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"