Move Mix 4/24
1. Phoenix - "Lasso"
If we had our way, this whole mix would be solely Phoenix songs because they are quite possibly the best pop band in the world. "Lasso," from their upcoming album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, is a simple, snappy guitar song that recalls the scrubbed-up Strokes sound of their last album It's Never Been Like That.
Listen at Hype Machine
2. Jamie Foxx ft. Lil Wayne - "Number One"
As he showed us in "Ray," Jamie Foxx is pretty good at impersonations. On his recent album Intuition, he slips on various modern R&B personas— Justin Timberlake's fedora'd player on "I Don't Need It," T-Pain's Autotuned awkward drunk on "Blame It" and The-Dream's chirpy puffed-chest egotist on "Just Like Me." On "Number One," he links up with Lil Wayne for some swagger one-upsmanship over Just Blaze's dumbed-out "A Milli" rip. Foxx plays the half-rapper role predictably well, but it's Wayne that gets in the best shot: "I be in the slickest drop/ listenin' to some Iggy Pop."
3. Band of Horses - "The Great Salt Lake"
Band of Horses go for an aesthetic— back porch, scorching sun, mud, beer in cans— and they hit it, almost perfectly. "The Great Salt Lake" is from their first album and it's still possibly their best song ever, just totally expansive with a crushing instant classic riff.
4. Dirty Projectors - "Stillness is the Move"
The Dirty Projectors are about as arty as an indie-pop band can get without it being detrimental. "Stillness is the Move," off of their awesome upcoming album Bitte Orca, is arguably their most accessible song to date. Its jagged, piercing guitars are smoothed over by swelling violins, but the whole thing is made on the backs of the band's two female singers, who possess voices as powerful and emotive as anything on R&B radio.
Listen at Hype Machine
5. Camera Obscura - "French Navy"
Belle and Sebastian's The Life Pursuit is one of the best albums of the decade, and on their new album My Maudlin Career, Camera Obscura replicate the former's hi-fi orchestral indie pop. "French Navy" is ostensibly about a narrator and his French sailor lover, but its chorus is pure, classic pop: "I wanted to control it/ but love, I couldn't hold it."
6. Jeremih - "Birthday Sex"
"Birthday Sex" is basically a fake The-Dream song, from the stuttered repetition of the pronoun "I" to the boxing-as-sex metaphor in the second verse. Somehow, Jeremih, a previously unknown from Chicago, made a song about as good as any of the ballads on The-Dream's either two albums, writing a chorus that immediately strikes as an immediate luminary.
Listen at zshare
7. T-Pain ft. Ludacris - "Chopped N Skrewed"
When it comes down to summer jams, not many do it like T-Pain, and "Chopped N Skrewed" is one of his breeziest hits. It's a song about getting shut down by girls, and the trick Pain pulls of in chopping and screwing the chorus is as charming as it is impossible to sing along to. And of course there's Ludacris, maybe the best R&B guest verse rapper of all time.
Watch at YouTube
8. Nipsey Hussle - "Hussle in the House"
Nipsey Hussle is Cali rap's next big hope, and deservedly so. He's reverent of Compton's luminaries, and you can see them manifested in his swagger, style, voice and lyrics. "Hussle in the House" is his debut single, and its whiney synths are immediately comforting.
9. Busta Rhymes ft. Ryan Leslie, T-Pain, OJ Da Juiceman & Gucci Mane - "Hustlers Anthem 09 (remix)"
The original is kind of pedestrian, but the ingredients for a banger are there: bouncy beat, T-Pain chorus, lots of empty space. ATL bros OJ Da Juiceman and Gucci Mane finally help its full potential— OJ's verse is frenetic and locked in, and Gucci, riding high on accumulated buzz, gets in some choice punchlines: "Big cheese, long bread/ boy let's have a food fight."
Listen at YouTube
10. The Replacements - Seen Your Video
The best riff on a classic album.
Listen at Hype Machine