All Right.

Chromeo, "Needy Girl" (Paper Faces remix) - It's borderline retarded how similar 2005 is to 2004 in some respects - both years, after all, (1) started off with hott LCD Soundsystem action, (2) saw a hotly-tipped British bleeding-edge pop outfit get the kids dancing through the spring, (3) featured an art-rock collective rise up from the hoary frost of Canadia to knock everyone's critical faculties silly in the early fall, and (4) waited until November for Stuart "Jacques Lu Cont/Thin White Duke/Les Rythmes Digitales/Zoot Woman/and yes, Paper Faces" Price to yawn, shake his nap off, and remind the world that the list of people making absolutely perfect electrodance music right now is precisely one person long. The key word there, I hasten to add, is "dance"; as much as I may agree with Tim Finney regarding the man's contributions to the blurring of the boundary between "pop" and "dance", I can't shake free of the fact that most of his best remixes rely on stripping a song's substance down to the point where only the lyrics that sound good make it through to the final mix, but lord almighty can you ever dance to it - anyone who says differently must not have seen a roomful of people come unglued to the Thin White Duke remix of "Mr. Brightside". It's important to note that this remix isn't one of his stately poppy cave-in-your-chest mixes like he crafts for Britney or Starsailor; rather, it's one of those crazy liquid-y ones where he's playing around with pitch-shifting and where it winds up to the peak instead of breaks down. What sets this one apart, however, are the lyrics, which are (1) about as stupid as your average Tom Tom Club lyrics, (2) good for exactly the same reasons that make Tom Tom Club songs so much fun, and (3) a billion times better than the obviously-only-for-clubs lyrics that usually show up in his pitch-shifting excursions (cf. the Fischerspooner and "Ride The Pain" remixes). It is, flat-out, a motherfucking banger, and my only complaint about it is that I haven't had it in my hands since May - get on the ball, Disco Stu! Do you have any idea how close I was to buying a DJ Hell record, forchrissakes? (Click here to buy the "Needy Girl" single from Puregroove.co.uk)

Eve Massacre, "In Fact You're Just A Love Fool" - And then there's the little matter of my favorite mashup of the year, this dextrous recombination of the Cardigans' still-perfect "Lovefool" with...some...German...maybe...band...thing. Yeah. Of course, bootlegs are more than just mashing up two songs you already know; they're about recontextualizing music, and this certainly is a fine example of that - after hearing how well the Cardigans' song works with a punkfunk bassline and one motherfucker of a cowbell, I half-want to hear the Rapture or Who Made Who start to cover it at their shows. I also have to say that I do appreciate the approach; I yield to no one in my lurve of mashups, but it's been a minute since they've introduced me to anything new, and I will admit to being enough of a corny mashup fuq to be nostalgic for the days when I was ignorant enough to learn about things like 10cc and the Stooges at the hands of the Dewaeles. (Click here to visit the Eve Massacre site for more mashups and original songs)