mixtape maestro (2.0)

It’s obvious that what Ne-Yo was attempting on new single “Beautiful Monster” was a sort-of “to the next level” take on “Closer”, his 2008 dip into Euro-house-meets-R&B sonic templates and obsessions with mysteriously sexy/ spooky seductresses, but wheras “Closer” can come on the radio today and immediately get us all pumped and excited for the near-four minutes of clubby euphoria about to envelop our ears, “Monster” just makes us angry every time we happen to catch it.

Why? Well, for starters, it’s just not all that catchy, with verses that just seem to meander on and on forever, lacking the specific lyrical finesse and melodic hookiness Ne-Yo usually employs so well. Then when the beat FINALLY drops on the chorus we’ve waited eons for, we’re subjected to anti-climactic, and quite awkward, repeatings of this woman being a “beautiful monster” (with nary a wink to GaGa, no less).

All that being said, there is a certain attraction in the hook’s driving dance thump and Ne-Yo’s cycling whines of “I don’t mind/ I don’t-I don’t mind” (which remind us of the similar repetitive aural pleasantness of his #1 mentor Michael Jackson on those otherworldly rounds of “eh-eh-eh-eh” at the tail-end of The Jacksons’ “Show You The Way To Go”), as well as the accompanying video’s Inception-meets-Mortal Kombat visuals, but a few seconds of goodness and a slick, big budget music video does not a great song make.

On the other hand, we can’t get enough of “Champagne Life”, the other single Ne-Yo has chosen to lead off his next album Libra Scale.

Another one of those Ne-Yo tunes seemingly tailor-made for the MJ album he sadly never got to helm (sigh), “Life”‘s ultra-smoove, solo-Pharrell-esque R&B flutterings fit his high-pitched tenor and the lyric’s cheery detailing of “good-life living” (“We don’t even clap the same when we living that champagne life”) like a glove.

Check out the videos for both, as well as a Rick Ross-laced remix of “Champagne” below.

Libra Scale drops September 21st.

DL: Ne-Yo featuring Rick Ross “Champagne Life (Remix)” (alt)

When you have Pitbull and LMFAO sharing a track, with DJ “I’m The Shit” Class providing the relentless hip-house production work, it’s basically a given that while very little depth is about to be achieved, the late-teens/ early-twenty-something crew will eat it up with no hesitation.

Grown folks, prepare yourselves: you’re going to be hearing “Hold on/ It’s won’t take long/ Let me put this rubber on” and “Five kids, she must love to fuck/ And like a squirrel, I’m-a save her a nut” chanted non-stop by the kiddies for probably the rest of the year.

DL: “Rubber On” (alt)

Just like the rest of us, Estelle has probably grown tired of waiting around for Missy Elliott to emerge from whatever studio she’s been secluding herself in to bless us with a new crazy club banger. Here’s the difference between us and her, though: whereas we would have simply…well, just kept waiting for “Misdemeanor” to re-emerge with some heat, Estelle has gone one better and decided to simply unleash a Missy-esque track herself…and boy are we happy she did.

Rocking an immediately grabbing hook chant (“I can be a freak-every day of every week”) and a taut, B-more-styled fashion house strut (helmed by the increasingly everywhere David Guetta) that’s damn near impossible to sit still to, Estelle’s new single “Freak” finds the singer/ rapper boldly expressing her S&M-loving side while pushing the rest of the female population to embrace their inner-naughtiness as well.

“Don’t be scared, don’t be shy/ Yes, you gotta let it breathe,” she preaches, assuring the ladies that “he wanna see you handcuffed up/ he wanna see your leather gear” and using an interpolation of Soul II Soul’s deathless “Back To Life (However Do You Want Me)” to stress her bedroom-spicing ideas further. Repping for all men everywhere, featured guest Kardinal Offishall can only respond with a major case of the byoing-yoing-yoings (“I pitch a tent with an XL Magnum on the cover!!”).

Missy, we DEMAND you make an appearance on the inevitable remix…

Purchase the track through Estelle’s website. Expect Estelle’s third album, All of Me, later this year.

Freak BMF
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Last May, we took notice of New York duo Telephoned and their awesome “postmodern takes” on rap hits from Soulja Boy and T-Pain, and drooled over their promise that more of these reinterpretations were to come.

Well, quite some time later, Maggie Horn and Sammy Bananas have finally fulfilled on that promise with this newest entry, a semi-cover of The-Dream’s woozy club jam “Rockin’ That Thang” that finds Horn cooing bite-sized lyrical snippets of the original atop a blissed out disco-house club soundbed.

Good stuff, even if we’re a lil’ bit disappointed Maggie couldn’t have blessed us with at least one go at the track’s “We beat it up like gorillas” line.

Telephoned’s self-titled debut EP arrives January 19th on Fool’s Gold.

DL: “Rockin’ That Thang (The-Dream Cover)” (alt)

Not to beat a dead horse, but it’s still so amazingly dumbfounding how Nina Sky continually release such great material with none of it ever able to bubble into commercial success. This past year alone they’re unleashed at least two well-acclaimed tracks (“On Some Bullshit” and their heavily remixed Major Lazer/ Ricky Blaze collabo “Keep It Goin’ Louder”) that are deserving of topping some pop single chart somewhere in the galaxy instead of just being the blog-crit/ club sect sensations they are.

Really, what do these girls have to do to score another over-ground hit? Could nicking an old hook from the Hall & Oates’ platinum-lined catalog be the answer? Probably not, but if it’s any consolation, “Here He Comes”, the “Maneater”-biting third single from B-more club hero Tittsworth‘s 12 Steps, has quickly risen up the rankings of our own personal Hot 100.

Tailor-made for a club-set scene in a CW tween soap, with Tittsworth’s light R&B-house thump carrying a distant bump as if to illustrate it’s source being outside the central camera shot, “Here He Comes” hones in on the inner-thoughts of Nicole and Natalie Albino, who are quietly going nuts as their crush casually brushes past them. “Tense up my body/ Can’t talk about it/ These feelings got me, got me…”, their forlorn harmonies trail off, the breathtaking appeal of their favorite boy so overwhelming, they’re rendered speechless.

The track carries such an alluring overall mood, that the fact that it breaks no new ground for the twins stylistically (these girls have managed to successfully marry every single human emotion possible to a “in the club” setting over the years), or that fellow featured guest Pitbull somewhat mars things with his needless misogyny (“I spread legs like a gynecologist”), don’t even begin to matter…all of which only makes it a bigger shame that “Here He Comes” likely won’t ever reach the massive audience it deserves.

You can sample the original below (in addition to a bonus Tittsworth remix of a beloved ’90′s R&B classic), but don’t forget to also cop the complete single EP, featuring remixes from AC Slater, Nadastrom, Stretch Armstrong & Jaimie Fanatic and Rico Tubbs & Will Power.

DL: “Here He Comes” (alt)

Bonus DL: “Poison (Tittsworth Remix)” (alt)

Whether or not the fact that Duck Sauce is a team-up between A-Trak and Armand Van Helden means anything to you (and really, it should!!), all that one really needs to absorb is how ace the side-project’s first single “aNYway” is.

Essentially nothing more than a sampled chunk of the 1979 Final Edition gem “I Can Do It (Anyway You Want)” that’s been beefed up into an irresistible disco house stomper, the makings of “aNYway” may not be all that complex, but damn if it’s simple looping of a gleeful Studio 54 swing and handful of exclamatory soul lines doesn’t make any dark cloud currently hovering over your life instantly dissipate once you’re completely swarmed by it’s euphoric, Studio 54-centered hold.

Alongside it’s entertaining clip of an Afro-ed, Jackson 5-like entity lighting up a ’70′s variety show stage with their infectious boogie, “aNYway” re-strengthens one longing for not only “Soul Train”‘s return to the airwaves, but a brand new edition completely soundtracked with stuff like this rather than the comparably weak definition of what’s considered “rhythmic music” these days.

Check out the video, followed by an MP3 of the sample source, below.

Look for Duck Sauce’s debut EP, Greatest Hits, via Fool’s Gold sometime later this year.

DL: “I Can Do It (Anyway You Want)” (alt)

A melancholy folk ballad about a romance’s failing underlined with a pounding dancefloor throb and squelchy electro accents? That’s hardly a brow-raiser in the “anything goes” music days of 2009, but that doesn’t stop Basement Jaxx and featured guest Lightspeed Champion‘s Scars collaboration “My Turn” from oozing delightful quirk at every corner.

Opening with a few seconds of wistfully lain acoustic guitar before being rocked to life with a gigantic-sized club pounce, “My Turn”‘s first-days-of-spring joviality would sound perfect backing one’s giddiment to a new romance’s beginnings, but somewhat oddly, it’s instead used to prop up Champion’s woeful narrative about a relationship that, despite his best efforts, seems unable to be saved.

“Broken down forever now/ We are losing what we found/ My heart is left alone in pieces,” he mews amidst the track’s shimmery electro tinkerings and ecstactic thump, an effective juxtoposition that presents him as the lone sad sap in a musical frame that signifies the rest of the world tauntingly celebrating the highs of being in love around him.

Scars arrives September 22nd.

DL: “My Turn” (alt)

While most of the blog-crit-hype that rewarded Basement Jaxx‘ comeback-of-sorts “Raindrops” was justifiable-it definitely ranked near the top of the list of the past season’s most summer-tastic entries-it still felt a little too reined-in, serving as an only quasi-reminder of the bursting-at-the-seams dance euphoria the duo reigned with on their first two masterpiece albums. Not to mention the lingering feeling that it would be mostly forgotten about by winter time.

Follow-up single “Feeling’s Gone” feels just as temporarily likable, but at least it serves the bonus treat of being the second greatest thing Sam Sparro’s Prince-spiked divo voice has ever been aligned with (for the hopeslessly confused, “Black & Gold” would chart first, of course).

One of the more straight-forward dance-pop entries to emerge from Basement Jaxx’ “mad scientist” lab, “Gone”‘s dense modern disco frame carries a few moments of pizazz (the single-finger keyboard plinks, the 4/4 hand claps), but it’s main selling point lands firmly on Sparro’s electric performance, which starts off all soulful assuredness before evolving into bursts of back-of-the-throat tingling shriek histrionics.

Can’t wait to hear what remixes come of this.

Bassment Jaxx’ Scars arrives September 22nd (Pre-order here).

Following up his surprisingly effective flashback to arena-sized ’90′s rave “I’m Not Alone”, Calvin Harris unleashes yet another irresistable foot-mover with “Ready For The Weekend”, a feel-good dance-pop entry focused on the anticipated thrills of a post-work week break.

“So if you’re waiting, jump out your skin/ To find a cure for whatever state your in”, advises the robo-nerd voiced-Harris as prancey keyboard hits surround him with their giddy, child-like tone. But all of his thinnish singing efforts bear little importance once UK singer Mary Pearce enters the picture for the chorus, bringing to light this euphoric high of big diva wailings and contagious house delirium as she prepares herself for the good times around the corner.

Catch the babe-heavy video below, then proceed to set your Friday afternoon off right by snatching up the High Contrast Remix afterward.

Harris’ much-anticipated sophomore release, Ready For The Weekend, arrives August 17th.

DL: “Ready For The Weekend (High Contrast Remix)” (alt)

A trippy, world-pop excursion through tantalizing Afro-beat and house influences, “Tonight’s Today”, the new single from London singer-songwriter Jack Peñate, makes a helluva leap away from the sprightly, guitar-pop that defined his 2007 debut, Matinée, in turn launching all kinds of excitement for what other strange cookings he and producer Paul Epworth (Bloc Party, Sam Sparro, Kate Nash) have planned for his upcoming sophomore set.

It’s dense, yet loose-flowing, groove mastering an exotic beauty, “Tonight’s Today” is one of those records you can easily get lost in, inspiring a need to place it on loop just so you can try to figure out in what loony mind one must have been in to ever think of pasting it’s oddly attractive elements together.

Helpfully, Peñate gathers some meaning out of the mesmerizing arrangement’s mystery, using it as an effective illustration to a man’s post-party, zombie-like traipse through the streets as the night sky slowly gives way to daybreak. “The thought has just started dawning/
That there’s still so much more that I can do,” he explains, either unaware or without care of how much his dead-eyed demeanor is freaking out passersby.

Forewarning: After one spin, you probably won’t be able to get this creepy tune out of your head.

Jack Peñate – Tonight's Today