Remix Friday

“Genius is an overworked term but I’m struggling to think of anything else that defines him [Andrew Weatherall].” — Irvine Welsh

• Neil Young – Only Love Can Break Your Heart
• Saint Etienne – Cover
• Andrew Weatherall’s A Mix In Two Halves Remix

second half starts at 4:50

Future Thursday

I remember how dark everything was in 2003: George Bush threatening World War 3 and MTV doing half reality shows and half rubbish that I couldn’t, in good conscience, call music … But for some reason, one night only, Kraftwerk came back—about 20 years after Computer World—and they played on MTV. (Big ups to Kylie Minogue for giving them a great introduction too.)

• Kraftwerk – Aerodynamik

Sample Tuesday

People think of this as an “Eminem song”, a joke song, not “real Rap” or something like that; but I’m not sure they realize how important this was for Rap. When this came out, rapping slow and tight and over a beat like this was probably more of a fuck you than the words ‘fuck you’. Remember, at the end of the ’90s people were making party songs about about cars, clothes, and money; that was the period when it became accepted that you didn’t have to be a good MC to do Rap, you just had to look rich or be an “entrepreneur” or whatever. And a pop/rap song lived and died by the “beat”. To come out with something like this, with personal rhymes and, yes, goofy jokes was a more serious statement than anyone else was making back then.

“Well … Since age twelve
I felt like I’m someone else
’cause I hung my original self
from the top bunk with a belt”

• Eminem – My Name Is
• Labi Siffre – I Got The …

Remix Friday

It’s like you hear Thomas and Guy-Manuel walking in the lab, taking off their jackets, washing their hands, putting the kettle on, putting on a lab coat, turning on the machine …

• Gabrielle – Forget About The World
• Daft Punk Remix
• Daft Punk – Aerodynamic Beats / Forget About the World live mashup/remix (Alive 2007)