Random 10 for November 24, 2008
1. Passion Pit, “Sleepyhead.” Too many hooks to count in this debut single, and video, which would have been given the designation “Break Through Video” by MTV back when such things mattered, was done without any computer assistance.
2. Weezer, “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived.”
3. Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama, “Pictures of Jesus.”
4. Roxy Music, “Same Old Scene.”
5. Kanye West, “Heartless.” The new disc, 808s and Heartbreak, comes out tomorrow. I’m having a hard time loving either of the back-to-back singles, mainly because they’re both built around the AutoTune vocals that made T-Pain America’s Favorite Guest Vocalist. To which I say, meh. Nice Peter Max-inspired video, though.
6. The Budos Band, “Deep In the Sand.”
7. CSS, “Alala.”
8. Duffy, “Serious.”
9. Albert Hammond Jr., “The Boss Americana.”
10. The Jam, “In the City.” This was the first single by the great Mod revivalist group, a part of the Staticblog canon. Of particular note: the descending bass line that opens “In the City” is nearly — aw hell, it’s not even nearly — identical to the Sex Pistols’ “Holidays in the Sun,” which came out three months later. Then again, when has John Lydon ever been held up as a paragon of virtue?
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I’m not getting into the new Kanye singles yet either, though I do like the video. It’s Ralph Bakshi that is the inspiration, though, rather than Max, specifically “American Pop.” What’s weird is that I just watched this movie on a whim last week: http://tinyurl.com/5ux9on