Mixtapes for Hookers

When I Say Hey Songs 60-51 Shall Not Say Ho.

I went to bed somewhat tipsy last night after yet another Christmas party, but my body clock for whatever reason thought it would be fun to wake me up at 4 AM.  So, now it’s about five in the morning and I’m in a cold kitchen writing in my blog when I should be sleeping in a warm bed.  But regardless, here’s 10 more of my favorite songs of the year:

60. TI, Whatever You Like
Though TI was the celebrity I had the most dirty fantasies about this year,* I actually wasn’t so into his Paper Trail album. I mean, when a dreamy pile of hot hot man does a duet with Rihanna and leaves me feeling sort of meh things can’t be right, can they?  Still, Whatever You Like was a pretty cool song, though I can’t help thinking about it in this incarnation.  And thankfully, it bears no relation to the Nicole Scherzinger song of the same title, on which TI guest rapped on last year.

[*About which more later.]

59. Neon Neon, Raquel
Neon Neon’s album Stainless Style isn’t aging well for me. Initially I thought half of it (Rachel, I Lust U, Belfast, I Told Her on Alderaan…) was awesome and half of it (the song about sweatshops, the Sean Na Na guest appearance) was grody and awful. Now I’m not really into any of it, with the exception of I Lust U and this song, which contains the hilarious Bedazzled-referencing line “Oh Raquel, you fill me with interia. Yes you do!”

58. Amadou and Mariam, Sabali
As a general rule I’m not into any kind of world music at all, and I can’t say I’m familiar with (or interested in) the music of Mali enough to have a strong opinion about fifty-something blind couple Amadou and Mariam. But I will say that this Damon Albarn-produced song was weird enough–with super-high singing at the beginning and then just talking during the second half, and keyboard bits that sound lifted from PBS kids programming–that I listened to it a lot anyway.

57. Sneaky Sound System, UFO
This song is older than I thought–it came out in Australia over a year-and-a-half ago–but I only discovered it a month or two ago when it was released as a single in the UK. While they’ve yet to make a dent in America the way Cut Copy or the Presets did, Sneaky Sound System made one of the better electro jams to come out recently, in that sort of Dragonette/New Young Pony Club way where you like their songs but feel like you’d probably want to slit your wrists if you ever had to hang out with them.

56. Tall Firs, Hairdo
Things I have weaknesses for: a) Thurston Moore’s totally neglected Trees Outside The Academy album; b) any song with the word hairdo in it  (ie. Hobart Paving, I’m A Slut, Karma Police, Inbetweener, etc.)  c) the word bangin’, when applied to women by nerdy men who should know better.  Naturally then, I loved this song, a very Trees Outside The Academy-esque number (released on Moore’s Ecstatic Peace album) where the Brooklyn trio repeatedly say both “hairdo” and “you’ve got a bangin’ sister.”  Really, I should have probably put this one higher up on the list, though their pleasant Too Old To Die Young album came out nine months ago and I associate it with the distant past (ie. my awful old job) and almost forgot it came out this year.

55. Late of the Pier, Heartbeat

Late of the Pier’s Fantasy Black Channel, along with the Solange album, is at the top of my list of things to buy as soon as I’m less broke.  I only know the English quartet’s singles, and not even all of those.  Heartbeat’s my current favorite, a jerky tune with sweet guitars and  Gang of Four-style talk-singing.  I’m not sure what this song’s about–a heartbeat? a vicar? a lime?–but I wish I did, if that makes any sense.

54. NERD, Everyone Nose

Okay, so this song was more entertaining eight to ten months ago.  But whatever.  Just because the follow-up wasn’t so hot doesn’t mean this song wasn’t stupidly fun (and funny) when it was first released.

53. Fergie, Clumsy

Originally released in September of ’07, I didn’t actually hear this song until much, much later, probably because my ears were probably clogged with blood from one too many listens of Fergie’s Big Girls Don’t Cry,* which is still possibly the Worst Song of the Bush Era.  Clumsy, on the other hand, was breezy and fun, sampling both Little Richard and Deee-Lite and turning one of Fergie’s worst attributes (her lack of singing voice and tendency to sound like metal objects being crushed together) into a wonderfully noisy chorus, with the Ferg’s voice blown out beyond reason and the sample persistently reminding you that the girl can’t help it.

[*By which I mean one listen.]

52. Heather Nova, Ride

Heather Nova hasn’t graced one of my year-end countdowns since her commercial breaktrhough in 1995.  I actually threw her Oyster album on recently while I was cleaning my kitchen and surprised myself by still loving and knowing the words to every song (though my CD did skip a lot during Truth and Bone, which I thought was always the best one.)

Anyway, I read an interesting review of her new album on Wears The Trousers and found Ride streaming on her website.  It’s a ballad, totally out of step with the year 2008 but quite lovely nonetheless, albeit in a slightly embarrassing way.  I didn’t realize how much I liked it that first day until I walked away from the computer and left the stream of that one song looping for almost an hour before I thought to put something else on.

51. Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, Thou Shalt Always Kill

I first heard this at the end of last year when the wonderfully grumpy Ed Slota listed it as his fifth favorite song of 2007.  Like many things on his list, Thou Shalt Always Kill was unfamiliar to me and, annoyingly, unreleased in the US.  Well, fast forward nine months, and suddenly uberhunk Sage Francis is releasing DlSvSP’s Angles album on his Providence-based Strange Famous label.  It’s a good album in a very British way, with, you know,  dry wit and Radiohead and Dizzee Rascal samples.  It might be a bit epic for too many repeated listens, though Thou Shalt Always Kill–which features lots of important wisdom, ie. “Thou shalt not question Stephen Fry”–hasn’t gotten any less funny in the year since I’ve first heard it.

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