Recently, I wrote a piece attempting to link various poppy, punkish bands like Be Your Own Pet and Times New Viking into some kind of subaltern united front for 2008. After finishing, I realized I had unconsciously slighted a large swathe of underground-ish pop-punk that's already all but been written off by my music hack peers, that I snubbed an entire scene to focus on a few semi-pop faves with a decent press push. I should have known better. Somewhere, 16-year-old Jess was drumming his fingers on a study hall desk in irritation that his grown self had seemingly forgotten these catchy, sweetly sardonic, seven-inch-friendly songs about girls, boys, and the dumb things they routinely do to one another, songs that made high school tolerable for many bespectacled kids left cursing the fates come prom time.

You know, the kind of bands that base their entire aesthetic on a three-album collision involving Rocket To Russia, Singles Going Steady, and The Incredible Shrinking Dickies. The kind that will never get the blogs tripping or win the kind of "Best New Whatever" write-ups that send digital sales spiking because they don't tart up their ancient two-chords and unchangeable walking basslines with snatches of folk, pasted-on electronics, or goofy Animal Collective voices. The sort that used to write cutesy diatribes about Green Day's success fucking up the scene. The kind that could have earned a begrudging, smudgy Maximumrockandroll interview where "Gilman St." would be used as an adjective.

"Do they even still make that stuff?" I hear some of you asking, and if it wasn't my teenage bread and butter, I doubt I'd know either. But as my 30th birthday has come and gone and my critical peers continue to cosign the worst hippie crud (whether neo- or retro-) when they're not venerating Bono in the name of indie stadium bombast, I've found my tolerance for soft rock and prog pomp tested beyond all reason, and I've regressed back to high school punk rock rules in the face of mellow gold madness (both the rock and dance varieties) and various Canadian scourges.

Yet despite my lingering affection for punk at its most doctrinaire, anyone sporting liberty spikes who took a look at my 2007 "Most Played" playlist would probably cry foul. Despite some of the best "punk" bands going using iPods for a rhythm section or piling distorted noise-boy keyboards on top of one another or swiping from Max Martin's fakebook, the genre's hardliners officially remains as intractable as the auto industry when it comes to hybridizing. For those who lost some of their faith when they discovered life beyond the early Lookout! catalog, finding good punk these days still means digging into the genre's weirdo fringe and its digitally-compressed crossover kiddies. After all, it's not as if we've been hurting for catchy punk records, whether made in lofts or Disney-owned studios, records that you have to prefix with either art- or mall-. In some ways, it's a golden age. (In other ways, it's an unmanageable glut, but I'm trying to stay positive.)

And yet, and yet: one of my highlights last year was rediscovering those classicist VFW hall dudes, whether old or new, still spit-shining that same basement show shtick. (For instance, perhaps you knew that Ben Weasel put out a pretty good album last year; I didn't until the calendar had almost flipped. Again, my adolescent self was a little miffed—this stuff sounds much better in top-down June than hoodies-up December.) Early in 2007 a compilation was released, titled (with gentle sarcasm) Pop Punk's Not Dead, a 30-track recent scene overview that acted as my investigatory jump-off.

(Even by Second Spin's after-the-fact-analysis standards this one's been on the racks for a while, but it's my column and I'll do what I want.)

Only some of the names were familiar. (Who knew the Queers could continue to afford Converse and cheese dogs peddling the same surfin' safari kitsch after so many decades?) Whether I knew the bands or not, a lot of it rumbled pleasantly enough—nothing sent me plugging my ears or regretting my trip down memory lane—but with little personalized pizzazz to differentiate yet another trio of head-bopping boys awkwardly kitted-out in another generation's leather jackets and a moniker riffing on the Ramones.

On the one hand, this is precisely why this side of the sub-genre gets glossed by those not in the cult, year after year. Like all willfully formalist pop, theses bands live or die when it comes to winning new fans on the memorability of a cuddly fuzzed guitar tone, la-la quasi-hook, and/or snotty personality elevating one tune above another from the same rack. Further exploration proved that some of these bands really do stand out from their peers, though it's almost always by degrees: Guff have cringeworthy design sense but enjoyably crank up the tempo to springloaded Lifetime-esque hardcore; the Five O's peddle prickly power-pop riffage over melodic bass rumble, plus harmonies that suggest they're not totally opposed to a future on the radio if they invest a little beer money in cleaning up the murky production and godawful snare sound that's plagued these bands since before I could drive; ditto Teenage Bottlerocket, who possess the broadest range on the evidence, from straight CBGB's-circa-'76 jacking to second-stage Warped Tour sing-alongs; the Unknown just have a knack for writing the kind of compressed, fist-pumping chorus that actually makes a minute-long tune stick in the brain; and the prolific, witty Ergs are probably the best next-gen pop-punk act currently touring, certainly the first to (rightly) suggest that getting sauced and listening to The Royal Scam would make for a good date night.

But for many of the bands captured on Pop Punk's Not Dead differentiating themselves feels almost besides the point. (Which makes me feel less guilty over my initial snub.) As with plenty of insular communities built around a throwback sound, the generic-ness promises fans 30 instant hits of a known quantity, while unintentionally alienating those not immediately won over enough to bother judging one group against another when they all sound so frustratingly similar. (Did the Spazzys and the Unlovables stand out 'cuz of tunecraft or because hearing a female voice was such a balm after all those adenoidal-unto-irritating dudes? For the record, the latter definitely passed on their own bouncy merits.) There's also something faintly uncomfortable for a lot of pop critics about music that plants two sneakers in a given era and refuses to "evolve," even subtly; blogtime demands (for the worse) a rate of novelty turnover that this stuff stopped satisfying decades ago.

But to hell with novelty: I'm glad to have reconnected, and I don't think that stems from simple nostalgia, even if I can't really argue for this stuff with a straight face if you don't come to it with a bit of preexisting pubescent affection for the interchangeable second string of the genre's hopeless romantics, their sloppy songwriting and déjà vu riffs. (Pete Shelley and Blake Schwarzenbach don't have to worry about any of these kids knocking them out of the genre's first rank; Hayley Williams and Gerard Way don't either, for that matter.) But though it might not be "alive" enough to satisfy the needs of trendwatchers or Jonas Brothers fans, the zombie genre has provided me enough minute-and-change thrills over the last 18 months to suggest that anyone who harbors fond memories of the pre-Blink/emo era, anyone who ever owned a Mr. T Experience T-shirt but since lost the plot (I know you're out there), would do well to start poking MySpace until a few 21st-century pop-punk gems shake loose.

Parts And Labor - Escapers Two (Ace Fu)
Professional/personal whatever aside, Parts and Labor's Mapmaker got multiple Idolator editors/contributors/hangers-on gushing last year, even if not everyone on staff was down with the album's mix of classic art-pop/punk moves and circuitry made to squeal in service of killer hooks. Though recognizable as the same band from BJ Warshaw and Dan Friel's voices and the splurting fuzz of the sing-song keyboard/bass melodies, Escapers Two is less Mapmaker's follow-up than a five-dozen-and-one-track detour into self-dubbed "grindpop"—sadly some no mark seems to have beaten them to the slightly more shameless "power pop violence"—catchy ditties sometimes no longer than the seconds it takes to bleat a title like "Knee Deep In Compromise" over the pedal-busting beats of metal's speediest sub-genre. So yeah, it's a conceptual hoot, but it's also re-playable in a way the cheeky conceit might not suggest, isolating Mapmaker's most anthemic moments (dig the headbanging/fist-pumping "Lucky Times," for example) and shaving down the bridges and build-ups and breakdowns and other indulgent stuff like that. (Indulgent if you're trying to keep things under a minute, anyway.) The key is that the band doesn't ditch them entirely in their quest for harder-faster-louder LOLz. (P.S. As far as I know this is currently only available at the recently expanded band's merch table with wider release to follow; going to shows to buy records may seem delightfully pre-Web 1.0, but both EP and performance are more than worth venturing out for during the last few weeks of winter hibernation.)

Parts And Labor [Official Site]

Iron Lung - Sexless/No Sex (Prank)
Speaking of blasting concepts, it's hard to call this sick paean to pit bruises "how they did it in the old days," since grindcore/hardcore is all but deathless; there probably hasn't been a single month since Napalm Death's Scum (or maybe a certain Siege record) that some crusty collective hasn't devoted their off-hours to tweaking the sound's platonic 30-second blurt (or at least paying slavish homage to Mick Harris' muscle control). And though I'd be lying if I said that this well-named LP from arch Seattle anti-romantic twosome Iron Lung didn't trigger certain happy memories of '90s evenings spent slapping hams with nasty natty dreads out of the way in church basements—and with a sleeve by Rudimentary Peni's manic-obsessive doodler Nick Blinko, Iron Lung do value hardcore tradition—Sexless/No Sex is 2008 enough to thrill even those of neck-deep in scene history. Still, fans invariably know the various modes of attack: sometimes tunes like "White Flag" cut five or 10 seconds of down-tuned agony with spasms of grimy, hyper bass drum; sometimes, as on "Autojector," they let the fast shit fly in the first half and then downshift into slow and low for a vulgar display of just how loud two dudes can get; sometimes it's all spazz and no sludge.

Iron Lung [MySpace]

Young Dro - I Am Legend (Grand Hustle Mixtape)
The most pleasurable disc here for fans of grooves allowed to bump for more than a minute at less than 180 beats-per, locked-down homebody T.I.'s Scrabble partner Young Dro follows up 2006's great Best Thang Smokin' with this dense mixtape beset by the usual problems (you'll invariably prune a few of the 25 tracks on your own second spin) but worth copping for Dro's much-beloved, unhinged aspirational metaphors and schizo shit-talk, both of which frequently go beyond workaday boasts and beef into the best kind of batshittery. Dro, whose next-level tipsy mumble is winning a one-man war against up-north gripes about enunciation, professes his devotion to dining on the catch of the day every day, exhibits a worrying upholstery fetish, shops for birds at Petsmart, swipes from "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" for a chorus, explains the difference between mousse and moose during a defense of his own grooming habits, and taxes the imaginations of the folks at Pantone and Behr and Maaco as noted in great, approving detail here. (Though the day he drops "muffin mix" to describe his glove compartment is when it's really all over.) And heavy on the earbud-mocking low-end and light on hooks by the miserly one-note keyboard standards of many southern rap mixtapes, I Am Legend will likely pass or fail for first-time listeners on Dro's flow and comic twists on convention alone.

Young Dro [MySpace]

Jesse Rose - Body Language Vol. 3 (Get Physical)
Rose is a versatile Brit-to-Berlin producer/selector faced with more 21st-century dance music scenes than he has time to dip into, as likely to be cracking at populist/blog-friendly dancefloor cut-ups as he is trying out the high-toned vocabulary of classic deep house as swimming around in the spacious oddness covered by all the all-purpose term "minimal." His mix for Get Physical's Body Language series yokes all of his seemingly disparate leanings into a an hour-plus that boils down from clonking, cluttered post-Herbert/speed garage grooves topped with stuttery hip-hop samples to a thick, bass-y reduction of pan-genre underground house. Rose hits a plateau of pure dread at the roughly halfway mark with the thrilling and unnerving (at the right volume) Radio Slave remix of Chelonis R. Jones' "Deer In The Headlights," and then coasts out of the darkness from there, the stanky murk never quite evaporating until the very end.

Jesse Rose [MySpace]
Get Physical [Official Site]

Henrik Schwarz - Live (!K7)
Speaking of Rose, he appears here on the tracklist of native German Henrik Schwarz's misleadingly titled DJ mix, not to be confused with an earlier Schwarz Live from 2005 that contained only his own productions. Unlike the promiscuous Rose, Schwarz is firmly stamped by dance message board types as a deep house producer, but he's grown his fame over the last few years thanks to an ear for the outer limits of his genre, sometimes straying just out of orbit. His earlier DJ Kicks mix opened with Moondog and included curveballs like a percussive vamp from D'Angelo alongside old-school techno, using EQ twists and crossfade turns to bridge the genre gaps. Live kicks off with Sun Ra, but thereafter sticks to records comfortably tagged as house, with even the James Brown cut getting a 4/4 reformatting from Schwarz himself. Particularly in the back end, Live is unflashy and techno enough to please minimal fans, even if it's a bit like jazz-funking minimal that's broken the genre's anorexic rules and gorged itself on the saturated fat chord changes and basslines of briefly unfashionable '90s club records, and it's that much-needed, subtle integration that makes Live so refreshing after a few years of dry dance mixes sending parched listeners running towards even the juiciest, fruitiest trance.

Henrik Schwarz [MySpace]
!K7 [Official Site]

Dinosaur L - 24-24 Music (Sleeping Bag/Traffic)
But if you're looking for the roots of Schwarz' corpulent electric organ runs and big dipper disco basslines, albeit freed from all but the most nominal 4/4 needs and lost down an NYC manhole in the '80s, this reissue is key, especially if you also dig on brass section freak-outs, party chants as stoned high camp, acid rocking in the club, and keyboards revved as dizzy as kids doing donuts 'round the sandbox. Ten years ago when I first encountered his music, biographical and contextual info on Dinosaur L mastermind Arthur Russell was decidedly scant on the Internet, but a beyond-thorough reissue program means there's been enough written about him in the intervening years, including the dreaded Wikipedia page, that there's little need to try and thumbnail his dance and avant bona fides here. Suffice it to say the long strange trip that led to the creation of the defiantly odd 24-24 Music, laid down under typically Russellian studio conditions in the late '70s and released a handful of years later as disco's in-the-shitter commercial status had given rise to the freak funk so beloved in the 21st-century, is best described by business partner Will Solocov in the liner notes:

"Arthur's music is really avant-garde," states Will, "and here is a very traditional Philadelphia/R&B family [the Ingram Brothers, who helped Russell record the album] which he had to cajole into doing this stuff. He told me that Butch [Ingram] would look at him like 'You're out of your fucking mind!' but the younger ones Timmy and Johnny Ingram would really get into it, just grooving with Arthur."

And yes, even the more turntable-ready remixes from Francois K and Larry Levan do little to unknot the kinks (willful or unwitting) of Russell's cultural tangle, making 24-24 Music a zonked totem for any commerce-shunning producer (or infatuated fan) still mixing gutbucket disco-funk with the avant excesses that had Butch Ingram thinking the retiring Russell was out of his fucking mind.

Arthur Russell [Wikipedia]

Various artists, Double Trouble: The Pomus and Shuman Story 1956-1967 (Ace)
How should we look at history? As a series of peaks, or as a continuum? Pop fans would say the former, pop historians the latter, and neither group is wrong. But a CD like this makes me lean toward the latter, if only because it's that rare thing, an overview whose valleys work as an integral part of its narrative.

Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman were one of the great songwriting teams of early rock and roll, Brill Building fixtures steeped in the blues. Pomus had polio as a child and began using crutches and wheelchairs from age six; some of this made its way into the songs, most obviously "Save the Last Dance for Me," which the Drifters took to No. 1 in 1960. Other big Pomus and Shuman hits include Gary U.S. Bonds's "Seven Day Weekend," Ray Charles's "Lonely Avenue," Jimmy Clanton's "Go, Jimmy, Go," the Mystics' "Hushabye," Elvis Presley's "Double Trouble," and Andy Williams's "Can't Get Used to Losing You."

All those songs are here, of course; the thing is, so are such avowed non-classics as Fabian's "Turn Me Loose" (having just read and enjoyed Great Pretenders, Karen Schoemer's book on '50s pop, I have to part ways with the author's assertion that "Fabian rocks") and the Tibbs Brothers' "(Wake Up) Miss Rip Van Winkle." Yet this not only gives the comp some dynamics, it deepens the good stuff. And you get a sense of them stylistically: the piano triplets that drive Jimmy Darren's light "Angel Face" come up to darker, smarter ends a few cuts later on "Save the Last Dance for Me," and the songwriters' relationship with Elvis Presley (who recorded a number of their tunes) often translates here into versions by others that hew amazingly closely to the big E's. By this sequence, the actual Presley entrance—late, with "Double Trouble"—is anti-climactic. It hardly matters, though; the actual closer, Howard Tate's great soul cry "Stop," is perfect—as a finishing statement, as a recording, and as a summation of the Pomus and Shuman style on display here.

Various artists, Milky Disco (Lo)
A themed compilation can be a chicken-and-egg game. Which came first—the concept or the songs? Depends on whether the record is collecting new or old material. Does it matter which? Usually it doesn't make much difference; most people who care accept that single-genre comps are a very mixed bag as a rule. So you can generally tip yourself to a good compilation by title alone, and Milky Disco has a great title. You might wonder: all that melodrama, all that string cheese...how much milkier can disco get? Yet these folks have their ways. Taking your keyboards-as-strings cues not from latter-day Salsoul wannabes but from Tangerine Dream and/or Hugh Padgham, for example. In other words, stereo-demonstration rock's vague aspirations are the primary material from which the eleven acts here draw their cues, then twist as necessary. Sometimes it settles for mere revivalism: Georges Vert's "Electric Bird" is a series of crescendos that will give hives to anyone who can't tolerate Winter Olympics themes. But while plenty of this is pretty gassy, some of it's simply a gas: Six Cups of Rebel's "Dubbe Ditten" takes its retro-futurist wah-wah and multiple keyboard tones into pretty cocktail abstraction; Daniel Wang offers an arcing, percolating opening theme; Quiet Village's "Desperate Hours" dubs itself over the '70s European drama in your mind. Even Studio, whose krautrocking West Coast is one of those albums I tried and tried and never got the appeal of, sound good here.

Kenge Kenge, Introducing Kenge Kenge (Riverboat)
You'd think the early adopters who glommed onto Konono No. 1 might be equally ecstatic over this Kenyan octet, which not only piles on the percussion to work sturdy beats further into froth, but adds tunes besides, sung by multiple voices that take paths around each other similar to those traveled by their rhythms. But "discovered by the Ex" and "homemade instruments" apparently push more curious-onlooker buttons than, to quote the All Music Guide blurb, "the real roots of Kenyan benga music...Resolutely acoustic, they hew closely to the tradition rather than the modern electric style, singing in Luo." Fair enough—modern electricity juicing old rhythm is an easier sell than steadfast traditionalists in a style most Americans have never heard. But the rhythms on this eight-song, 68-minute sampler combo are every bit as dominating and speedy as the ones on either volume of Congotronics, and while Introducing Kenge Kenge always seems a little forbidding to put on casually, it always sounds great when I do. Many of the tunes, particularly the flute figure of "Obare Yinda," my favorite, stay just this side of pretty, appealingly weathered companions that know how to party. Ditto the singing.

Kinda fudging the definitions on this one already. The last of these records drops next Tuesday; the first two are recent enough to (you would think) still be fresh in people's minds. But they're three minor pleasures whose limitations are probably tied up in the limitations of the genre—and my headline nod in the direction of the IPU is slightly flawed for a number of reasons, especially because there are no women being discussed here—but that should bring a little joy to anyone who once purchased the bulk of their music on seven-inch vinyl.

No Age
Weirdo Rippers
(Fat Cat)
Everything I read about this L.A. duo led me to imagine something punkier, adults bashing out the fuzzy half-pipe anthems of their skate rat days. Which got the overgrown skate rat in me excited. Watch out for their volume, a profile in the Fader warned; it will give you a pore-cleansing peel all on its own. Other talked them up like their seven-inch singles were packed with minute-long hunks of unrefined hardcore, songs that should have been reviewed in Thrasher circa-'85. (The Pitchfork review got closer with mention of K Records—there's that flawed IPU connection again, the comparison that actually got me thinking along these lines to begin with—but I don't hear much of Lync's proto-emo here.) Whatever's louder or more visceral about their live gigs, the muted Weirdo Rippers practically disappears into its own its no-fi noise like it's tripped into a well, 11 songs from those singles turned into a murky mini-album. Sure, No Age raves up every now and again. The band shines through the shroud draped over its songs on "Boy Void," "My Life's Alright Without You," and "Everybody's Down," with bonehead bubblepunk riffs and the sneering hooks of Redd Kross or early Pavement. But as the record's brief running time drags on, Weirdo Rippers starts feeling messy-in-the-bad-way, and what better way to mask slack songwriting than with the traditional wall of feedback? The final third makes for okay gritty background music provided you don't already own a dozen similar slabs.

No Age [MySpace]

Shocking Pinks
Shocking Pinks
(DFA)

The way No Age records often makes its songs sound like they're struggling to be heard over a construction site several stories below. Shocking Pinks are no more hi-fi, but their debut has a little more clarity, if not cleanliness. And as you might expect from a New Zealand indie act, they've also got a certain intimacy, a band recording just for you at the foot of your bed. Same off-the-cuff recording set up as No Age, applied to very different, material. More precious. Less feedback. And even when the Pinks smother their riffs in distortion on "I Want U Back," the driving beat pledges allegiance to pop above noise. Occasional rattling, rickety rhythms may partly explain James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy's interest, but even if those drums didn't sound like empty pop bottles being struck with forks, the Shocking Pinks always chop their songs before a good groove can develop. And besides, the next song might as likely be a brokenhearted waltz or a rustic '80s throwback with keyboards filched from Big Express-era XTC or a hat tipped in Factory Records' direction. There's some charming pastiche here from across Anglo-indie's two decade history, but these songs often feel like sketches in need of more color, bolder lines, stronger anatomy. 'Course if you already dig any of their NZ contemporaries (or forebears), scratchy, sketchy semi-pop is practically an endorsement.

Shocking Pinks [MySpace]

(Probably wanna turn down the volume on this one.)

Shooting Spires
Shooting Spires
(Cardboard)

No chance of "less feedback" on Shooting Spires, the excellent solo project of B.J. Warshaw of Parts And Labor, hitting the target dead center with 10 hella distorted pop songs where the melodies aren't exactly buried under the static, because the screech and crackle and zaps and emergency broadcast alarms and eerie sonorities are what you listen for. Shooting Spires is in the grand tradition of disregarding the supposed distinction between hooks and texture, giving you somethin' semi-catchy with a lot of pretty-but-grimy noise on top. Warshaw's drawing on the same buzz and howl as Parts And Labor, but with the art/punk ratio tipped decidedly towards the former. He lists Brian Eno as the first influence on his MySpace page, so no one's stretching their critical imagination by hearing the songwriter Eno of the early '70s looming over tracks like opener "Right," Here Comes The Warm Jets and Tiger Mountain made with a tabletop of effects pedals and hotwired keyboards. ("Silent Alarms" is "Third Uncle" under siege by really ornery 8-bit processing.) What really shoves Warshaw ahead in this year's lo-fi/noise-pop stakes is that there's just more sparkle and variation in his electronic fizz than in No Age's drift, and even with his debts to art-rockers of the past, Warshaw's a more idiosyncratic singer (with his froggy drone of a voice) and songwriter than the spot-the-record types in the Shocking Pinks. If we did marks or stars or things with decimal points, this would get the exaggerated thumbs up.

Shooting Spires [MySpace]

Various Artists
Fierce Disco
(Fierce Angel)

Sometimes basic is best. Of course, with disco-house, "basic" usually means florid: rhythm guitars extracting as much of Nile Rodgers' DNA as a sampler can fit, divas either overwhelming the proceedings or airily threading through them, light syncopation, gurgling keyboard lines, rainbow-brite string arrangements, all of it liable to be fed through a low-pass filter on a remixer's whim. You might think three discs worth of variations on this basic template is too much, and you'd be right. But too much is also par for the course with this stuff, and in that sense Fierce Disco is the best imaginable introduction to the last couple years' worth of mainstream disco-house.

The label it comes from has a silly name (Fierce Angel), and grew out of another label with an equally silly name (Hed Kandi), that spent much of the decade issuing countlss double-CD house and "chill" collections of high-end superclub anthems. Hed Kandi's colorful covers starring line-drawn "hotties," usually holding cocktails, remain with Fierce Angel, as does a semi-anonymous "brand identity" that evokes endless nights of overzealous security and bottle service. But however uncool they were at heart, the best Hed Kandi comps were put together with obvious care, and so is Fierce Disco. All it wants to do is exhilarate you between double-shifts and finals.

Even for a triple CD, this thing has a lot of excellent tracks, which as a triple CD it had better. Fave raves: Jamie Lewis's remix of Bob Sinclar's "Champ Elysées Theme," with its suspended, dewy-eyed strings; Masters at Work's ridiculous Village People-meets-Miss Cleo "Work (Riff 'n' Rays Remix)"; Laura Kidd's curling neo-electro "Automatic"; Freemasons ft. Amanda Wilson's "I Feel Like," with its "oh, baby" hovering in the background. You may not learn anything new, but sometimes reacquainting yourself with the basics is lesson enough.

Various Artists
Motel Lovers
(Trikont)

Much as I adore a well-turned playlist, this collection of "Southern Soul from the Chitlin' Circuit," as it's subtitled, has the well-constructed-album fan in me psyched. Not only because it's solid all the way through, but for having a second half that's better than the first. Most of the songs are from this decade, not that the feel especially contemporary: it's down-home soul-blues, with most of the karaoke-ready keyboards a minor stumbling block. Still, nothing gets in the way of the songs—all excellent, many great. At first my favorite was Peggy Scott-Adams's "If It Ain't Broke," with its guitar lick's family resemblance to "Mr. Big Stuff" and the singer's wonderful timing. A few others vied for the crown, notably Lee Fields' "I'll Go to Jail" (the most old-fashioned sounding, befitting a guy better-known for his retro-funk stuff on the Desco and Soul Fire labels) and Gwen McCrae's "Psychic Hotline" ("Dionne War'ick, are you listening to me, girlfriend?"). But ultimately, I just want to see the look on the faces of Ang Lee, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Heath Ledger when they hear the climax of Barbara Carr's "Down Low Brother":

"He was a brokeback."
"He was a what?"

JPLS
Twilite
(M_nus)

Gurgle gurgle, boink boink. Burble burble, boing boing. It's not just techno, it's "minimal." Ten tracks, the longest 6:18, the shortest 5:23. All titles, except for one, are along the lines of "Twilite 1," the exception being "Green 01 (Skoozbot's Twilite Remix)," which in this company practically counts as a radical departure. Recently, it drove my roommate's girlfriend out of the living room; it also exacerbated my headache once. Yet I find this rather soothing and playful—comfort food for robots, Pong with amplification and tonal color, less "dance music," though beats drive every second of it, than something with which to bounce around your stainless-steel portal, or dream of one. And whenever it seems like it might become too blandly linear for its own good, some weird bloop will line up just left of the ticking little clickbeat, or a stray grain will jam its way into the otherwise clean trajectory. It squiggles and bops enough to simulate virtual reality if not life itself, plus it's got enough sub-bass to give it some dimension, not to mention thump you good every so often. Worth noting: the album's other Skoozbot remix, of "Twilite 1," is also my favorite track. That can't be a coincidence, can it?

Los Lobos - Little Things [MP3, link removed]
Los Lobos - The City [MP3, link removed]
Los Lobos [MySpace]

Field Mob feat. Ciara - So What [MP3, link expired]
Field Mob - Blacker The Berry [MP3, link expired]

The Skygreen Leopards - Disciples Of California [MP3, link expired]
The Skygreen Leopards - Golden Pilgrim [MP3, link expired]
The Skygreen Leopards [MySpace]

Aly & AJ - Something More [MP3, link expired]
Aly & AJ - Never Far Behind [MP3, link expired]

When the Oohlas' Best Stop Pop came out in September, the group was immediately met with comparisons to Belly and Veruca Salt, two love-'em-or-leave-'em acts that may have turned off potential fans. But we've come to appreciate Pop's ensaring melodies, especially since we're such shameless '90s nostalgists ourselves:

The Oohlas - Across The Stars In Blue [MP3, link expired]
The Oohlas - Cahuenga Shuffle [MP3, link expired]
The Oohlas [MySpace]

Rhymefest feat. Kanye West - More [MP3, link expired]
Rhymefest - Devil's Pie [MP3, link expired]
Rhymefest [MySpace]

Celebration - Foxes [MP3, link expired]
Celebration - China [MP3, link expired]
Celebration [MySpace]

This week's release of a new track from the North Carolina power-couple the Rosebuds got us thinking: Why, exactly, is this band not 10 times bigger? We realize you have several options when it comes to charming, hooky indie pop, but the 'Buds' 2005 album Birds Make Good Neighbors was one of the best of last year, and a favorite at the Idolator flophouse. If you promise to buy it, we'll promise to stop pimping Merge Records artists. At least until the Superchunk reunion later this month.

The Rosebuds - Hold Hands And Fight [MP3, link expired]
The Rosebuds - Boxcar [MP3, link expired]
The Rosebuds [Official Site]

Oneida - The Adversary [MP3, link expired]
Oneida - Up With People [MP3, link expired]
Enemy Hogs [Oneida's Official Site]

Oh, and yes: We know the Sisters are from New York. No need to fill the comments board with reminders.

The Pet Shop Boys - The Sodom And Gomorrah Show [MP3, link expired]
The Pet Shop Boys - I'm With Stupid [MP3, link expired]

Outkast - The Train [MP3, link expired]
Outkast - Life Is A Musical [MP3, link expired]
Outkast - N2U [MP3, link expired]