The Humanities Center’s Top Ten Disco Re-edit/Sad-core/Kanye-hop Jams of 2007
As compiled by James Weissinger, current Post-Bac Fellow, WHRC emeritus

Ok 2007 was a really rough year: too much EdBanger French Electro-house, overly earnest Canadian junk, and weirdo-experimental-pseudo-poignant-freak-folk. Still, there were ten songs that didn’t cause my ears to start bleeding. These are those songs.

10) Junior Senior – Hip Hop A Lula – My My Hey Hey Yo Yo
This came out in Denmark like 7 years ago and in Japan 14 years ago, but it’s finally here in America so I’ll count it as 2007. Junior Senior’s second album cuts out all the awesome garage rock of their first and suffocates the remainder with fifty gallons of Motown soul syrup, but this track STILL might be better than “Move Your Feet.” “Take me down to the Parallel City where the music’s loud and the boys are pretty”…

9) Cornelius – Music – Sensuous
Some people call Cornelius the Beck of Japan, but whereas Beck puts out a terrible album with stickers you can rearrange on the cover, Cornelius puts on a tour where all movement, video, and light on stage synch up with the music; each song has the best music video you’ve ever seen projected on top of everything; and every band member gets his or her own set of chimes. Somehow he gets both the funky post-punk angular sound AND the soupy utopian vocals and pretty synths all to get along, creating something that sounds like Gang of Four’s rhythm section conducted by Super Mario 64.

8) Kathy Diamond – Over –Miss Diamond to You
Kathy Diamond is Lily Winehouse’s super-scary Addams Family replacement from Sheffield, England (home of The Human League and Throbbing Gristle). Instead of getting Mark Ronson to produce her tracks, though, she somehow dug up Maurice Fulton (Mu’s “Paris Hilton”) to help write the album. This is slap-bass slow-mo clavichord disco soul that cannot be played before 8 pm. “All Woman” might be better but it came out in 2006, so “Over” gets the win.

7) Kanye West – Champion -- Graduation

I think Kanye makes fun of Will Smith’s kids in this?? The Steely Dan sample is a KILLER, can Kanye and Danger Mouse just hibernate for a year and remake Pet Sounds or something out of rhythm tracks from “The Royal Scam”?

6) Holy Ghost! – Hold On -- Hold On 12”
DFA is pumping out a ton of “ok, dudes, we get it” spacey italo-disco-y stuff at the moment, but this one is the most memorable and dancefloor-ready… Holy Ghost!’d probably hate this, but they kinda sound like if Chromeo were very old and classy and serious. Definitely the best snare hit of 2007. Smack!

5) Vastkustska Ryggdunkarsallskapet –Town Out of Order -- No. 1
Only 500 copies of this record exist; the band/re-editor is supposedly Swedish but maybe it’s just Aphex Twin screwing with us again or something. Imagine the guitars from Daft Punk’s “Robot Rock” put on top of some old synthy-stompy disco-boogie song about how great Stockholm is.

Once you get to be Air or Daft Punk or They Might Be Giants, you probably wake up in your bunk-beds every morning and decide which revered music group you’re totally going to pwn today. I think Air was trying to do that with krautrock gods Neu! on this one, but I’m unsure if they really succeeded. Still, “Mer du Japon” definitely taps into that awesome “Moon Safari”-I’m-traveling-into-space-on-Falcor-from-Neverending-Story-and-I-will-never-return-ever-again, Dad-vibe.

3) Br’er – I’m a Kid Again –Of Shemales and Kissaboos
Full disclosure on Br’er: Their name is an obscure reference to an obscure reference from the comic book /MTV cartoon “The Maxx.” A lot of their stuff sounds like if Joanna Newsom covered Liars (but this song doesn’t really). They are signed to the same Austrian label (Beat is Murder) as the lead guy from XiuXiu. The crazed Phil Spector maestro behind it all is a good childhood friend, but this song is still objectively amazing. Pitckformedia.com writes, “ ‘I’m a Kid Again’ is a post-Emo NSFW feedback lullaby performed underwater by The Zombies in 2039: 8.7.”

2) MIA – Boyz -- Kala
Blah blah “Paper Planes” but do any of the tracks on “Kala” really even approach the euphoric heights reached by “Boyz”? I paid $20 to import the promo 12” from England and then no one knew how to dance to it. My mom and I both really like the music video.

1) Prinzhorn Dance School – You are the Space Invader – Prinzhorn Dance School
Prinzhorn make super-sparse Wire-esque songs with names like “Hamworthy Sports Leisure Center” and “Crackerjack Docker” that all sound the same and all are great. Nothing like anything DFA (or anyone else?) is putting out right now, but this simple stupid song is the label’s best since “House of Jealous Lovers” (sorry Hot Chip). Essentially, it’s the bassline from “Heard it through the Grapevine” with some awful British guy yelling about beeswax on top. Saw them in France this summer; they went on at two in the morning after popular faves New Young Pony Club and Simian Mobile Disco and no one knew what to do. You don’t really dance to it so much as look angry and fall in love with the bassist. They can’t get visas so you will never see them ever.

"i know i'm alone in this, but when they told me there was a college radio
station, i was confused and thought there was a college radio station."

-my new favorite haverford freshman

From: smkaplan@hxsdfx.ddd
Subject: Re: hey i respect your music tastes and
Date: November 19, 2007 11:06:39 PM EST

me, conall, and goda are going to do top ten songs that only one of us likes

a.k.a. we each pick three songs that the other two don't like

and then we pick one we all like

I CAN'T FIND SAM'S PART:

it has got to be around here somewhere...

CONALL'S PART:

The-Dream, "Shawty is a 10"

Sam likes this song now, but only after months of me proclaiming it as the greatest song of the millennium. I'm writing my thesis about it.

Britney Spears, "Gimme More"

All the bullshit reasons people have for not liking this song are based in the most ludicrous, outmoded notions of "authenticity," notions that this song does a superb job of destabilizing. It opens with the fantasy of a known, stable identity ("It's Britney, bitch") and spends its four minutes gloriously annihilating that identity, exposing it for the modernist fantasy that it is.

Radiohead, "All I Need"

Goda doesn't care about Radiohead, and Sam hates the new album for semi-legitimate reasons. This song is good though.

GODA'S PART:

"Declare Independence" Bjork

Sam and Conall hate strong women.

"Smells like Teen Spirit" Patti Smith

They don't hate this song though. In fact, Sam said, "Oh, this is great! I
can finally understand the words!" The things I like are just too
likable... But I feel like I like it more than they do.

"No Pussy Blues" Grinderman

Conall's mom recently saw Nick Cave at the dry cleaners and he still
doesn't like this song!

THE SONG THEY ALL LIKE:

Thieves Like Us - "Drugs In My Body"

BY DAGEM GABRIEL

1) Drought 3

2) The Drought is over 4

3) The Carter III sessions

4) New Orleans nightmare part 4

5) The W.Carter Collection 2

6) Lil Weezy Ana

7) King Smij & DJ Lo Present Lil Wayne - The Rapper Eater

8) Carter meets the Cartel

9) Waynes World pt 4

10) The Carter 3 mixtape