New Basement Jaxx is always sometime to get excited about. Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe are back with with their fifth full-length album, Scars, due sometime this summer. It's probably the record I'm most looking forward to over the next few months. "Raindrops," the album's first single, is really good:

There's a lot going on, but all the individual parts work together toward a unified goal, rather than duke it out amongst each other. The song still feels huge, just not the kind of huge that's bursting at the seams, but the kind that emerges when a great melody's given proper room to breathe, something Basement Jaxx, when they're on their game, do better than anyone else. Sure, the lyrics are essentially a vehicle for the Buxton's deliciously dramatic man-diva vocals and that massive chorus, but that's the entire point. "Raindrops" hits in four minutes the sort of emotional sweetspot that most dance acts require (at minimum) eight to find, and that's always been the Jaxx's greatest strength.
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This is unacceptable, Marshall. We will not tolerate this any longer.

At the beginning of "We Made You," Eminem asks "Can he come back as nasty as he can?" The only thing nasty about this is the fact this 37-year-old is still making fart noises on record. "Damn girl, I'm beginning to sprout an alfalfa" is the type of wordplay that my 15-year-old brother stopped finding funny three years ago. Dr. Dre's production lurches instead of bounces, with his signifiers (clunky pianos, farty horns) doing nothing but serving as evidence that Dre's best days just might be behind him; Marshall Mathers' certainly are.
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I like Dizzee Rascal a lot. I even usually like his attempts at crossover tracks ("Stand Up Tall," his collaboration with Basement Jaxx "Lucky Star," more recent cuts like "Flex" and "Da' Feelin'"). "Bonkers," though, is simply not very good. "Wearing My Rolex" this is not. Here's what I had to say about "Bonkers" over at the Jukebox:

Dizzee Rascal is one of those rappers who is a joy to listen to no matter what. The way his consonants smack you across the face; how he does that very British thing of stretching his vowels in such a way that makes you believe all meaning is contained within them; the fact his pinball flow and voice reminds you simultaneously of your friend's kid brother (PAY! ATTENTION! TO! ME!) and your high-strung friend who thinks the Illuminati killed his goldfish and got him fired from his job at the Gap. Unfortunately, Dizzee's delivery does all the work here, as he doesn't even bother to drop more than eight bars, all of which are easy to sing along with, seeing are they're nothing but uninspired clichés (example: "All I care about is sex and violence/ A heavy bassline is my kind of silence"). The thing is, Armand Van Helden's bassline is but a whisp amongst synths that sound like a bad approximation of Daft Punk by way of Digitalism; it's the kind of thing that even Tiësto would be embarrassed of. At 1:49 the clouds open up and glimmers of something really great—playful, and dare I say almost soulful—shine through for a few brief seconds, until all hope is snatched from us and the shitty dance track that is "Bonkers" resumes. This is not a good look for either dudes.
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bonus

Didn't get this one in one time over at resurrected Jukebox so I figured I'd throw it up here. It's for the Bat for Lashes track "Daniel." Spoiler: I kind of like it.

I'm not sure whether I should leave Natasha Khan the fuck alone or make tender love to her in the rain. "Daniel" sits somewhere between the dancefloor and the graveyard, the kind of monochromatic fireball that simmers rather than blinds. Eerie, spongy synths sound like they were pulled from another dimension, decorating the track with a morbidity that's intoxicating. Everything sounds like it was recorded at an arm's length through a dense fog, Khan's striking voice filling the empty spaces of the track with a sense of longing that its humid momentum amplifies. "Daniel" isn't melodramatic; it's epic.
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juke like datsyuk

When Stylus was still around, the Singles Jukebox was one of my favourite aspects of the website. A round-table where singles were reviewed, the variety of perspectives on each song discussed gave the Jukebox a communal feel that other publications which reviewed singles lacked. Think of it as a proto-blog or post-messageboard. I never got to write for Stylus, but the Jukebox has been resurrected and I've hopped on board, which is a huge treat for me as both a writer and fan of these guys. My first Jukebox contribution is a review of the Franz Ferdinand track "No You Girls," the second single from their junior effort, Tonight. I don't care how much Franz Ferdinand-by-numbers it is, no one does effortless dancefloor burners like Kapranos and boys.

Alex Kapranos translates one of Lil Wayne's recent go-to lyrical techniques to rock on "No You Girls": Instead of purposefully mispronouncing words so he can correct himself in the next line, he retracts entire phrases. Love you? Pfft. He'd love to get to know you. Sometimes he says the stupid things that he thinks? Er, he thinks the stupidest things. When Kapranos comes full circle, admitting that he and his sex are (at least) equally to blame for the mixed signals, misinterpretations and dick moves, the song shifts from sexist to clever in one of those a-ha! moments that feels gloriously triumphant. And somehow the band manages to stuff all their previous hits into a blender and end up with something that avoids sounding like any of them. I mean, too much like any of them.
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