Nobody Does It Better

It's been a few months, and I thought I'd check in and let everybody know about what is possibly the best house song ever. My favorite house songs--like my favorite punk songs--are tinged with elements of other genres (namely, disco). Much of the classic, deep stuff isn't for me. But Luomo's "The Present Lover" just nails the recipe for basic house. It's sexy, sounds amazing on headphones, and evolves brilliantly on the dance floor, using more than just its addictive bass line to keep your interest.

I'm a...I'm a...I'm a dreamer!

We interrupt this wholly unread Best-of-2000s list to bring you Jurassic Cat's pick for Best House Song of the 1990's: Livin' Joy's "Dreamer". Bringin' the tropical sound (just listen to those {fake? from the dreamworld?} steel drums!) WAY before (and after) everyone else jumped on the bandwagon, Livin' Joy presents a one-hit wonder jam whose irresistibility Jurassic Cat personally guarantees. Word booty!



Runner-up: Daft Punk's "Around the Word"

More Favorites of the Decade: #s 2, 3 and 4

Some of my favorite dance-y cuts of the decade...

#2: Cut Copy - "Hearts on Fire" (2009)

I've listened to this song an untold number of times, and I still go crazy for the cut-and-paste samples hook at :30 and again at 2:20. Perfect!



#3: Metro Area - "Miura" (2002)

Darker and more bitter than the other two songs on this post, "Miura" is nevertheless probably my favorite to dance to. You may think you've got it pegged by the two-minute mark, but wait a few more seconds for those wordless, layered vocals: they make this song special. Great strings throughout, too.



#4: Mylo - "Drop the Pressure" (2004)

I don't know what "motherfuckers gonna drop the pressure" means. All I know is that this song's oscillating, vocodered expletives rush straight to the bliss receptors of my brain and make me run harder, talk louder, and dance better. Basically, it's music's answer to cocaine.

21 Favorite Songs of the Decade

Things I realized while compiling a 2000-2009 list:

1. My 90s list would have had more hip-hop, more confessional-style songs from piano-playing females, and some Swedish people.

2. If I tried to draw up a list of my favorites from the 80s, I'd have way more than 21 songs.

3. I'm too lazy to order these by favoritism, either ascending or descending.

#1: The Flaming Lips - "Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell" (2002)

One of my favorite songs for the second stage of post-breakup recovery. The sentiment behind this song is simple, but it's the perfect medicine for self-pity...whenever I eventually tire of self-pity.

The Beach Boys Vs. J Dilla - Pet Sounds In the Key of Dee

Remember when Danger Mouse mixed Jay-Z and The Beatles and it actually came out sounding awesome? This seems like the kind of proverbial muscle-flexing DJs probably attempt all the time; the results usually wind up being neat party tricks but not the kind of stuff you want to download.

Pet Sounds In the Key of Dee, a marriage between The Beach Boy's Pet Sounds and beats from J Dilla, was released way back in '07 but only came to my attention a few days ago. I'm linking a few of the tracks in case anyone else missed out. Enjoy! (And don't let the bad cover art scare you off; this is really good!)

I Just Wasn't Made For These Times
God Only Knows

In Defense of Westernized Afro-Pop aka Here We Go Again

In preparation for my trip to South Africa, I'm revisiting/discovering a few of the greats in the African musical canon. African artists who log the most time on my itunes are Orchestra Baobab and Fela Kuti; obvious classics, but not at all a bad place on which to found your education, right? Anyway, I like to think I have a DJ's transitional mindset, and when I listen to this stuff I often find myself also craving songs that employ one of the most popular indie rock trends of the latter half of the 2000-2010 decade: incorporating Afro-pop and tropicalia into Western rock.

Vampire Weekend fused the two genres with eerie seamlessness on their debut album and got skewered for it by Julianne Shepherd, a writer whose self-professed punk ethos comes off as something dangerously short of philistinism. But VW aren't the only example; in one of my favorite songs from 2009, Animal Collective's Brother Sport, you can hear a Caribbean influence throughout the acid-eaters' changing time signatures. And I don't disagree that modern indie bands are borrowing from African musical traditions, and I don't feel the least bit guilty for liking and sometimes loving the results. Ms. Shepherd ends her article with hands effectively thrown up in innocent opinion; yet the headline of her piece is boldly critical.

She's clearly capable of skilled composition, albeit journalistic rather than musical in nature, and ostensibly familiar with her subject. All this makes her total failure to understand and appreciate the creative process that much more deplorable. If she can't stomach a Westernized interpretation of 60s and 70s African pop, fine: that's her right and her loss. But to recommend overlooking one of the most fun twists in indie rock--one that I'm sure, for many people, will lead to an exploration of its cultural roots anyway--is just ignorant and reeks of tired politics. Art builds upon art, and as long as we're honest about our influences and bring our own imagination to bear, no one should have to apologize for their inspiration.

Review of Water Lilies

You won't find any picketing granola dykes in Water Lilies, nor will you find any suicidal pseudo-poets, snappy repartee, or any of the other dull tropes often associated with lesbian movies. Water Lilies is not about being gay. It is about being in love. Moreover, it possesses the two qualities I want most in a love story, two qualities usually overlooked, or, more likely, dismissed in other lesbian films: passion and ambiguity.

The actors are wonderful to look at, in that pouty French way. Main character Marie sulks but does not shrink, developing slowly though a series of longing stares and laconic self-expression. Florianne, the object of Marie's largely unclassifiable desire, plays the beautiful alpha female. One of the more complex teenage characters I've seen, she has a preternatural understanding of seduction and social dominance, but lacks basic self-awareness. For her, reputation is paramount, although she doesn't crave popularity. While she might have once wanted the girls on the synchronized swim team to like her, she now wants them to fear her. She also absolutely brutalizes the camera with her eyes.

I love that this film portrays 15-year-olds actually acting like 15-year-olds. They do things without understanding why, they sacrifice their self-esteem in ways that no broken-in adult would, all for the mere whispered possibility of requited love. They get bored. They end and re-form friendships within a matter of days.

Director Celine Sciamma resists didactic conventions. By the film's end, you will likely be as unsure of Florianne's sexuality or Marie's exact motivations as are Florianne and Marie themselves. You leave not having tucked away into your memory a trite lesson--the general contents of which you already understood before having even watched the movie--but instead speculating about unanswered questions, in much the same way Water Lilies' characters are forced to.

Rounding out the impressive performances and stunning imagery is a beautiful soundtrack, so bucolic and delicate it seems to embody adolescence itself. Relatively unknown French act Para One provides the score, with a style reminiscent of Boards of Canada and Ulrich Schnauss. Deserving special mention is the addition of an early 90s club hit by Jones & Stephenson, titled "The First Rebirth". I'm not sure if its presence in the film should be credited to Sciamma, Para One, or someone else entirely. Whatever the case, it's brilliant; obscure enough to seem timeless, and, even better, perfectly suited to Water Lilies' climactic club scene.

View the trailer here.

Final Analysis: 8.5/10
Released on DVD September 2nd