Its Gattaca by way of JNCO Jeans cover art notwithstanding, I get the queasy feeling that Chris Brown's Graffiti will be moving big numbers when it ships December 8th. So take note, Ben Gibbard: if you want to beat the shit out of Zooey*, apparently six months community service and a viral wedding video is all the recompense needed to get you back in the public's good graces. The site here took a little heat when discussing the death of Ike Turner a few years back, specifically for calling into question the veracity of rape claims made in Tina Turner's autobiography. Here's the thing, though: Chris Brown is no Ike Turner. Fine for summertime pop, the boy's no innovator- and the fuck a track with paid promotion for a gum company is ever making an appearance at my wedding.

Brown, like Rihanna, is less an R&B dynamo than a vessel for timely production, and their careers will be remembered best for those they shared the studio with. Ri Ri (AAHHHH HA HA "Ri Ri") has been nothing short of a muse to The-Dream and Tricky Stewart, and Brown's output under T-Pain, Swizz Beatz, and Polow da Don will most likely be the sound imitated in bad "whoa, the 2000s" sitcom flashbacks thirty years from now.

Of course by then, television will be wirelessly beamed to the retina, music will be drinkable, and man will be forced to live in Dyna-Glass domicile pods in order to shield our minds from exposure to the man-made, madness inducing "ninth color".

Ups to P. Smitty for the Portuguese treatment. (Small catalogue, but his calm "Ice Logos" comes highly recommended too.)

P. Smitty "Kuduro Kiss" (Buraka Som Sistema vs. Chris Brown Feat. T-Pain)

*I kid. Please beat up Adam Young.

I admit that for a time, I avoided The xx for fear of having another Black Kids on my hands; another blog fetishized quartet of mixed gender twentysomethings, with an ear towards danceability and an eye toward Beacon's Closet who ultimately failed to deliver in the sustainability department. Then, I pulled my head out of my ass.

Maybe it speaks to the general cynicism I've developed about "it bands" three years deep with this site, but I've begun to empathize more and more with my friend Brett (who I'm still trying to convince to write an essay about why he despises mashups so badly) when he proselytizes that no band with a single album or EP under their belt can be your "favorite band"- that you shouldn't be buying the t-shirt until you and the band have really gotten to know each other. It's sound logic in the age of shuffle, where Zutons and Louis XIVs of all shapes and sizes lurk in the shadows, waiting to be our one night stand.

So while us Brooklyn assholes (who secretly really liked The Killers for a while, LOL) may scoff the next time "Listen To Your Body" pipes through Enid's, this Roman philosophy of instant dismissal/approval becomes hugely muddled when applied to the repurposing of art in a sample-savvy culture. Hip hop has always borrowed from the hits of it's day, from the Sugarhill Gang hiring a studio band to cover Chic (both "Good Times" and "Rapper's Delight" were released in 1979) to Jay Z employing M.I.A.'s "No one on the corner..." lyric from her 2007 "Paper Planes" on he and Tip's '08 "Swagga Like Us". A track which samples an of-the-moment artist certainly can't be forever bound to the trajectory of the sampled artist's career, can it? What about mixtapes?

Isn't it easier just to like things?

Tastemakers make just that, but not without exerting an inordinate amount of energy towards a value system with completely invented metrics. I like that Black Kids EP. I like The xx's debut. In turn, I'm really liking Chicago's Jams Dean, whose unapologetic, wonderfully knowing "Chicago Girls" stops just short of reminding the listener that New Kids On The Block had a bunch of hits, Chinese food makes him sick, and he thinks it's fly when girls stop by for the summer. Will those American Apparel and Frappuccino references hit strong ten years from now? I dunno. They've got about as much chance as the sample.

Thankfully, cute girls are always in fashion.

Jams Dean Feat. The xx "Chicago Girls"

Malice: ...we care about it, man. We can do everything they’re doing now. I mean, we can put out an album in a week. We can do that. But I wouldn’t be happy with it. I think our songs, our albums, singles, even the mixtapes, everything is handcrafted.

Pusha: Yeah, I think that stuff sucks too.

Malice: [Laughs.]

Pusha: All of that music I’m seeing every fucking day…all these 50,000 mixtapes. With not one gem on it. Come on…You’re ruining it. You’re pissing me off.

Malice: Then making 50 songs, and throwing away 30 that don’t make the album. It’s like, What were you thinking when you were writing those?

Pusha: Stupid! Hey, stupid!

Malice: When we make a track, we loved it from the beginning.

Pusha: Hey, dummy. What’s wrong with you, stupid? Who works like that?

Malice: What song do you make that you can throw away? What the hell is wrong with you?

Pusha: Unless…

Malice: You knew it was doo-doo.

Pusha: And they are real stupid…

Malice: And frivolous.

Pusha: Pointless, meaningless…

- The Clipse, from their Clipse x KAWS Complex interview, 11/09.

And yeah, the irony of posting a mashup in tandem with that statement isn't lost on me. Good looking to the greenhorn DJDiE.

The Clipse vs. Phoenix "Wampomania" (DJDiE Mash)

Eventually discharged from the Air Force for being uncooperative and "evidencing a dislike for the service", Marvin Gaye went so far as to fake mental illness in his efforts to escape the mid-century war machine he'd so gracefully speak out against with his first post- Tammi Terrell output in 1971. Jokes to be made about the Gaye family and mental illness aside, it's a telling rebellion from artist in restless youth, one that first came to mind upon hearing the song featured in today's post.

"Get It On In My Mind" is an exhilarating meeting of mental illness (by way of a Fight Club enshrined Pixies single) and the universally acknowledged Greatest Fuck Jam Ever Written™, brought to you by French mash warrior DJ Zebra. With a percussive assist from Lee Dorsey, the track is once soaring and wounded- everything that a good, stormy love is heir to. Ups.

Marvin Gaye vs. The Pixies "Get It On My Mind" (DJ Zebra Mash)

No Mas and regular collaborator James Blagden present the animated tale of Pittsburgh Pirate Dock Ellis' legendary LSD no-hitter. Flawless repurposing of audio; hugely original animation.