Thought I’d do my Friday Random Ten this week at feministe’s guest lodging, rather than my own digs, farkleberries. Here goes:
- Out Hud – Dad, There’s a Little Thing Called Too Much Information (A cracking good song for nighttime “L” rides)
- Haunted House – Cowboy Light (A strange but darned catchy song. Horribly overmodulated by intention, with near-nonsense lyrics and a backing track that sounds like Phil Spector and Jeff Lynne fighting about who plugged the recording console into the 220V line by mistake. Meanwhile, Liberace’s ghost smiles beneficently over the fracas.) Sample lyrics:
I can see your swimming pool, but I won´t fall in
And I can see the firemen sleeping in the trees
This room has burning disco walls and I can’t find the dance floor
I need to smoke my scoobies out so help me find some wood
Tomorrow night is cowboy night, so let’s go steal a horse
This stallion is drowning in a world of cowboy light
- 50 Cent feat. G-Unit – Hate It or Love It (Hate the lyrics, love the music. I have a complicated relationship with rap.)
- Morcheeba – Everybody Loves a Loser
- O-Zone – Dragostea Din Tei (The world’s best selling Moldovan-Romanian hit song!)
- Otep – My Confession (Poetic, apocalyptic metal band fronted by a lesbian vocalist. That is not a typo.)
- Michelle Shocked – Anchorage (Oh, memories of my college radio days!)
- Joan Jett – The French Song (One of my most-listened-to songs, ever. Kick-ass and unabashedly sexual, I’ve been dying to cook up a remix/mashup of this track for years. By the way, Western Washington University professor Kathleen Kennedy wrote a fascinating scholarly article called “Results of a Misspent Youth: Joan Jett’s performance of female masculinity” that analyzes how the artist’s “various performances of female masculinity challenged conventional understandings of masculinity and femininity [and] enabled her to carve a space for herself in a male-dominated genre.” Very cool stuff.)
- Atomizer – Hooked on Radiation (Bad Boy Remix) (Not just for the boys, this big fat earworm-y circuit party groove with anthemic Gary Glitter-ish lyrics clamps itself firmly to your dancing bone. Has some strange connection to KLF raconteur Jimmy Cauty, the genderbending London club Nag Nag Nag, and “DJ Jonny Slut.” That explains it all.)
- Sarah Vaughan – Fever (Adam Vreeland remix) (From the delightful new compilation Verve Remixed 3)