Songs You Must Hear Now!
P.O. S. “Goodbye” Funny how this conscious MC’s rst single about choosing your own fate hinges on the boom-bap blare that practically demands you nod your head. Okay, we’re nodding!
joins Human League fan club, makes doves cry, vanquishes cads.
7. Neko Case “People Got a Lotta Nerve” A seductively explicit death threat disguised as MOR radio jangle. Sorry, Hall & Oates, but this man-eatin’ “she-cat” ain’t “tamed by the purr of a Jaguar.”
via email by the Chairlift singer, swells warmly with enigmatic synths and… accordions?
not to overdo the glockenspiel.
2. Telekinesis “Coast of Carolina” Seattle’s Michael Benjamin Lerner is a one-man power-pop wall of sound— but with no skinny-tie jerkiness. Just relaxing whoa-ohs for the soul.
4. Swizz Beatz, feat. Lil Wayne “Up in This Club” Stoned stripper ode, with Swizzy masterfully warping Weezy’s wheeze and chopping the vibraphone clatter of Space’s “Female of the Species.”
8. Titmachine! “I Wanna Be Your Dog” Dutch no-wavers honor the late Ron Asheton with a Stooges cover that sounds like the Shaggs as Eva Braun cyborgs. Sick.
11. Blank Dogs “Leaving the Light On” Imagine if an anonymous prankster stole all of Interpol’s gear, trashed it beyond recognition, then bashed out a way witchier song than anything on Antics.
14. The Martinez Brothers, feat. Argy “Debbie Downer” A soulfully simmering tech-house track, from two underage Bronx DJ phenoms, that could turn your workweek cubicle into a Miami superclub. Cue the fog machines.
3. La Roux “Quicksand” Twenty-year-old U. K. redhead
5. The Juan MacLean “Happy House” An exceeding polite, 12-and-a-half-minute discosaurus sex jam—with subplots galore. “Thank you for being so damn excellent,” enthuses singer Nancy Whang.
12. Spider Bags “Waking Up Drunk” Named after drug slang from The Wire, these scraggly Chapel Hill punks go face down in a glass of Wild Turkey and survive to testify.
6 Harlem Shakes“Strictly Game” “Take a lot of shit / Feel real bad / And get over it.” Can life really be so uncomplicated? Golden guitars. Funky, world-beat rhythms. Maybe so.
9. Superdrag “Filthy & Afraid” John Davis’ bitterly heartfelt rasp and churning guitar actually evoke life’s sucked-out feeling more convincingly now than back when M TV returned his calls.
10. Flosstradamus, feat. Caroline Polachek “Big Bills” The electro-kitsch duo’s rst original track, cowritten
Emmy the Great “We
Almost Had a Baby”
Sex as a weapon, sung
by a cosmopolitan gamine
with a gift for winsome
melody and the good sense
Over another ditzily Auto-Tuned banger from Ron Bro wz (“Pop Champagne,” “Arab Money”), the “superthug” reinvigorates his famously free-associative bullshit.
P.O.S.
Home base: Minneapolis Began:
2004 Influences: “Minor Threat
and Atmosphere,” says the rapper
born Stefon Alexander. “Music
with something to say.” Sounds
like: “Hip-hop over abrasive
beats—with musicality. My tracks
are never just verse-chorus. I write
bridges and shit.” Latest release:
Never Better (Rhymesayers)
Harlem Shakes
Home base: Brooklyn, New
York Began: 2006 Influences:
“Santana and ’60s girl groups.
Blur, too,” says lead singer and
Yale grad Lexy Benaim. Sounds
like: “A lot of the sonics are stu
you’d hear on hip-hop radio, but
the structures and solos come
from classic rock.” Latest release:
Technicolor Health (Gigantic)
Emmy the Great
Home base: London Began:
2005 Influences: “Grandaddy
for arrangements,” explains
the Hong Kong–born ingénue,
“Samuel Beckett for lyrics.”
Sounds like: “People say my
songs are literate and sweet. I
don’t like ‘sweet.’ It’s like being told
you’ve got a ‘nice face.’” Latest
release: First Love (self-released)
FROM LEF T: JEFF LUGER; ANDRE W PALERMO; COUR TESY BANG ON PR
40 MARCH 2009 GET MUSIC NE WS 24 7 AT SPIN.COM
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