Poor Moon “People In Her Mind”

This is the sort of pop song that practically begs the listener to step back and appreciate it as “songwriting” – the structure and melodic turns signal a neat, impeccable craft that calls attention to itself. It’s a very old school composition, and the lyrics follow the form, as the narrator sings with great empathy about a lonely girl who has come to realize that she is constantly blending into the background. I quite like the lines about how she gets hung up on trying to recall people’s names – there’s an OCD collector impulse going on there, and she seems to be oblivious that her impulse to catalog all these people puts her at a remove from them.

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Bobby Womack “Please Forgive My Heart”

There is a tendency to keep aging singers in their classic context, as if modern influences would pollute and corrupt what was amazing about their voice. Bobby Womack clearly has no interest in treating his distinct voice like a museum piece, at least not since Damon Albarn pulled him out of retirement for two excellent tracks on Gorillaz’s Plastic Beach. His forthcoming album was created with Albarn and XL boss Richard Russell, who previously collaborated with Gil-Scott Heron. Russell seems to be playing a Rick Rubin role in rehabbing the careers of aging legends, but whereas Rubin is inclined to strip things back to a prim sort of simplicity, Russell has pushed Heron and Womack to embrace a more modern sort of minimalism. The stark, slightly sputtering beats and moody keyboards of “Please Forgive My Heart” could just as easily be pulled from a James Blake or Drake record, but this doesn’t sound like the equivalent giving an old man a hipster makeoever. Womack’s voice, a highly emotive and richly human thing, sounds great in the context of cold, synthetic instrumentation. The contrast brings out the best in him, and the minimal approach to the arrangement serves to simply frame his vocal performance rather than distracting from it with too many sounds, or drowning it out in nostalgia.

Buy it from XL Recordings.

Jack White “Love Interruption”

The verses of “Love Interruption” are all about wanting a love that rattles you out of dull routine and forces you out of your comfort zone. Jack White chews on those thoughts in these lines, and spits it all out in the chorus, which disavows this sort of love as a corrupting influence that derails his life. Both sides of the song seem a bit irrational, but what else could it be? This is about yearning for passion and intensity, and reckoning with the reality that being reckless with your emotions is just as likely to bring transcendental thrills or heart-rending disaster. The unspoken point in this song: It’s always worth the risk.

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Pavement “Pueblo” (Live in Cologne, 1996)

Pavement is known for having very smart and clever lyrics, but most of the lyrics on Wowee Zowee are incomplete, improvised or outright gibberish. A lot of the lines that are clear are bits of evocative language that stuck at some point in the creative process, particularly in the numbers that were staples of the band’s live set before they were tracked in the studio. The record is in some ways improved by this impressionistic quality, amplifying moments of absurdity and adding a touch of mystery to emotional peaks, such as the climax of “Pueblo.” That section may be the most devastating thing Stephen Malkmus has ever written, as he returns from a desolate instrumental section by rising up with a ragged, surprisingly vulnerable “when you move, you don’t move, you don’t mooooove.” The verses suggest some kind of dramatic context, but I have no idea what this particular bit of verbiage means or what it has to do with a guy called Jacob. Nevertheless, it hits me in the gut like few other pieces of music. I know this feeling, this abstract thing that has resonated with me for over half of my life, and that it feels something like giving up something that you want so badly it stings. Malkmus is very rarely a guy who spells out the emotional content of his music, and this song is a good reason why he shouldn’t need to bother – when you can strike this chord, provoke this sort of complex emotional response, why would you ever need to be so literal?

Spiritualized “Hey Jane”

“Hey Jane” stretches out for miles, opening with a sequence that sounds like a joyride segueing into a car chase, but eventually running off the road altogether. Then it gets really intense – a pulse and a drone grows into a gospel-tinged crest in which Jason Pierce plainly states the love that’s been the source of his urgent momentum all along: “Sweet heart, sweet light, sweetheart and love of my life.” This is Pierce at his finest, doing something he does better than just about anyone – expressing this intense, genuine emotion in a fragile, matter of fact tone as the music bursts behind him, the full power and complexity of his feelings expressed like an ornate fireworks display.

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Girls’ Generation “Telepathy”

The lyrics of this song are mostly in Korean but bits of English come through here and there. The effect for me, as a person who only understands English, is that the rest of the vocals come off like a perky pop song reduced to phonetic sounds. This is different from how I hear most foreign-language pop, by the way – the language is usually very apparent and I hear it as part of the texture of the music. This is glossy and sleek, it seems like the lyrics would be nearly irrelevant in any language. The English words give some guide – “love story,” “telepathy” pronounced in a slightly awkward way – but then they toss out that “never ever stop falling in love” bit at the end, and it’s like, “wait, was more of that in English than I realized?” This tension gives the song a bit of a novelty factor, but the tune is a charmer, and a clear standout on a record of what sounds to me like pretty typical K-pop.

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Big K.R.I.T. “4EvaNaDay (Theme)”

This track has one of the best choruses I’ve heard in a hip-hop track in a little while – basically two chorus hooks running parallel, as K.R.I.T.’s rhyme moves counter to a chipmunk soul sample that rises up sharply like a tea kettle whistle. This track also has one of my favorite by-products of sped-up R&B samples: The groovy, slow bass line that gets pitched up so it gets this sort of loose, plunky quality, as if all the strings on the instrument have been replaced with thick rubber bands. You hear this all over Kanye and RZA productions, and I just love the sound of it. If I was making music, either sample-based or live, I’d probably end up obsessed with emulating that tone.

Download the full mixtape from Killer Hip-Hop.

Willis Earl Beal “Ghost Robot”

Lo-fi works best when the field-recording quality gives you a sense of space and setting, and forces your mind to fill in some context. With this recording, you really hear the room Beal is playing in, which is almost certainly his own bedroom or living room. The performance comes off like an act of creation brought on by compulsive behavior, like he just has to be in his room making this simple noise and spitting out these odd phrases. I think a lot of us do this sort of thing – I certainly have been singing weird little songs to myself when I’m alone for most of my life. I’m not always getting it on tape, and I think that’s what makes this a bit different, and a bit more compelling – I really like when people have the bravery to let people in on these solitary acts. This is like a line tossed to the outside world, and you can grab it and reel yourself in to Beal if you’re into it. I’m down, at least for this song, which has a wonderful urgency and tunefulness.

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Cadence Weapon “Loft Party”

Rollie Pemberton is a very strong storyteller, and he excels when he sketches out social scenes in urban Canada that are, to American listeners at least, familiar but just a bit off from usual expectations. The second verse of “Loft Party” is exceptional, starting with rather mundane details before taking a turn into explaining a convoluted sting operation by vice cops hoping to break up illegal parties. At first I thought the chorus of this song was a little uninspired and a bit of a drag on the track, but then I realized that Pemberton’s sort of flat, vaguely defeated tone is perfectly on message for a song about the sort of hassles you often have to go through to create some cheap nightlife on your own terms.

Visit the Cadence Weapon website.

Sylver Tongue “Hook You Up”

Don’t be fooled by the name – Sylver Tongue is not some new artist, but actually long term Fluxblog favorite Charlotte Hatherley. It was probably a good idea for her to rebrand – it’s incredibly hard to sell solo artists who don’t use some kind of stage name, and even harder when you’ve got three solo albums to your name that could be charitably described as “marginally successful.” (But absolutely brilliant!) The name change is pragmatic, I’m sure, but it’s also something that marks a significant change in direction, as – at least in this debut single – Hatherley has set aside her guitar in favor of layered, twinkling keyboard parts.

“Hook You Up” isn’t too far off from the glossy art pop of Hatherley’s second album, The Deep Blue, but the lack of guitar lends the music a floatier, less physical quality. It actually reminds me a lot of Prefab Sprout’s lovely “Wild Horses,” which has a similar vibe and melody on the verses. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Hatherley was a Prefab Sprout fan, so I wonder if this new project will end up leaning more sophistipop than synthpop. I’m rooting for the former.

Visit the Sylver Tongue website.

Beach House “Myth”

“Myth” sounds so much like what you’d expect to hear from Beach House that my first impression was “Did they just forget to put this on Teen Dream?” But then, if you’re going to be in a creative holding pattern, you may as well have it at your peak. Everything appealing about Teen Dream‘s best cuts is replicated here, but the song seems to be in slightly sharper focus – their hazy aesthetic has cleared just a bit, and it’s just a little more dynamic. The melodies have the same languid, luxurious tone, but the arrangement is less static – I’d go so far to say that this chorus pops out at you.

Visit Beach House’s website.

The Magnetic Fields “God Wants Us to Wait”

Stephin Merritt recently told me that the original version of this song, penned 28 years ago, was a 13 minute poly-rhythmic krautrock epic. Listening to this version, just over 2 minutes in length, has since become a thing of me straining to hear traces of that previous draft. It’s certainly there. That harsh Germanic pulse could definitely keep going on indefinitely, and there are echoes of Can in the rhythm, melody and general tonality. The lyrics don’t go back so far, but suit the mood very well – Shirley Simms’ delivery of buzzkill lyrics about wanting to wait until marriage for sex despite being naked on the floor with her date make perfect sense when paired with this rhythm that is sexy yet stern and aloof.

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The Mynabirds “Generals”

“Generals” isn’t too far off from the up tempo numbers on the Mynabirds’ excellent debut album, but there is a noticeable shift in attitude that alters the character and immediate impression of the band. Whereas the older songs were often pensive meditations on trauma and heartbreak, “Generals” finds songwriter Laura Burhenn stepping up as a brash, assertive force. Her arrangement echoes the Black Keys and the Kills’ modern gloss on blues rock, but the composition is a bit less by-the-book, with her blunt rhythm kicking along a tune that moves on unexpected yet intuitive tangents.

Visit the Mynabirds’ official site.

Julia Holter “Goddess Eyes II”

The arrangement for “Goddess Eyes II” unfolds patiently, with each shift in structure and instrumentation coming across like thought in motion. The refrain “I can see you but my eyes are not allowed to cry” repeats through the majority of the song, but the gradual changes in the sound and delivery signals to the listener that the phrase means something just a bit different each time, as if Holter is considering every angle and meaning before settling on a single perspective on the sentiment that seems totally true. There is never a conclusion, really, but as some strands begin to align in the end, there’s a sense of peaceful resolution.

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Fun. “Why Am I the One?”

I grew up listening to Lite FM radio in my parents’ cars, so there are particular strains of 70s pop that are seared into my mind, and coded into my taste. Despite this, my frame of reference is a bit weird – there are so many songs I grew up hearing all the time, and I either still don’t know exactly who sang what, or I didn’t know until well into adulthood. I’ve been trying to find the exact frame of reference for the chorus of Fun.’s “Why Am I the One?” since I first heard it – is it Chicago? Air Supply? Electric Light Orchestra? Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Our House”? Really, it’s all of this and more. And oh man, I am such a mark for this, especially when the band show evidence of more recent influences throughout the record – Kanye-like use of AutoTune, John Darnielle-esque inflections, Phoenix-ish dynamics. I love that this band is reviving this aesthetic with zero irony – they know it’s uncool, but realize that this is a type of sound where if you don’t fully commit, it just won’t work.

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The celebration of the 10th anniversary of this site continues on with this collection of the best and most notable music of 2003. As I’ve said before, I think 2003 ranks among the very best years for popular music, and is almost certainly the best year for music of the past decade. The sheer number of all-time classic songs from across a variety of genres is astounding, and if you look over the track listing, you’ll note that a majority of the finest artists of the 00s either came on the scene or reached some kind of artistic peak at this time. The first few years of the decade yielded some great music, but this is when the character of the 00s really kicks in.

DOWNLOAD DISC 1

The Knife “Heartbeats” / Kylie Minogue “Sweet Music” / The New Pornographers “The Laws Have Changed” / R. Kelly “Ignition (Remix)” / Britney Spears “Toxic” / Fox N Wolf “Youth Alcoholic” / Ce’cile “Hot Like We” / Panjabi MC featuring Jay-Z “Beware of the Boys” / McLusky “There Ain’t No Fool in Ferguson” / Andrew W.K. “Free Jumps” / The Exploding Hearts “Throwaway Style” / Rachel Stevens “Sweet Dreams My L.A. Ex” / Scissor Sisters “Backwoods Discotheque Part 1” / Alicia Keys “If I Ain’t Got You” / Cat Power “He War” / Electrelane “Enter Laughing” / Belle & Sebastian “I’m A Cuckoo” / The Twilight Singers “Teenage Wristband” / Rufus Wainwright “Go Or Go Ahead”

DOWNLOAD DISC 2

Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z “Crazy In Love” / Outkast (Big Boi) “The Rooster” / Justice Vs. Simian “Never Be Alone” / Girls Aloud “Jump” / Metric “Wet Blanket” / Chicks On Speed “We Don’t Play Guitar” / LCD Soundsystem “Yeah” / Dizzee Rascal “Fix Up, Look Sharp” / Kanye West “Through the Wire” / Electric Six “Danger! High Voltage” / Yellow Note Vs. Pukka “Naked, Drunk and Horny” / Pleasure featuring Justine Frischmann “Don’t Look the Other Way” / Radiohead “Backdrifts” / The Dandy Warhols “We Used to Be Friends” / The Books “The Future, Wouldn’t That Be Nice” / Lumidee “Never Leave You (Uh Ooh, Uh Oooh!)” / Birdman aka Baby featuring Clipse “What Happened to That Boy” / Animal Collective “Slippi”

DOWNLOAD DISC 3

The White Stripes “Seven Nation Army” / The Fall “Theme From Sparta FC” / Ted Leo and the Pharmacists “Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone?” / M.I.A. “Galang” / Kelis “Milkshake” / Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz “Get Low” / Raekwon “Ice Cream Part 2” / Missy Elliott “Pass That Dutch” / TV on the Radio “Young Liars” / The Aislers Set “Emotional Levy” / Cass McCombs “AIDS in Africa” / Broken Social Scene “Cause = Time” / The Blood Brothers “Fucking’s Greatest Hits” / The Mars Volta “This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed” / Deftones “Minerva” / Death Cab for Cutie “Transatlanticism”

DOWNLOAD DISC 4

The Fiery Furnaces “South Is Only A Home” / Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks “(Do Not Feed the) Oyster” / Outkast (Andre 3000) “Hey Ya!” / Killer Mike and Big Boi “A.D.I.D.A.S.” / 50 Cent “In Da Club” / Nivea featuring R. Kelly “Laundromat” / Enon “Daughter in the House of Fools” / Dog Ruff “Jon E Storm” / Junior Senior “Chicks and Dicks” / Fountains of Wayne “Stacy’s Mom” / Liz Phair “Rock Me” / R.E.M. “Bad Day” / No Doubt “It’s My Life” / Jamelia “Superstar” / Wayne Wonder “No Letting Go” / Pharrell featuring Jay-Z “Frontin'” / The Diplomats “Dipset Anthem” / Memphis Bleek featuring Freeway “Just Blaze, Blee and Free” / Cee Lo Green “I’ll Be Around” / Matthew Shipp “Cohesion”

DOWNLOAD DISC 5

The Silures “21 Ghosts” / Basement Jaxx “Cish Cash” / Relaxed Muscle “Sexualized” / Ludacris “P-Poppin'” / Freeform Five “Electromagnetic” / Marit Bergman “Adios Amigos” / Zwan “Baby, Let’s Rock!” / Peaches “Shake Yer Dix” / Bubba Sparxxx “Jimmy Mathis” / Three 6 Mafia “Ridin’ Spinners” / Sophie Ellis-Bextor “Mixed Up World” / Mu “Let’s Get Sick” / The Raveonettes “The Great Love Sound” / M83 “Run Into Flowers” / Black Dice “Cone Toaster” / Sufjan Stevens “They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black”

DOWNLOAD DISC 6

Jay-Z “99 Problems” / The Rapture “I Need Your Love” / Liars “There’s Always Room on the Broom” / The Postal Service “We Will Become Silhouettes” / Black Box Record “The School Song” / The Concretes “You Can’t Hurry Love” / Guided By Voices “The Best of Jill Hives” / The Wrens “This Boy Is Exhausted” / The Kills “Kissy Kissy” / The Constantines “Shine A Light” / David Banner “Cadillacs on 22s” / Lil Wayne “Dat Boy Weezy” / Lil Kim “The Jump Off” / Spiritualized “She Kissed Me (It Felt Like A Hit)” / Blink 182 “I Miss You” / The Unicorns “I Was Born (A Unicorn)” / Ellen Allien “Trash Scapes” / Alan Braxe and Fred Falke “Love Lost”

DOWNLOAD DISC 7

Broadcast “Colour Me In” / Prefuse 73 “Why I Love You” / The Notwist “One With the Freaks” / Boris “Ibitsu” / The Fever “Bridge & Tunnel” / The Strokes “12:51” / Richard X featuring Jarvis Cocker “Into U” / Nelly featuring Diddy and Murphy Lee “Shake Ya Tailfeather” / Jaylib “The Red” / Freeway featuring Jay-Z and Beanie Sigel “What We Do” / Viktor Vaughan “Saliva” / Heiko Voss “Think About You” / The Darkness “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” / The Libertines “Don’t Look Back Into the Sun” / Arcade Fire “No Cars Go” / My Morning Jacket “I Will Sing You Songs” / The Hidden Cameras “Boys of Melody”

DOWNLOAD DISC 8

Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Maps” / Goldfrapp “Strict Machine” / Blur “Me White Noise (Albarn Version) / Stereolab “…Sudden Stars” / Four Tet “As Serious As Your Life” / The Gossip “Lessons Learned” / Manitoba “Hendrix with Ko” / Dexy’s Midnight Runners “Manhood” / The Shins “So Says I” / Beulah “Landslide Baby” / The Decemberists “Los Angeles, I’m Yours” / Azure Ray “These White Lights Will Bend to Make Blue” / Lucinda Williams “Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings” / Michael Mayer “Unter Null” / Explosions in the Sky “Your Hand In Mine” / Beth Gibbons and Rustin Man “Candy Says”

Young Jeezy featuring Jay-Z, Drake and Andre 3000 “I Do (Remix)”

I realize there is a version of this track that exists without Drake, but I guess I’m just a masochist. Drake’s verse isn’t a total mess, but it’s amateurish and charmless in comparison to the three other rappers on the track. It’s not just that Drake is a terrible lyricist and has a totally uninspired flow – this is pretty much a given – but that he’s just incapable of the warmth and depth of character that comes so naturally to the other guys here. Jeezy, not even a particularly great rapper himself, is very compelling here, particularly as he barks out “I’d do anything to leave here with you tonight, Sherri.” I love the specificity of the name; there’s a touch of vulnerability that comes through in how he says it, like he’s just too weak in the knees to maintain his bravado in that moment. Jay-Z’s verse is intended to sounds like it’s about marriage but is actually about drug dealing, but he’s not fooling anyone – it’s easy to tell where his heart is here.

Andre 3000 is typically excellent in his exquisitely crafted closing verse, which lays out a realistic fantasy about meeting a smart, cool, devout woman and raising a smart, cool, devout daughter. Every syllable of his verse overflows with a humanity and respect for women that Drake entirely lacks – he and Andre both have lines about wanting a woman who will grow old gracefully, but you can tell everything about the difference between the two men by noting that while 3000 wants that woman to do so on her own terms, Drake just wants this for his own shallow benefit. “I just want a woman that looks 30 when she’s 81,” he says, sounding like a total tool. Shut up, Drake.

Gorillaz featuring James Murphy and Andre 3000 “DoYaThing (Full Version)”

It’s a waste of your time to listen to the 4 minute edit of this thing; in the grand scheme of the song, it’s just an elaborate warmup for the spectacle of Andre 3000 freaking out over an extended James Murphy punk-funk vamp. Three Stacks tosses out the meticulous structure of his regular verses to go totally unhinged here, and in the process reconnects with the rock spirit of songs like “Gasoline Dreams” and “Hey Ya.” It sounds like it had to have been a very physical performance – it’s hard to imagine him not acting out and flailing around for this, even if he was confined to a recording booth. I wouldn’t be shocked if he came out of this session a bit bloodied and bruised. Murphy too, for that matter.

Mouse on Mars “They Know Your Name”

Mouse on Mars have a gift for making their electronic sounds come across like tangible, physical objects that are moving, bouncing, bending and colliding on the track. It’s like pop music rendered in 3D, with all the implied planes blown out to extremes, and the dynamics pushed to the point of seeming disorienting and surreal. They are particularly playful when they integrate vocals on tracks like “They Know Your Name.” They force you to strain to hear words made unintelligible by a seeming Doppler effect, which makes the words that do come out clearly, like the title phrase, take on an ambiguous quality. As the song bops around, the words ping-pong between meanings, going from innocuous fact to paranoid dread and back again.

Buy it from Amazon.

Azealia Banks “Need Sum Luv”

There are a great many songs sung from the perspective of the other woman (or the other man), and you can split them into two basic categories: Songs like the Long Blondes’ “You Could Have Both” or Pulp’s “Pencil Skirt,” in which the singer and the lyricist know that the character is delusional, selfish and self-destructive, and songs like Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love For You” or this new track by Azealia Banks, in which the protagonist is straight-up expressing what they are feeling and thinking without any implied irony. While Whitney invests her song with a heartbreaking sweetness at odds with her homewrecking agenda, Banks’ character is diabolical and desperate to get her way. Half the lyrics are rationalizations, but it doesn’t sound like the character knows that, so lines like “you ain’t in love with her, but she still is in your heart / but you be in my apartment tearing me apart” land with a bitter pathos. The character isn’t afraid of hurting these other people, but most of all, she’s not afraid of hurting herself.

Frankie Rose “Gospel/Grace”

Jayson Greene hears the Cure, Laurie Anderson and M83 in Frankie Rose’s second album, and I suppose that’s all there, but the best tracks sound more like a restrained, Yo La Tengo-ish gloss on Fleetwood Mac to me. Not all Fleetwood Mac, but the hazy harmonies and melancholy tone of hits like “Dreams” and “Hold Me.” (Two of the best rainy day songs ever recorded, by the way!) Rose’s voice is somewhere in the space between Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie’s respective affects, and though she doesn’t match their skill as songwriters and she certainly doesn’t have a genius like Lindsey Buckingham arranging her material, she is nevertheless quite good at building simple strands of melody to a gorgeous climax, particularly in “Gospel/Grace.” There’s not much gospel in this song, but there’s certainly a peaceful grace in its steady beat and gentle washes of sound.

Buy it from Amazon.