mixtape maestro (2.0)

Australian chanteuse Sia has attached herself to so many different musical styles over the years (whether it’s the jazzy diva stylings of 2002′s quirky Healing Is Difficult or her many Zero 7 collaborations; the seducing, adult-pop melodrama of her Six Feet Under-featured breakout “Breathe Me”; or the more straight-forward, blue-eyed soul tinges found on her solid 2008 triumph Some People Have Real Problems) that if one was to try to absorb her entire back catalogue all at once, they might find it impossible to grasp that it all emerged from one artist.

New single “You’ve Changed” once again finds the singer shattering expectations and taking on an entirely different sonic realm: this time, mainstream-glossed disco-pop. And while it’s definitely an initially jarring new route for Sia to conquer (and will likely garner it’s share of “sell-out” balks), it’s also one she aces spectacularly, her pipes gelling perfectly with the track’s funky Studio 54 jubilance, while commanding your attention from gleeful note one as she soulfully celebrates the way her love has transformed a man who was, up-to-this point, widely known for his heartbreaking ways.

You’ve changed Sia, and moreso than your previous about-face reincarnations, this Robin S./ CeCe Peniston-reminiscent makeover absolutely feels for the better.

Sia’s fourth album, We Are Born, is scheduled for an April 2010 drop.

DL: “You’ve Changed” (alt)

Seeing as though Mario’s “Break Up” spent much of the late-Summer-through-early-Winter kicking ass on urban music airwaves (coinciding with the entire length of time it took for us to finally accept it’s oddly-mashed elements as a “bonafide jam”), it’s not all that surprising that 3/4 of the single’s components (rapper Gucci Mane, singer-songwriter Sean Garrett, producer Bangladesh) would aim to recreate that chart-busting magic with the hopes of becoming hip hop/ R&B’s newest Midas Touch team.

If they continue pumping out infectious bangers like “Up In Your Heart”, a new track bearing the collaborative artistic print of the trio (from Garrett’s forthcoming second attempt at breaking out as a solo artist), such aspirations might soon become a reality.

With Bangladesh constructing another initially disorienting but ultimately addicting backing track bubbling with percussion-heavy delirium, Garrett slides through with a catchy chant of a hook: “Girl I won’t play with your head/ I wanna get up in your heart”. Which sounds sweet enough until we soon learn through his rap-sung first verse that by getting in your heart, Sean means getting so far up in you, he damn near reaches your heart: “You wonderin’ just why I like to wear a wife-beater/ Why I wear a wife beater?/ Well, uh, I like to beat her…”.

Meanwhile, Gucci coasts through a charismatic verse and a half, his flow playing hopscotch atop Bangladesh’s various drum taps as he flings out goofball one-liners at nearly every turn (“I let her shop until she drop/ And when she drop I get on top”).

A super-group in the making? It’s still too early to tell, but these three cats should keep the club floor crowded for at least another season with this one.

DL: “Up In Your Heart” (alt)

“It sounds like ABBA’s ‘Fernando’”.

“No, I hear Madonna’s ‘La Isla Bonita’”.

Ever since it’s premiere a couple months back, “Alejandro”, Lady Gaga’s The Fame Monster-housed ode to letting go of old Latin lovers, has inspired plenty of giddy “This reminds me of…” chatter amongst her ever-growing fanbase, with many targeting those two aforementioned records.

But for anyone who kept their ears glued to Top 40 radio in the early ’90′s, “Alejandro” read the best as a tribute of sorts to ABBA via the slow, pseudo-reggae lope and weighty, Euro-dance-pop galumph relied on by that other mega-selling Swedish quartet Ace of Base, an idea succinctly proved through this inevitable mash-up of “Alejandro” and Ace of Base’s fifteen-year-old sound-alike “Don’t Turn Around” spliced together by award-winning Vegas DJ/ producer Morningstar.

Not only do both tracks own virtually the same backing track and melodic structure, allowing for near-seamless back-and-forth transitioning, but the concluding relationships depicted in both numbers nicely compliment eachother, the combined requests of “Don’t turn around/ Cause you’re gonna see my heart breaking” and “Don’t call my name/ Don’t call my name, Alejandro” helping add an entire new layer of brilliance to this appreciated novelty.

DL: “Alejandro/ Don’t Turn Around (Morningstar Mash-Up)” (alt)

Omit the distractingly sublime, soft-focused R&B sheen and measured blue-eyed soul vocal that supports Wham!’s 1984 gem “Last Christmas” and it’s a bit easier to grasp the soapy devastation brought forth through George Michael’s pen. As proof of this point, look no further than this stunning live take of the Yuletide classic by Florence + The Machine.

With tender guitar pluckings weaving a somber lullaby melody behind her, Miss Welch sounds like she’s nearing ever close to an emotional breakdown as the memories of the way her cruel ex shattered her heart the previous Winter re-play in her mind over and over again.

Yeah, the familiar lyrics may express the notion that she’s since moved on (“Now I’ve found a real love…”), but the quivering fragility and caterwauling peaks captured in her performance throughout this armhair-spiking rendition tell quite the opposite story.

Grab it below, followed by a peeping of the hilarious “Literal Version” of the original music video.

(shouts/shouts)

DL: “Last Christmas (Wham! Cover)” (alt)

One of London alt-synth-pop quintet Hot Chip‘s main selling points has always been there off-kilter way of balancing geeky, urban-posturing with a sweet-toned bedroom-pop melancholia: check the R. Kelly/ WWE-inspired “Wrestlers” or their cover of Snoop Dogg’s “Sensual Seduction” or songs like Coming On Strong‘s kazoo-highlighted “Keep Falling” or The Warning‘s title track, which amusingly boast lines like “Give up all you suckers we the tightest muthafuckas/ And you never seen this type of shit before now” and “Hot Chip will break your legs/ Snap off your head” in the most non-threatening way ever.

That same endearing juxtaposition can be found on future addiction “One Life Stand”, the first single and title track from the Londoners’ forthcoming fourth album.

The cut jerks to life in it’s opening seconds with a thumping crunk-club strut that brings to mind Jacki-O’s 2004 raunch jam “Pussy (Real Good)” while, for a split-second, evoking the awesomely awkward image of these eternal wallflowers “making it rain” at the local strip joint. Lyrically though, Chip avoid any detours into goofy gangsta rapper braggadoccio, keeping things oh-so-smoove (or oh-so-creepy, depending on your P.O.V.) by latching onto a touching plea for eternal monogamy: “I only want to be your one life stand”, warmly croons Alexis Taylor on a hook that suddenly transforms the song into some lost, John Hughes-ian prom ballad.

A great first taste to one of the most anticipated new releases of the 2010 first quarter.

One Life Stand arrives in February. Check their site for current touring info, including the April-set US dates with supporting act The xx

Hot Chip – One Life Stand (MySpace Exclusive)

Hot Chip | MySpace Music Videos

BONUS DL: “Wrestlers (Sticky Dirty Pop Mix)” (alt)

A year after topping the Pop and R&B single charts with “Oh Shelia” (a tune so heavily smothered in The Purple One’s “Minneapolis sound”, that, to this day, many people still mistake it for being an actual Prince ditty), six-piece Flint, Michigan outfit Ready For The World managed to hit the top of the R&B lists a second time with the release of “Love You Down”, a sophomore album slow-groover about freaking up some cougar (“It never really mattered that much to me/ That you were just too damn old for me…”) that likely set the mood for plenty of prom nights in the mid-80′s.

Over twenty years later, it’s hard to deny how cheesy it all sounds now, partly because of it’s cheap-ish production quality, but mostly due to the fact of how laughable frontman Mevin Riley’s lead vocal is. Full of nasally whines, orgasmic moan-hiccups and teeth sucking noises, listening to him now makes one wonder if he could even make it five minutes into the evening without completely exploding all over himself, let alone the “all night” sex-capades he was endlessly promising.

None of that “kids pretending to be grown-up stuff” can be felt on Me’Shell Ndegéocello‘s spell-binding rendition of the song, though.

Found on her latest album Devil’s Halo, Ndegéocello slightly flips the P.O.V. (it’s still directed towards a female, but here, she’s the older woman courting a younger girl), and that mature perspective can be felt all throughout her cover’s every erotic pulse, from the crashing cymbals and throbbing basslines to the languid synth squelches and Me’Shell’s hushed, “only for my lovers’ ears” vocal performance.

Hell, it’s near-two minute instrumental outro of steamy industrial soul/ rock sludge noise alone should inspire some serious boot-knocking.

“Love You Down (Me’Shell Ndegeocello)”:

Swedish blog-pop royalty Robyn has popped her remixing cherry with this “Rakamonie” twist on El Perro Del Mar’s possessing Love Is Not Pop highlight “Change of Heart”, decorating it with her vocals and a low-key electro-pop touch that basically makes it sound like one of her own records.

To our ears, the original, with it’s marvelously-executed, retro-baked allure, is still the better version, but Robyn does a solid enough remixing job on “Heart” to inspire mild anticipation for whatever tinkerings she may provide for other artists’ catalogues in the future.

DL: “Change of Heart (Robyn’s Rakamonie Remix)” (alt)

Despite arguably being Janet Jackson’s most immediately enjoyable single in years, her new greatest hits padder “Make Me”, a breezy dance concoction with nods to classic ’70′s-era MJ and her own early career heyday, has inexplicably failed to generate much of a chart presence so far (no love on the Billboard Hot 100 nor R&B/ Hip Hop singles listings). Sigh.

All is not lost though, as the single has at least gained some ground amongst the club-going sect, recently inching it’s way all the way to #3 on the Hot Dance Club Songs chart.

Below, snatch up one of the new remixes helping lengthen this song’s life as a late-night floor-filler, a teasingly chopped “Edit” from the Ghosts of Venice crew, then re-acquaint yourself with one of JJ’s first chart hits with a “bonus” offering of her equally disco-tastic, pre-Control gem “Young Love”.

“Make Me”:

DL: “Make Me (Ghosts of Venice Edit)” (alt)

“Young Love”:

BONUS DL: “Young Love” (alt)

Minus a praise-worthy hip hop spin on 9-to-5 recession-depression, the timely “(I Hate) My Job”, and, to a lesser extent, his middle verse cameo appearance on Clipse’ “Popular Demand (Popeye’s)”, the anticipated return of one-time East Coast rap kingpin Cam’ron from a mysterious self-imposed hiatus really didn’t become the game-changing/ career-revitalizing 2009 event most assumed it would.

Yeah, Crime Pays, Cam’s latest studio release, may have shown that the rapper was in no danger of losing his stranglehold position as one of the most absurd spitters in the game, but marred by too many goofy couplets that lacked much of his previous spark, on-the-cheap beats, and the very noticeable absence of his former Dipset peeps, the album was just such a far-cry from the critical and commercial heights of 2002′s Come Home With Me or 2004′s Purple Haze, that it mostly left one wondering why Cam didn’t simply just drop it as the stop-gap, mixtape-only set it most felt like, a “inching my way back into the game” collection preceding the release of a real, big-budget and A-list-aligned comeback affair.

Recently leaked “Ooh Baby” only strengthens our frustration with Cam’s current incarnation. From a distant perspective it’s gets everything right, working like a brand new take on his 2002 crossover smash “Oh Boy” by nicely pairing Cam with a younger, hungrier protogee/ soundalike (Harlem emcee Vado) and boasting a fetchingly looped chipmunk-ed soul sample (The Temprees’ 1972 doo-wop-ish ballad “Dedicated To The One I Love”) for the boys to playfully interact with.

But a closer listen reveals how much of a poor imitation it really is: Producer Araab Musik fumbles in smoothly transitioning the sample in between verses; Vado is good, but lacks the eased, humorous swagger of Cam’s old sidekick, Juelz Santana; and Cam sleepwalks his way through two largely lackluster verses.

In terms of repeated listenability, “Ooh Baby” easily ranks as one of the better offerings Cam’ron has given us in a year of mostly meandering, C-rated duds, but it’s hard-to-ignore shortcomings prove that the man still has a ways to go if he’s hoping to make a triumphant return bid to his previous beloved status.

DL: “Ooh Baby” (alt)

With the return of Maxwell in 2009 giving male falsetto-led slow jam R&B it’s rightful throne-holder back, it almost feels unnecessary for Alan Thicke’s son to even be around anymore offering his comparably inferior take on the form.

Still, we’ll give Robin this: his fourth album lead single/ title track “Sex Therapy” slithers and seduces in all the right places, blending yet another retread of the steady-pulsing late-night R&B groove behind Ciara’s “Promise” (producer Polow Da Don helmed both), a brief lyrical nod to Twilight, and a hook inspired by Lesley Gore’s 1963 No. 1 “It’s My Party” (“It’s your body/ We’ll go hard if you want to/ As hard as you want to…”) with far more successful (and less hilarious) results than a merging of the three might seem on paper.

For the inevitable guest rap-laden remix, Thicke even has the smarts to employ Ludacris, who, even as he edges long-in-the-tooth rapper status, still manages to come out with goofy XXX winners like “Got the banana/ Now let me split you” that the tween-aged schoolyard set can no doubt appreciate.

Sex Therapy is in stores now.

DL: “Sex Therapy (Remix)” (alt)