In Defense of Sloppy Seconds-- 23 of 2k5's Best Singles (D&D W/O)
Dec 29 '05
The Bottom Line And when you get on, as you probably will have done by the time you’ve finished all of this, The Bottom Line will leave yo @ss for a white girl.
Here’s the thing. 2005, despite having developed a reputation as something of a downer of a year for the music industry but for the sales juggernauts of The Emancipation of Mimi and Kelly Clarkson’s Breakaway, offered no shortage of compelling, artistically daring and demanding albums. The somewhat unusual problem was that many of those great albums— Sleater-Kinney’s The Woods and Antony & The Johnsons’ I Am a Bird Now, to pick but two— worked brilliantly as cohesive statements but failed to provide a radio single that deserved equal billing of its own accord. While it’s more than a little short-sighted to blame 2005’s net loss in album sales on the fact that Sleater-Kinney’s “Entertain” doesn’t have as strong a hook as, say, Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar, We’re Going Down,” it’s worth noting that the last year was characterized by a rigorous emphasis on instantly gratifying singles—- not only was a simple melodic hook expected to stand on its own, but it had better sound fantastic as the background music for a Honda commercial and, more importantly, even better as a thirty second ringtone. Critics have been declaring the album a dead art form for years now, but 2005 was the first year since I’ve been old enough to care about such things that I noticed a real, possibly troubling disconnect between the albums and singles markets.
If not necessarily from the year’s best albums, then, where did the year’s best singles come from? Though there were several notable exceptions— The White Stripes’ “My Doorbell,” Miranda Lambert’s “Me and Charlie Talking,” Andrew Bird’s “Fake Palindromes,” Turpentine Brothers’ “We Don’t Care About Your Good Times,” Goldfrapp’s “Ooh La La,” Andrew Thompson’s “We’re in Business,” Brad Paisley’s “Alcohol,” Ben Lee’s “Catch My Disease,” and Stephen Malkmus’ “Baby, C’mon” have all been regrettably if deliberately removed from this list— 2005’s best singles shared a common thread of second-handedness in their varied sources. Impressive were the number of artists who made good on their sophomore efforts with, if not necessarily start-to-finish good albums, at least one memorable single. Speaking well of the previous year were both the second or third singles culled from several resilient, steadily performing 2004 albums that owed obvious debts to restructured bygone trends, and also singles released in the U.K. in 2004 but not making the transatlantic flight until this year. Throw in some exceptionally well-executed covers, the occasional grade-inflated B-side, and a few remixes that topped their original forms, and what seems like an overwhelming majority of 2005’s best singles make good cases for recycling and conservation of resources.
At 23 songs— which, thanks to five selections that clock in at well under three minutes, fit neatly onto a single CD-R— this list isn’t even close to exhausting the potential of its theme. At last count, this set was pulled from nearly one hundred singles that met some portion of a “Sloppy Seconds Make Good” definition and the bulk of which, depending on which side of the “Hollaback Girl” schism you fall, could replace what I’ve included to no significant detriment to the mix’s quality. Ultimately, to claim that the best singles from any year are merely re-gifted or rehashed is cause for alarm would smack of reactionary pseudosciences like phrenology or numerology and would miss the greater point that, however compromised or roundabout their origins may have been, they’re still examples of exceptional pop craft worth championing.
On with it, then.
23). “It’s 5!,” Architecture in Helsinki.
First single from their sophomore album, In Case We Die.
The obvious comparisons for Australian octet Architecture in Helsinki are The Arcade Fire, for the sheer variety of instrumentation they employ and for the size of their act, and The Fiery Furnaces, for the idiosyncrasy and derring-do of their arrangements and for their division of vocal duties among the band’s ladies and fellas. Neither The Arcade Fire nor The Fiery Furnaces, however, have managed to release a single that, in just over two minutes, is as unabashedly fun as “It’s 5!,” which illustrates the importance of the line that separates “pop” from “twee.” The single more or less dances right up to that line and uses its fingers (many, and probably sticky) to make silly faces at the line itself rather than acknowledging anyone who’s actually chosen a side. In the best possible sense, “It’s 5!” sounds like something taken from The Electric Company, complete with sections in which the women gleefully shout their lines in tandem and with flubbed addition problems by the men, and whether or not any given person will tolerate its boundless energy or the joy of its sound will depend on that person’s tolerance for, say, Fruity Pebbles as a viable option at every meal. But “It’s 5!” isn’t “juvenile”— it’s worlds removed from the freakish Kidz Bop cover of Modest Mouse’s “Float On." It’s “childish” pop music in that it’s unbeholden to the pretenses— conventions of song structure, coherence of lyrics, and whatnot— of the “grown-up” music that comprises most of the remainder of this list and in that an entire album of songs just like it— loud, garish bubblegum-- could induce a diabetic coma. But in two minute long bites, “It’s 5!” is a reminder of why even grown-ups still indulge a sweet tooth.
22). “Four Kicks,” Kings of Leon.
Second single from their sophomore album, Aha Shake Heartbreak.
Like all good Southern boys, Kings of Leon know that there are few things quite as rude as overstaying your welcome, so they keep “Four Kicks” to a bareknuckled two and a half minutes and then scratch off while pulling out of the driveway to make sure that, while they’ve gone on about their business, their presence will nonetheless linger for a spell. Which is to say that the deep-fried, three-chord bar rock of “Four Kicks,” which is all about working up a sweat through swagger and trash talk, gives the impression that Kings of Leon (four Hollowill boys of varied relations), well, they probably don’t smell so good, and that’s even before they start carrying on about “[taking] it to the yard like a cockfight.” The single is hard enough to shake the “Southern Strokes” comparisons that hovered over their debut, and it’s both self-contained and simply good enough to suggest that, down the road a little ways, they could pose a credible threat to The Drive-By Truckers as the voice for Southern rock. If nothing else, they earn more than a few bonus points for using a fantastic word like sh!telse— which, like “Louisville,” you have to pronounce correctly (“SHI-telz,” roughly, since I just couldn’t feel good about myself if I looked up the ASCII code for the schwa symbol) lest you sound like a dolt— from the Southern vernacular and dropping it into a single that defines a “Dirty South” aesthetic far better than anything Nelly could ever come up with.
21). “The Lord God Bird,” Sufjan Stevens.
One-off writing exercise / stunt performance recorded at the behest of NPR, and available for download at http://www.longhaulpro.org.
From its pop art inspired cover to its should-be-but-aren’t pretentious song titles, there are plenty of nice things, including several of the year’s best-written songs, to praise about Sufjan Stevens’ extraordinary Illinois, but an obvious single isn’t among its many virtues. Stevens, though, isn’t one to back down from a challenge, as demonstrated by “The Lord God Bird.” Curious as to his writing process, NPR’s Elizabeth Meister and Dan Collison chose a small town— Brinkley, Arkansas— with an interesting story— a species of woodpecker long believed to be extinct has a thriving population there and nowhere else— and recorded extensive interviews with the locals, and they sent those interviews to Stevens, asking him to write a song inspired by what they’d collected, which he would then record for NPR’s All Things Considered. What Stevens accomplishes with “The Lord God Bird” is, in many ways, a condensed version of what he accomplishes on Illinois. He co-opts a bit of “local color” to which he’s but a tourist and finds the humanity that makes it a story that someone unfamiliar with its origins could find captivating, and he uses that humanity as the core for his own fiction. While the fictions of Illinois are often sprawling, “The Lord God Bird” presents its tale of an unexpected source of rejuvenation concisely before finally taking flight in the year’s most straightforwardly beautiful crescendo.
20). “ 1 Thing (Siik Vocal Mix),” Amerie.
Remixed first single from her sophomore album, Touch.
While most popular remixes serve only to extrapolate a dance-pop or hip-hop song for extended club play, the best remixes can completely recontextualize a song, and that’s the case for the “Siik Vocal Mix” of Amerie’s Grammy nominated minor-hit, ֿ 1 Thing.” Where the original version by producer Rich Harrison (the man behind the curtain on, most notably, Beyonc‚’s “Crazy in Love”) used a horn sample from The Meters’ “Oh, Calcutta” over an increasingly kinetic percussion line to build a would-be summertime radio anthem, the remix uses, of all things, the mellow, even melancholy synth-guitar melody from the score to one of those 2 A.M. anime series (Gundam, I believe, but that’s indoor kid territory into which I don’t venture, so don’t quote me on that) from Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim. What began as a frenetic, often hysterical in the Victorian sense R&B dance number becomes one of the year’s best slow jams. The more subdued production takes advantage of the ambiguities of the song’s lyrics, allowing Amerie’s passion-trumps-pitch performance to sound affecting and even desperate by the song’s climax. Girl actually sounds like she’s throwing things, crying, trying to figure out where in the hell she went wrong while, in what remains the single’s best moment, her high heels are clicking towards her man’s door. Harrison’s version of the single has been hailed as a production triumph, but the remix illustrates that he had some killer material to start with, thanks to the song and to Amerie’s vocals.
19). “Funky Voltron,” Edan f/ Insight.
First single from his second full-length album, which is not actually a collection of Go-Go’s covers, Beauty and the Beat.
As a DJ for my college’s radio station, I was required to play three public service announcements from the station’s supply of about fifty or so selections during each two-hour show. The PSAs were largely unbearable—- imagine the lyrics to most any Martina McBride song about a child with a wasting disease, as read Robin Williams, and I swear I’m not making that up—- and I ended up playing the same five ad nauseum over those four glorious DJ years. And the PSA that I played on nearly every single broadcast was something that one of the DJs had put together in his spare time, which consisted of TV’s “Dr. Drew” prattling on about how acne is tough for every adolescent, over a loop of the first 20 seconds of George Clinton’s “Atomic Dog.” Just under one minute long, I must have heard “Acnefunk” well over 200 times, and its greatness never waned. “Funky Voltron” reminds me of “Acnefunk,” in that its genius is in the randomness of what’s spewed over a sampled funk riff. Hip-hop is inherently post-modern and witty, but Edan’s and Insight’s rhymes are uncommonly inspired: plenty of rap acts go on about their on-stage prowess, but few follow-up a line about their mic work with how they react to someone throwing a baby at them mid-performance, and fewer still trump Gwen Stefani’s spelling bee by rescuing an 80s cartoon series from a Murphy Lee verse on a Nelly and P. Diddy (at the time, anyway) collaboration for a Will Smith movie. Edan’s and Insight’s actions over “Funky Voltron”’s two-minutes-and-change save lives, kids, as much as they suggest Robot Chicken in song form.
18). “Mr. Brightside,” The Killers.
Second single from 2004’s Hot Fuss.
There’s a line in The Rules of Attraction (both Bret Easton Ellis’s novel and Roger Avary’s grossly underappreciated film adaptation), in which one character says of another, “I liked Sean because he seemed, well, slutty. Like a boy who didn’t know whether or not he was kept,” and it captures the essence of what The Killers do well. Even when singing a song like “Mr. Brightside,” which is a relatively straightforward meditation on jealousy, or the also very, very good “All These Things That I’ve Done,” which uses a gospel choir to sing what is perhaps the year’s most singularly ridiculous lyric, The Killers exude a certain sleaze. Though I included them on my list of 2004’s best singles, as well, I don’t think they’ve yet proven themselves to be a legitimately good rock band. But that sleaze, which emanates through layers upon layers of ProTools and studio polish, makes The Killers quite good rock stars. “Mr. Brightside” works because it uses just a bit of misdirection with their smarm: “Now they’re going to bed / And my stomach is sick / And it’s all in my head / But she’s touching his… chest now,” and aren’t you such a clever, coy boy, Brandon Flowers, looking on the bright side of that rhyme? Go full-on with the sleaze, and you’re playing back-up on Paris Hilton’s debut album. But pull just the slightest little bait-and-switch, and your album moves three million copies and you have the year’s #1 single on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart and, rightly, no one objects.
17). “I Said Never Again (But Here We Are),” Rachel Stevens.
Second single from Come and Get It, her second solo album.
No one ever should’ve expected anything good to come either of or from the former members of S Club 7, a singing group of awkward British kids assembled by Simon “Not Cowell, The Other One” Fuller as a bald-faced ploy for the allowance money of impressionable pre-teens all over the UK. If taken as a novelty, their debut single (a #1 hit across the pond), “Bring it All Back,” is a jaw-dropping piece of work, in that it makes Up With People sound like GWAR by comparison; unfortunately, that they charted 9 more top 5 singles prevents such a read. S Club 7 was big business from 1999 until 2003, and their tv series aired stateside on the Fox Family Channel, which, if Simon Fuller’s attachment wasn’t already a clue, confirms the sprawling corporate evil behind the group. The two albums from Rachel “The One Who Never Got to Sing Lead But Who Grew Up to Look a Lot Like Anna Kournikova” Stevens, to be honest, are no less studio creations than were any of the S Club 7 hits. Except that the singles from Stevens’ Come and Get It, “Negotiate With Love” and, especially, “I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)” are extraordinarily well-crafted pop. Stevens, a pretty girl with a pleasant enough voice, is but the vehicle for some phenomenal songwriting and production. “I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)” sounds like a long-lost Adam & The Ants single—- the scratch-guitar opening that explodes into full-on powerchords after Stevens’ count-in hasn’t been done this well in decades—- filtered through a post-dancepunk pop perspective that recalls how guitars and synthesizers can still build a rhythm section. Put another way, it sounds like what, based on the reviews I’d read, I expected Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm to sound like, except with a hot blonde singing lead. Whether or not Stevens actually gets why any of it is great—- let alone whether or not she gets lines like, “I told you never to play my blue guitar”—- is incidental to the fact that “I Said Never Again (But Here We Are)” is great. Sure, she’s a cipher, but I’ll own up to being shallow on this one and say that, killer as it is, it would be just about the best thing ever were Pink or Kelly Clarkson to cover it for her next album.
16). “Maureen,” Fountains of Wayne.
Single culled from their B-sides and rarities collection, Out of State Plates.
Even Fountains of Wayne’s B-sides outclass the majority of what gets played on pop and “Adult Top 40” radio, but many dismissed “Maureen” as but a retread of what has been the band’s one hit to date, “Stacy’s Mom,” short-selling what is actually a more interesting song. In many ways, “Maureen” encapsulates the whole of Fountains of Wayne: instantly ingratiating hooks stacked back-to-back-to-back, giving a deceptively sunny sound to their fully realized male disaffect. Lacing frustration with a smirk of earned condescension, the couplet, “I say, ‘Well maybe he’s just not all that bright.’ / She tells me it’s not his brain that she likes,” is perhaps a perfect, concise overview of the angst that drives their proper studio output, with songs like “Leave the Biker,” “Denise,” “Red Dragon Tattoo,” and “Radiation Vibe” all documenting the laments of smart guys who aren’t quite smart enough to get out of their own heads long enough to figure out how to win a girl.
15). “Multiply (Gonzalez Remix),” Jamie Lidell.
Remixed third single and title track from Multiply, his second solo album.
Facing an uphill battle for credibility as a would-be soul singer—- what with his being a skinny white guy in his mid-30s from England, having his album released on Warp Records (home of Aphex Twin and Squarepusher), and his having been part of the IDM duo Super_Collider—- Jamie Lidell’s album Multiply is an unlikely success. While the album itself, which in its best moments invites comparisons to at-peak Prince, resolves most any doubts as to his street-cred, the “Gonzalez Remix” of its title track nonetheless puts to rest any lingering comparisons that detractors might make to Joss Stone’s shtick. Whereas the original version lays down a delicious, smooth vintage soul groove, the remixed version is relatively threadbare, stripping away most of the production tricks to allow Lidell’s remarkable voice to become the track’s focal point. Lidell is backed only by some enthusiastic handclaps and a ragtimey piano that, as his delivery grows ever more distraught, starts to view accompaniment as more of a suggestion than a purpose. But with Lidell more or less losing his sh!t by the song’s bridge—- his increasing slur over the refrain of “so tired!” just can’t be affected—- “Multiply” stands as just stupid good singing, independent of genre aspirations.
14). “Lose Control (White Dawg Remix),” Missy Elliot f/ Ciara & Fatman Scoop.
Remixed first single from The Cookbook.
Again, a good remix is all about the new context it creates for the original song. In this case, the remix of Missy Elliott’s “Lose Control” is, I’m willing to bet, only interesting by accident. It differs fairly little from the radio edit of the single: the dizzying and vaguely menacing synth-xylophone arpeggio run is still the backbone of the remix, though a heavier, industrial-leaning bassline has been added. But the addition that makes this version far more interesting than the original—- Missy’s hits have almost exclusively been the first singles from each of her albums, and, to that end, “Lose Control” is no “Get Ur Freak On” or “Work It”—- are the filthy verses by rapper White Dawg. Since the tone and cadence of his flow are, for much of his run here, almost completely indistinguishable from Missy’s, his verses give “Lose Control” a fascinating gender study, in light of the rumors that have long circulated around Missy Elliott and, more recently, around Ciara’s possibly having an Adam’s apple. When you crank the volume and you can’t really tell who’s just said, “Don’t you wish your boyfriend could eat it like me?,” it isn’t just Missy’s “rump shakin’ both ways” that’ll make you do a double-take. Just seconds later, White Dawg (presumably) boasts of his girl’s fondness for going “both ways,” and then the song immediately cuts to, “Well, my name is Ciara…,” and “Lose Control” basically reduces to a celebrity gossip column or some kind of inside-joke that’s gotten out of hand. In that regard, it’s the tawdry redux of Dizzee Rascal’s landmark “I Luv U.” Whereas Dizzee Rascal’s single exploded a generation’s fubarred gender politics in the face of the apocalypse, the remixed “Lose Control” foregoes greater insight, focusing instead on the idea that, if we’re all about to die, we might as well get it on with whoever’s game. And, well, Missy’s statements are rarely so loaded on purpose.
13). “Bottle Rocket,” The Go! Team.
First single from the US release of their 2004 UK album, Thunder! Lightning! Strike!, from which it was the second single.
Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love,” but with sampled horns—- from different sources on the US and UK versions, though both do just fine-- and a wicked case of attention deficit disorder. It’s my hope that I don’t need to explain why that’s a great thing.
12). “Feel Good, Inc.,” Gorillaz f/ De La Soul.
First single from their sophomore album, Demon Days.
For all of the bellyaching over what a weak year it was for music, things were actually worse for the movies, with a seemingly endless streak of especially empty-headed would-be blockbusters and an interchangeably banal, middlebrow studio indies. While I didn’t expect much of, to pick but one example, Capote, and was therefore pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t a complete waste of time, the most disappointing film of 2005 was, hands-down, Master Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle, the first of his films to smother any of the whimsy needed for a magical-realist fantasy to work beneath a political message that surprised for its portent and ham-fistedness. War, it seems, is bad. “Feel Good, Inc.,” both the single and its accompanying music video, finds a balance that makes both for better art and entertainment. Its politics are bleak (“You won’t get undercounted ‘cause you’re d@mned and free” in “a melancholy town where we never smile”), but “Feel Good, Inc.” remembers to find a source of fun because, hey, windmills sure are neat and because hip-hop is still increasingly the new pop. Of course, there’s the added bonus of making both De La Soul and the Grammys (where it’s a nominee for Record of the Year) relevant long after most right-minded folk had abandoned hope.
11). “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart,” O.D.B. f/ Macy Gray.
Elton John & Kiki Dee cover, from the final recording sessions of the late Big Baby Jesus.
Easy to dismiss as a novelty, the collaboration between two of popular music’s most hilariously drug-addled (before the first notes of the song, O.D.B. asks for his “j”) lunatics on a most unlikely choice of cover tunes actually grows more interesting over time; it’s no “Who Let the Dogs Out,” in other words, and it’s infinitely more bizarre than the remake Elton John recorded with RuPaul a decade back. O.D.B.’s singing on the chorus fondly recalls Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend,” which makes his pairing with Macy Gray’s helium-laced duck-quack of a voice all the more inspired. It’s their interplay that makes the song believable, as when she echoes a stern, “You better not,” in reply to his, “I won’t be breakin’ your heart.” Or, even better, the completely disinterested and possibly repulsed, “Hmm,” that follows a proposition of doggy-style sex in Central Park, and I’ve heard precious few things as funny as Macy Gray’s exclamation of, “Do you want some licorice?” after O.D.B., his plans for the park having been rebuffed, suggests that they take in a movie, instead. Whether or not the comedy was intentional—- the vast majority of songs that try to be even half this funny fail badly—- “Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart” adheres to its own internal logic awfully well, especially for a single that’s best described as a contact high.
09). “Chewing Gum,” Annie.
Second or third single from her 2004 UK debut, Anniemal, released in the US in 2005, though this supposedly isn’t slated to be released as a single until 2006.
As a means of marking the disconnect between the “popular” opinion that exists on the internet and the “popular” opinion that exists in the real world, consider that Annie’s particular brand of meticulously crafted, hook-heavy pop music has been praised on nearly every music blog and just about every webzine over the course of the last two years. Then consider that her album, Anniemal, has sold so poorly since its US release in June 2005 that it charted for all of one week in Billboard magazine-— not on their “Independent Albums” chart, or the “Heatseekers” chart for new artists, and certainly not on the overall "Billboard 200." It spent a week at #13 on the “Top Electronic Albums” chart, which reflects only the sales of a tiny niche market that doesn’t really apply to Anniemal anyway, and hasn’t been seen since. That’s pathetisad, and it makes me want to send Annie a care package that has one of those “Hang in there!” cat posters, because seriously, her “pop” is so much better than the bulk of what gets played on Top 40 radio, present company excluded. “Chewing Gum” is what happens when bubblegum pop goes meta: it makes you smile and it keeps your teeth clean, and it’s not even snarky enough to be the winking oral sex metaphor that Jessica Simpson or Brandine would’ve tried to turn it into. The only irony is that, with its hook that uses, “You think you’re chocolate when you’re chewing gum,” as a kiss-off line, “Chewing Gum” is actually the type of pop single worth savoring.
- -). “Be Mine,” Robyn.
First single from Robyn, a UK-only album to this point that re-establishes an artifact from the last teenpop cycle as a bona fide hipster darling.
Okay, so this one’s a cheat, except in the sense that Robyn hasn’t actually had a proper studio album released in the US since her debut, 1997’s Robyn is Here, which spawned the hits “Do You Know (What it Takes)” and “Show Me Love,” and that Robyn has more or less given her a second career on this side of the Atlantic, and deservedly so. While the trend toward detached, icy vocal deliveries of pop songs has produced plenty of singles that are still worth discussing—- from Rachel Stevens, Gorillaz, Annie, and others—- Robyn’s “Be Mine” stands as a stark contrast, in that she wrings every last bit of emotional depth from a song that, for its writing and production, would still be a standout in the hands of a lesser singer. The production really is amazing, built around a sampled synth-cello loop, complete with a flourish as the downbeat for the refrain and a glissando back to the verses, that manages to trump the fake strings from Brandine’s “Toxic” and illustrating how "uptempo" and "upbeat" structures don’t necessarily mean the same thing. But the strength of “Be Mine” is its writing, with language carefully chosen to make its point with greatest impact (“I feel so helpless, sometimes wishing is just no good / Because you don’t see me like I wish you would”), and peaking with a simple spoken line in the bridge that says in a mere six words what an entire generation of emo kids have minced voluminously: “I just miss you. That’s all.” And it’s a good thing that the single itself gives cause for celebration, because "Be Mine" is just devastatingly sad.
07). “Do What You Want,” OK Go.
Second single from their sophomore album, Oh No.
Christopher Walken is a w'hore. Over the last decade, for every lone Sleepy Hollow or Catch Me If You Can-— the only thing he’s done in recent memory to remind that, for all of the DeNiro style self-parody he does, he’s still a fine actor-— there are no less than five Joe Dirts, Kangaroo Jacks, The Country Bears, The Stepford Wives, and Giglis. If you want Christopher Walken to be in your movie, one that would otherwise and probably deserves to go direct to video in as much as you should’ve made it at all, you just have to ask. He’ll say yes. But, amidst the garbage like The Affair of the Necklace and Domino, Walken does have those moments of clarity and inspiration. And OK Go, in crafting their surprisingly great second album, paid attention to one of Walken’s most lasting, iconic messages, and they followed that message to brilliant effect on “Do What You Want,” the type of hard guitar-pop that Weezer could be relied upon to produce until this year’s awful Make Believe. Walken’s message? More cowbell. Always, always more cowbell.
- -). “Do You Want To,” Franz Ferdinand.
First single from their sophomore album, You Could Have it So Much Better.
I’ve waited all year for the Franz Ferdinand backlash to begin. And, lo, there were rumblings in the east, but they never organized into the reactionary, You’re Uninvited To My Birthday Party type of pop will eat itself assault that I anticipated would greet the band’s second album. It has reviewed comparably well by the same sources to their self-titled debut. But it’s not like Franz Ferdinand-— thankfully, Pitchfork’s suggested “The Ferd” never took off—- hasn’t done their part to bait it with some obvious references to that well-liked first offering. “Do You Want To” adopts a formula similar to their Pazz & Jop topping “Take Me Out,” starting as it does as a 70s rock number before they yell, “Psyche!” and the disco beat kicks in. It also moves the heteroflexibility of “Michael” at least one notch along the ol’ Kinsey Scale, and there’s a deliciously b!tchy line directed toward the hipster crowd (“Here we are at the transmission party / I love your friends, they’re oh so arty”) that’s at least partially responsible for their success. So, if it’s perhaps a bit too easy to rank higher, there’s one thing that “Do You Want To” offers that “Take Me Out” didn’t: Alex Kapranos repeatedly shouting “Oh, yeah!” just like Kool Aid Man. And, well, I’m not such a hard sell.
06). “Wait (The Whisper Song) (Crut’s Hush-Up Mix),” Ying Yang Twins.
Remixed first single from USA: United State of Atlanta.
The Song That Killed Andrea Dworkin—- seriously, it’s one hell of a cosmic coincidence that she died during the same week that this single officially shipped to radio-— was the one single of the year that demanded, more loudly than its title implies, that you have an opinion about it, and there’s certainly something about that I respect. “Wait (The Whisper Song)” raises difficult questions about popular music and what it is that you’re saying when you say that you “like” a song. If you admit that you think a single is exceptionally well-produced or that it executes its gimmick with a degree of skill and awareness of form that’s often lacking in mainstream pop—- in mainstream hip-hop, in particular—- is there a tacit implication that you also endorse the content of that song? Can the content of a song ever really be separated from what makes it objectively good or bad? Are there or should there be limits to what can be passed off as ironic? Under three minutes long and starkly minimalist in its production, “Wait (The Whisper Song)” makes such a colossal mess out of so little that it actually manages to render its epistemological implications necessary food for though, rather than pretentious critical wanking.
It’s complicated and tricky in a way that I find invigorating—- moreso than anything I encountered as a law student thus far, that’s for sure—- but that doesn’t in and of itself make “Wait” a good single. But there’s an easy out in the “Crut’s Hush-Up Mix,” which uses the clean radio edit of the Ying Yang Twins’ rap-— the version that entirely rewrites the threatened sexual violence—- and gives just enough texture—- a loop of the iconic guitar riff from The Smiths’ “How Soon is Now,” rescued from one hit wonder Soho’s “Hippie Chick” and probably demanding another 500 words about the significance of backing a Ying Yang Twins remix with a song by The Smiths-— to push the single from “minimalist” to “baadasssss” and remove any lingering guilt from the whole affair. I’m enough of an old school feminist that I have all kinds of problems with the original version of “Wait (The Whisper Song).” The remixed version? Not at all.
04). “Since U Been Gone,” Kelly Clarkson.
Second single from her sophomore album, 2004’s Breakaway.
Pop didn’t really need a new Pat Benatar in 2005—- the Pat Benatar we already have has aged gorgeously and her voice, as she demonstrated by comprehensively out-glorynoting Martina McBride on an episode of CMT’s Crossroads earlier this year (to which: Yay!), hasn’t diminished a bit—- but along came Kelly Clarkson, abandoning the Christina Aguilera-lite pop of her debut and singing the holy hell out of some arena-sized pop-rock. The pipes have never been in question; the material and the production were what troubled. But with “Since U Been Gone,” all of the elements-— catchy tune, the right choice of production style, and a dynamic performance—- coalesced into something legitimately great. Not even the egregious misuse of the word “so” in the chorus detracts from it, it’s just that massive. The melodic guitar hook that kicks off the chorus—- and, even better, the bassline supporting it-— and Clarkson’s wholly committed, outsized delivery match both the content and the style. “Since U Been Gone” does everything right. For all of the words devoted, with good cause, to praising the likes of The New Pornographers, Spoon, and Sufjan Stevens, “Since U Been Gone” is the one musical statement of 2005 that I’d bet the farm that people will still be listening and singing along to in twenty years.
- -). “One Word,” Kelly Osbourne.
First single from her sophomore album, Sleeping in the Nothing.
A prime example of how the detached ice queen vocal style can be done well by someone other than Aimee Mann, “One Word” was a single that caught me completely and wonderfully off guard. Kelly Osbourne’s music career, after all, had consisted of nothing more than enough self-perpetuated feuds to get the gossip blogs off to a running start and, of course, that nearly unlistenable cover of “Papa Don’t Preach.” The girl can’t sing, and “One Word” doesn’t force her to try, in that it’s a single (and video, the year’s best, even) inspired both in content and in form by Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville, a sci-fi-ish film, which Osbourne claims is a favorite of hers, that trades in the denial of self-expression. Translated from French—- though snippets of the original dialogue are used to great effect in the single—- the key line in the film is, “Everything has been said… provided words do not change their meanings, and meanings their words.” It’s a striking film done full justice by “One Word”’s production, which, balancing just a bit of distortion and dissonant electronic whirrs and bleeps with its driving rhythm, lands at the tipping point between post-dancepunk and nu wave revival. Like the cityscape of Alphaville, despite clearly recognizable points of reference, “One Word” ultimately seems forward-thinking, which makes Linda Perry’s attachment all the more mysterious.
03). “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out),” The Arcade Fire.
Third single from Funeral, their 2004 debut.
Ask and ye shall receive, right? But, to reiterate, “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” sounds like a vintage single from The Cure, built around an exuberant seven-note xylophone riff, and it’s no less striking a piece of work than it was a year ago. One of the primary reasons, I think, that The Arcade Fire have been so successful—- at least in the modest terms of indie-rock success—- is that, unlike all of the emo acts (Death Cab for Cutie, Bright Eyes, et al) who were supposed to save the music industry as of 2004, they manage to convey such monumental, outsized emotional expressions in a way that never becomes either cloying (like the worst parts of Death Cab’s Plans) or self-pitying (like most of Bright Eyes’ output). It’s the kind of expression that the greatest “soul” singers from all genres—- Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding, obviously, but Beth Hart and Jeff Buckley, too—- convey at their most transcendent. When most of the band members shout an exultant, “We felt alive!,” the total effect is so enormous that you start to think that, well, maybe these kids are somehow better at that than you are, and that’s just the best kind of inspiration that pop music can offer.
02). “Golddigger,” Kanye West f/ Jamie Foxx.
Second single from his sophomore album, Late Registration.
I liked his The College Dropout enough, but, well into 2005, I’d found it almost impossible to take Kanye West even the least bit seriously because the man wants for the comparative humility of Bono. Celebrity egotism is all well and good when it still comes off as grounded, but otherwise you run the risk of being a pompous blowhard, embarrassing yourself by trying to bully a morning newsanchor with your decades-outdated “facts” about a medical field for which you have neither a professional nor an academic frame of reference. Or, back on topic, you develop an unpretty God complex and throw a world-class hissyfit when Gretchen Wilson beats you for an industry award that you believe you were somehow entitled to win on principle. And when you have me considering Gretchen Wilson’s side of an argument, you’re in territory where no sane person should ever be. “Golddigger,” then, proved that Kanye West can drop the bloated sense of self-importance and make a hip-hop record that’s fun simply for the sake of being fun, and it proved that at the precise moment when he needed people to be willing to get back on his bandwagon. It’s funny and good-natured, and it remembers that any song that instructs someone to “go ‘head, get down,” had better actually make them want to.
01). “Galang (Caveman Mix),” M.I.A..
2005 remix of the first single from her debut, Arular, which was released in the UK in 2004 and was also on a hipster-only Piracy Funds Terrorism mixtape collaboration with Diplo that circulated in 2004.
“Galang” was just barely a song in its original form, but the “Caveman Mix” manages to go even more minimalist. Gone are any of the sampled electronic loops that gave texture to M.I.A.’s sing-songy chants. The remix is aptly named: what’s left of “Galang” is absolutely primal, just those chants and a whole lot of thunderous banging on and with whatever’s at hand. And it distills “pop” to its essence. Linear storytelling, turns out, isn’t necessary, and nonsense syllables will even suffice in lieu of meaningful words. Melody doesn’t have to amount to much at all; just the simple rise and fall of a rapper’s cadence will do just fine. So long as the hooks sink in deep and the beat can club your prey into submission, your pop song doubles as a weapon, and “Galang” ends, appropriately enough, with M.I.A., suspiciously apolitical as she is, shouting a simple, “Ya Ya Hey!” like a war cry. And I’d listen to it on loop forever.
Right on.
At this point, I could issue some sort of apology for my long-windedness, but no one would believe such a thing. Instead, I’ll just say that my Top 10 Albums write-up will, hopefully, be more concise.
Demon & Drew brought you this write-off, so technically they’re vicariously liable in tort for any permanent eyestrain caused by anyone’s having read this. But they mean well.
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