perhaps best known for consistently producing Piping Hot Content For Your Sexy Bod. He would like to again thank Matt for the opportunity to talk about a few songs that have been in heavy rotation his stereo. He also added the following, “Bovs on your respective tees and mp-threes! Guest blogging, some say the hottest evs. Shmears.”

Bigger Than The Whole Wide World

Florida “The Girl on the Escalator” – This is like a “missed connection” classified ad reworked as a twee electro musical production. The song is a duet between a lonely boy who pines for a girl who passes him on an escalator to the London Underground and a hypothetical version of the girl in question. Obviously, the subject matter is quite bittersweet, but this song is a lot more touching than it needs to be, most likely due to its lovely, sad-cute keyboard progression and countermelodies. (Click here to buy it from Boomkat.)

Platnum “Rock Me” – File Under: I Can’t Believe It’s Actually German. The track sounds like a Basement Jaxx approximation of early Janet Jackson or Salt N Pepa, with beats that sound slick in both senses of the word. The vocals are a bit generic, but that’s not a problem when the chorus is about as catchy as smallpox. (Click here to buy it from Sonar Kollektiv.)

Just Like A Juggernaut

Charlotte Hatherley “Kim Wilde” – I suppose that the title comes from a sideways lyrical reference to “Kids In America” in the first verse, but I think that a more appropriate name for this song might be “Kim Deal” or “That Chick From Velocity Girl.” This record sounds like a tribute to the peppy, female-fronted alt-rock of the ’90s by a woman for whom Tuscadero, Veruca Salt, That Dog, and Belly are not merely canonical footnotes and cut-out bin fodder but rather a major source of inspiration. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

Client “Pornography” – I could do without the rumbly, somewhat halfassed backing vocals by the guy from The Libertines, but after a few listens, it doesn’t seem to stick out so much. The word “pornography” is somewhat ambiguous in the context of these lyrics – I’m not sure whether their monogamy is being described as pornography, or if they are suggesting pornography as a coping tool for being in a monogamous relationship. I suspect that they just wanted to sex the song up a bit (or at least match the tone of the music itself), and they used the word because it slant rhymes with monogamy. (Click here to buy it from Rough Trade.)

Saw Dust In A Sandpaper Suit

Mclusky “There Ain’t No Fool In Ferguson” – As many of you probably know by now, Mclusky broke up as of this past weekend. It’s a shame, but I suppose that it was somewhat inevitable given the volatile relationships within the band and their recent run of bad luck on tour in America. I regret not seeing them when they played in NYC a few months ago, especially since I think that it unlikely that someone as obviously unsentimental as Andy Falkous would ever revisit his Mclusky songs when he tours with his next band. Mclusky were not an extremely consistent group, but at their best, they were among the finest punk bands on the planet. “There Ain’t No Fool In Ferguson” is a highlight of their career, and a strong example of the band doing what it did best – hooky, dynamic rock with lyrics as venomous and caustic as they are obscure. (Click here to buy it from Amazon UK.)

M.O.T.O. “It Tastes Just Like A Milkshake” – Ah yes, an old family favorite. This is one of the most sublime power pop tunes of the ’90s; a blatant Cheap Trick imitation that blows away anything that they ever wrote or recorded, with lyrics so simple and silly that it is difficult to tell whether they are intended to be sweet or sophomoric. (Click here to visit the official M.O.T.O. website.)

Sorry for the (very) late entry today. I spent most of the day feeling as though I was missing two thirds of my brain. I’m still not 100%, actually.

Even If Nobody Else Sings Along

LMP (la musique populaire) “Hits Of ’69” – This is a selection from LMP’s A Century Of Song project, in which the duo recorded a song from every year of the 20th century. Apparently they could not decide on just one song from 1969, and so they created this epic disco medley covering The Archies, The Beatles, Jackie DeShannon, Joe Cocker, The Velvet Underground, The 5th Dimension, Joni Mitchell, Frank Zappa, Simon & Garfunkel, Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, and several others. There is a great deal of joy and reverence for the source material in this track, but it is almost completely devoid of the suffocating Boomer nostalgia that usually infects any tribute to this specific era. (Click here to buy it from Polyholiday Records.)

He Guides Me By Remote Control

Jacob Wunsch & Sebastian Ischer “He’s A Mighty Good Leader” – Wunsch and Ischer claim that their version of this gospel standard is intended to be a “club hit for sex-abstinent Christian teens.” That’s actually a pretty good description of this track, though I find it difficult to discern whether this it is meant to be ironic or sincere. I suspect that it may be the former, but that could just be because the song has a seemingly intentional creepy undercurrent and is sung by an indie-boy vocalist who sounds like an amalgam of Travis Morrison, Wayne Coyne, and Isaac Brock.

Also: The Gentle Voyeur is a promising new blog which collects links to fascinating and/or horrifying personal blogs from the most obscure, least trafficked corners of the internet. Highly recommended to fans of Found Magazine and The Audio Kitchen.

A World Spinning On Its Axis

Stephen Malkmus “Civilized Satanist” – I highly recommend checking out Joe Levy’s review of the recent Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain reissue in the new issue of the Village Voice, mostly because he makes a very good point about Stephen Malkmus’ body of work that I’ve been attempting to articulate for a few years now.

Levy says:

…you can hear how he used his habit of making lyrics up at the mic to map his unconscious, and how much power the music draws from just that. The sloppy off-the-cuff jokes (“I never had any children. . . . Maybe I’d like to fuck a woman and make one/But I don’t know if I should because I don’t have a real steady job”) make it plain that his great subject was a longing for love and domesticity at war with the bohemian pull of poetry, art, and rock & roll. So much for his much-bruited lyrical opacity.

Exactly! That theme of domesticity vs. romanticism is most obviously present on Brighten The Corners, but if you pay attention, it is there in the lyrics of the first Pavement 7″ right up through Malkmus’ new post-Pig Lib material.

Anyway, this is a recording from a one-off Stephen Malkmus solo gig at (I believe) a museum somewhere in California a few months before Terror Twilight was recorded in 1998. The show was widely circulated in Pavement fan circles at the time, but it is surprisingly difficult to find in its entirety online. (If you have the complete show in mp3, please contact me!) “Civilized Satanist” is only a speculative title for this song, which to my knowledge was never completed in the studio and was only ever played at this gig and another similar solo show in the same month. The song is built around a sample of Moby Grape’s “I Am Not Willing,” and features a mock-rap/spoken word vocal and lots and lots of noodling. The performance is very sloppy, but Malkmus’ remarks on his own errors (“that’s not a sample, I actually played that”) are very endearing.

General Electrics “Time To Undress” – Though I am certain that General Electrics were going for something reminiscent of an earlier era, this song seems like a retro-90s pastiche to me. Think Money Mark, The Automator, Cornershop, Air, Pizzicato Five – all of those mid-to-late 90s albums which sounded shiny and vaguely futuristic at the time of their release, but seem very dated at the moment because they are too recent to feel properly nostalgic. I am certain that there will be a widespread critical reevaluation of this sort of music within the next ten years, but until then, it will keep sounding undeniably pleasureable but ineffably awkward to the ears of neophiles like myself. (Click here to buy it from Juno.)

When The Beat Takes Over Me

Prince Francis “Street Doctor” – I am currently in a Nyquil-induced haze, so please excuse my writing today; I can barely form a coherant thought. I mostly just want to lie around and space out to my Studio One reggae compilations. This is a selection from the Studio One DJ’s comp, which collects some of the finest proto-hip hop toasting recorded at Studio One in the 70s. “Street Doctor” is a variation of “Sidewalk Doctor,” which itself was a modified version of Marlena Shaw’s “Woman of the Ghetto.” Prince Francis’ vocal emphasizes the track’s hypnotic quality and plays up its tense, stop-start rhythms. (Click here to buy it from Soul Jazz.)

Yuka Honda “I Dream About You” – This song features Miho Hatori on lead vocals, so it is essentially a Cibo Matto track that just happened to be on Yuka Honda’s new solo album. If you’re familiar with Cibo Matto, then this track won’t be a huge surprise – it is basically the same sort of “urban” sex pop that the band excelled at in the 90s, but with an extra dash of sexual ambiguity. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

For some strange reason, the Bloggies have opted to eliminate its “best music blog” category the very same year that music blogs have blown up and become a notable force for innovation in the blogging world. Weird. You can still nominate music sites in the apples-and-oranges “best entertainment site” category (and other categories such as group blog, American blog, blog of the year, etc), but whatever.

That Was My Body In The Snow

Lemon Party “Spalding Gray Is Missing” – This is a selection from the Song Fight website, where amateur musicians are challenged to write and record a song using a title provided by the webmasters, and the audience can vote for their favorite after the results are posted as mp3s. This particular recording was only a runner up in its competition, but I think that it is unquestionably one of the finest compositions to ever be posted on the site. The lyrics are written from the perspective of the titular monologuist as he plans his own suicide with a startling degree of real-life detail and clarity. This isn’t a song about contemplating suicide; that much is already decided before the music begins. This song is concerned with the practical, mundane details of actually going through with it. Set to a crisp, wintery indie pop track, the song communicates a feeling of profound relief and resignation, with a disturbing undercurrent of total emotional detachment. (Click here for more music by Lemon Party.)

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.)