Day three of my 2006 faves rundown…

“Kick, Push” | Lupe Fiasco | Food & Liquor | Atlantic | 9/19/06 | 4:13 | buy disc/mp3s
Yes, this is the token hip hop inclusion. To review: yr humble editor is an old fart when it comes to the boom bap. Sorry, Mom. Sorry, G-d.

And I’m less concerned with “Kick, Push” as a document of the skater boi life than I am with its larger subjects: otherness, coming of age and those beautifully tentative moments of new love.

If I’m wrong on this please leave examples in the comment section, but it’s kind of a minor miracle to find a rapper talking about love in a way that’s neither sappy nor pornographic, and even, y’know, seems to recognize that a chica might be on equal footing with a dude, a person rather than the embodiment of one side or the other of the chickenhead/golddigger dialectic.

In other words, in a way that’s real.

With the not-so-controversial generalizations out of the way, let me sing the praises of the effortlessness of “Kick, Push.” It’s in no way tossed off or half-ass, but still cruises (yeah) along on a catchy horn hook and a breakbeat that feels straight outta my beloved Golden Age.

What’s more, Lupe F. doesn’t sound like he’s pushing any agenda other than repping for a life that means something to him. He’s certainly not frontin’ like he’s hard or overdoing it with wordplay, etc., etc. He’s just flowin’.

And that, my friend, is the definition of cool around these parts.

“There Goes My Outfit” (Acoustic) | The Dears | Gang of Losers | Arts & Crafts | 10/3/06 | 3:57 | buy disc/mp3s
This burner by Canada’s top Britpop band turned out to be my heartbreak beat of the year. It nailed me on listen one, and hasn’t really let go. I prefer the acoustic take that’s a “bonus” to U.S. listeners ahead of the full-band version on the proper record. (Really, what did you expect from me?)

I can’t say I’m clear on what exactly Murray Lightburn, the main Dear, is getting at line-by-line, but the feelings coalesce in the grainy widescreen. It’s in the words, in the forlorn riff that opens each verse, in the forcefulness of his vocal delivery. We’re talking breakup, betrayal and new lows by the second.

“Outfit” is more than a weeper though. There’s a push-pull between woe (”clearly this isn’t my life”) and a palpable, almost nasty defiance (”just admit/I’ve got you by the lapels”–a great line).

But weeper wins in the end, and this was the ace for tears in beers in this dying year.

“The Moon” | Cat Power | The Greatest | Matador | 1/24/06 & 9/12/06 | 3:45 | buy disc/mp3s
Chan Marshall, she who is Cat Power, made a record so good Matador had to release it twice this year!

(OK, in short, it was a revolutionary kind of damage control after a drink/drug/depression breakdown scrapped the initial tour to promote The Greatest. Once Marshall cleaned up–for a tour that wowed even naysayers–the label’s all, “Wait folks! It’s a new release again!”)

The parenthetical is extremely germane to my reaction to the record, to this song. Even though Marshall was probably in a rough place when it was written and recorded, it evokes for me her turnaround, something that really gives me hope. (I hope the newfound health and happiness stays with her.)

But, hey, the music stands up on its own. Backed by Al Green’s supporting players, Marshall pumped out a parcel of songs that pack rhythm and blues, coming on cool like summer music, but aching like autumn. “The Moon”–an appreciation of the satellite’s permanence and indifference overlooking man’s hustle, bustle and demise–stuck with me the hardest, but the whole disc simply kicks ass.

The Mountain Goats “You’re So Vain”
Cat Power “Satisfaction”

John Darnielle. Chan Marshall. Both indie singer-songwriter types. Both single individuals who record under a band name. Both have band names with animals in them. Both recorded gender-flipped covers of hits from a bygone era. Both skipped singing the choruses on said covers.

Coincidence? I think n–well, OK, it was probably a coincidence.

Gender-switching on covers is subversive by nature, even if the extent of that subversion’s sorta been dulled at this late date by repetition.

At any rate, “You’re So Vain,” a Carly Simon tune recorded by the Mountain Goats for the ultimately unreleased but recently leaked 2000 effort Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg, is an unmistakable kiss-off. But it betrays a distinctly “feminine” vulnerability, at least according to the constructs of the time. The object of scorn is masterful, self-possessed, jet-setting, using and disposing at will… basically the kind of shit dudes got away with from time immemorial, but that would mark a chica with scandal, etc.

I take it that part of the point here, other than the joy of playing a great song, is the way a lover can become a star in your eyes, no matter who you are, and the sting of betrayal sometimes blowing things up beyond their reasonable bounds.

So the flip-side of the coin, Cat Power’s narcoticized take on the Stones’ classic, from her appropriately titled Covers Record of 2000, shoots for ultra-minimal, excising all but the entitlement and bravado that was the cornerstone of Mick’s persona. (He was, after all, a lover of Carly’s, did sang backup on the original “You’re So Vain” and was a suspect for being the song’s subject, although she’s said it ain’t him.)

Slowed-down, and with “can’t you see/I’m on a losing streak” given extra weight, “Satisfaction” becomes both an exposé of the hollowness behind that pose of “masculine” cool and an expression of the human need and yearning it seeks to hide.

Interrogating a motive behind Marshall’s chorusectomy seems a little easier–it went out the window with the song’s titanic riff, part of cooling down the tune’s macho. “You’re So Vain” without the chorus removes the sort of brainfucking irony (or illogic) that was, at least to me as a child, part of the song’s hook. “You’re so vain/you probably think this song is about you,” OK, right, but if it is then… but… if he thinks… uh, OK.

Or maybe they’re both a way of saying, “Y’all know this part.”

Sweden (another 2000 MG record) at ArtistDirect.
CP’s Covers Record at Target.