I don't know where you're living, but my normally cool 'hood is on fire right now. Portland, OR gets a 100 degree day every couple summers, but we are in the midst of a record-breaking heatwave that saw 106 yesterday and is set to 107 today. Ridiculous heat, but good fodder for a segue into new Mixtape music this week.
This week on The Mixtape, seven new songs bump off much of the "old guard" that has called the 'Tape home for much of this year. Songs (with weeks on the Mixtape in parentheses) that finally fell off the chart this week include:
Zero / Yeah Yeah Yeahs (22)
Panic Switch / Silversun Pickups (18)
Seaside / Kestrels (23)
Replacing them are a batch of songs that either evoke summer in some form or have a summery reference in their title:
Sun Was High (So Was I) / Best Coast enters at 40 this week in all of its "lo-fi by way of Sixties Girl Group with the melody buried in the mix" glory.
Deadbeat Summer / Neon Indian arrives at 39 in a Casio-blip fury, not really evoking summer, but making the head bob ever so slightly nonetheless.
Atlas Sound's "Walkabout" nods ever-so-slightly to the Mark Ronson aesthethic that has influenced popular music the last couple years as much as that damn swing/jive revival that happened a decade ago. In doing so, Bradford Cox's other band manages to meld 1960s easy breezy pop with modern-day electro-indie flavor courtesy of Animal Collective's Noah Lennox.
The Noisette's second Mixtape appearance ("Scratch Your Name" scratched the 'Tape's surface briefly last year) debut at 34 with a song that sounds like Amy Winehouse and the aforementioned Mark Ronson aesthetic, but with more soul. And in this heat, any song that starts with "Whatcha drinkin', rum or whiskey? Now wontcha have a double with me?" sounds pretty good to me. The fact that the updated Sixties-soul vibe at the heart of "Never Forget You" sounds so lush in its blend of orchestration and fuzzed-out guitars - the canvas on which leadd singer, Shingai Elizabeth Maria Shoniwa, laments over love lost - makes the track even better than its alcohol-tempting first couplet.
Seasun / Delorean has a strong debut at 33, especially for a song first heard by The Mixtape yesterday. The track soaks in it's slow, synthy build - dotted by vocal drops of "aaaaah"for about 2:40 before it morphs in to a contemporary version of Madonna's "Ray of Light." And then, the fun starts.
Finally, Jimmy Fallon's house band debuted "How I Got Over" (27) some weeks back on that late night show, but the real deal dropped this week and it finds The Roots as comfortable in a laid-back groove since
this song became part of the dialog for The Mixtape's 100 favorite songs of all time.
Not to be left out, but certainly not summery unless acid trips at the beach are part of your fun in the sun, The Flaming Lips followup their amazing cover of Madonna's "Borderline" with an all-new song, "Silver Trembling Hands." The track is part of a three-song EP titled
Embryonic Digital and looks to be included on the Lips' new album,
Embryonic, which is due September 29.
As for the rest of the 'Tape: not too much in the way of big moves this week. Arctic Monkeys pretty much took care of that
last week and remain at #1 for a second week. Interestingly though, Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective flip-flop at #s 2 and 3. Those two songs, sharing the top three for the sixth week in a row, are the absolute front runners for Summer Song '09 - Animal Collective's "Summertime Clothes," which revels in walking around on the very sun-scorched pavement and Grizzly Bear's "Two Weeks," a Beach Boys-esque lilting piece of ear candy that will float you high above the heat of the street.
Stay cool wherever you are, regardless of the temperature. See you next Wednesday.
- Cryin' Lightning / Arctic Monkeys (2 weeks @ #1) iTunes MySpace
- Two Weeks / Grizzly Bear iTunes MySpace
- Summertime Clothes / Animal Collective iTunes MySpace
- Stillness Is the Move / Dirty Projectors iTunes MySpace
- Easy / Deer Tick iTunes MySpace
- Life In Marvelous Times / Mos Def iTunes MySpace
- Casa Bey / Mos Def iTunes MySpace
- Bull Black Nova / Wilco iTunes MySpace
- It's Nice to Know You Work Alone / Silversun Pickups iTunes MySpace
- Got Nuffin' / Spoon iTunes MySpace
- You'll Disappear / The Phenomenal Handclap Band iTunes MySpace
- Temecula Sunrise / Dirty Projectors iTunes MySpace
- Catch and Release / Silversun Pickups iTunes MySpace
- 21st Century Breakdown/ Green Day iTunes MySpace
- The End Is Near / The Fiery Furnaces iTunes MySpace
- Radio Kaliningrad / Handsome Furs iTunes MySpace
- Caterpillar Playground / Nurses iTunes MySpace
- Murder City / Green Day iTunes MySpace
- Skeletons / Yeah Yeah Yeahs iTunes MySpace
- Lost Words / Ganglians iTunes MySpace
- Song For No One / Miike Snow iTunes MySpace
- Upside Down / Banjo or Freakout iTunes MySpace
- My Unusual Friend / Fruit Bats iTunes MySpace
- Feel Like Taking You Home / Brendan Benson iTunes MySpace
- You Never Know/ Wilco iTunes MySpace
- I Can't Get Away / Stardeath & White Dwarfs iTunes MySpace
- How I Got Over / The Roots (NEW) iTunes MySpace
- Rain On/ Woods iTunes MySpace
- Death of Auto Tune / Jay-Z iTunes MySpace
- L.A. Guitar Dream / Spanish Prisoners iTunes MySpace
- Beggar's Bowl / Polvo iTunes MySpace
- Chosen Armies / Children Collide iTunes MySpace
- Seasun / Delorean (NEW) iTunes MySpace
- Never Forget You / The Noisettes (NEW) iTunes MySpace
- Walkabout / Atlas Sound (NEW) iTunes MySpace
- Sacred Trickster / Sonic Youth iTunes MySpace
- I Want You to Know/ Dinosaur Jr. iTunes MySpace
- Silver Trembling Hands / The Flaming Lips (NEW) iTunes MySpace
- Deadbeat Summer / Neon Indian (NEW) iTunes MySpace
- Sun Was High (So Was I) / Best Coast (NEW) iTunes MySpace
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