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  • The Tuesday Morning Awesome: Spectrum “How You Satisfy Me” (1991)

    In one of the more spectacular acts of musical nuclear fission, the two personalities at the core of the seminal shoegazing outfit known as Spacemen 3 split from the group in the early 90s, with singer-guitarist Jason Pierce forming the band Spiritualized, the better to document his adventures in amateur pharmacology through ambient garage rock, gospel choirs and all manner of decadent-pretending-at-profound bombast – hitting pay dirt when the title track of his monumental 1998 album Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space was licensed for a Gap commercial.

    Meanwhile, keyboardist-guitarist-singer Sonic Boom, forming a band called Spectrum (named for Boom’s 1990 solo album) delved deeper into hallucinogenic meditations on, like, existence and stuff, drifting further and further away from song structure into studio-assisted mantra and chant. Listening to Spectrum’s records can be like walking into a hall of mirrors, the vocals drowning in echoes of their own echoes, the backing music more perceived or hinted at than actually heard. That said, the band debuted in 1991 with one supremely catchy, radiation-dappled pop song that manages to balance the band’s trance-y aesthetic – tidal washes of echo and distortion, single-chord structure, melodic repetition and harmonic drone – with the sweet simplicity of a teenage love note. From the album Soul Kiss (Glide Divine), here’s Spectrum’s “How You Satisfy Me”.

  • The Monday Night Awesome: The Crystal Method “Name of the Game” (2001)

    He’s the most popular kid in the school. He’s the star of the football team, a champion wrestler and a stunt bicyclist. He rules the basketball court. He rules the soccer field. He’s got the hottest date (with the longest index finger) for the prom and when it comes to breakdancing – no one can touch him. He’s got hair like Marshall Mathers, and the swagga to match. He’s Nosey. His face is a nose. He is way cool.

  • Big in Europe (Actually Big Everywhere Except Here): Yolanda Be Cool & DCUP “We No Speak Americano”

    Back when I was in high school, there was this British dj collective called Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers who scored a Top 20 hit called “Swing the Mood” by basically taking a bunch of hits from the 40s and 50s – incongruously matching the Glenn Miller Band with the Everly Brothers, among others – and mashing them all together into a single track fit for school dances and wedding receptions. Urgh. For awhile there, “Swing the Mood” was inescapable although thankfully it never reached the achieved the sort of cultural saturation the “Macarena” would half a decade later.

    Now, storming charts all across Europe – around the world, in fact – is the Australian duo Yolanda Be Cool (named for a Tarantino quote) who teamed up with producer DCUP for a single called “We No Speak Americano”, which is essentially a 21st century house music puree of a 1956 performance by Italian pop singer Renato Carosone called “Tu Vuò Fà l’Americano”. In addition to going Top 10 in the duo’s home country and New Zealand, “We No Speak Americano” has so far topped the charts in the UK, Switzerland, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Austria, and, yes, Romania. Congressional Republicans may have much of the country convinced that the single greatest threat to the American way of life is creeping socialism. I beg to differ. Creeping socialism has nothing on the creeping ubiquity of this song – little more than a musical gimmick writ large, albeit one with an adorably silly (and expertly executed) “silent movie” video.

    And if you’re curious, here’s some pretty awesome video of Renato Carosone’s original. I could totally party with these guys!