oldies, goodies for your next economic slow-down ho-down.

Ruben Blades - Decisiones

Match and Daddy Yankee - Pasame La Botella

Mercedes Sosa - Me Gustan Los Estudiantes

Vampire Weekend can suck my nuts. Wait…did I miss the backlash bandwagon? Sheet.

Tineyi Chikupo & The Mother Band - Sirivia

Oh for a time when cold gray Brooklyn meant enchantment and you walked into O’Connors and the warmth and the dirt sent a tingle. And you talked about the mayoral race and Sandy Endo and local politics because you half-way believed in it. Calexico covered Love, the Rhino Girl Groups box-set blared, and things were looking good. Now it’s huevos a la mexicana every weekend and pop-fuck-electro and (if you’re lucky) dancing at some bouncer-ridden club where you can’t bump into anyone for fear of rumpling their glitter.

Toni Basil - I’m 28

Calexico - Alone Again Or (live)

Hyper Crush - Candy Store

Cat Scratch - What Would Harley Do?

Ok, now you got me angry - and at least I don’t need to artificially, New-York-cop-style pump myself up on public insurance funds to demonstrate just how much. But fast on the heels of my last post, reader Miss Momo asked me for some good recent-ish songs. So let’s get on with it, eh?

The first song stands as perhaps the perfect end of the year song for living in New York. Hinging on hipster opera vocals, the irony of would-be-gentrifiers lamenting the purchase of the city by fuckheads would stand at the forefront were the song not so damned great. It’s fantastic to see a song explicitly about urban politics that is handed down by white newcomers; its a sign that America is a) waking up to realize our total and complete lack of livable urban infrastructure and, simultaneously that b) we have no plans to reshape it - are, in fact, blocking it all attempts at salvation.

Was it any different, though, way back? Tanya Stephens sings about the music biz in this 2004 classic, but it would be remiss to not see the same kinds of trends happening in the political and other worlds. Emphasis on superficial additions to our city - ooh, bikes on Governor’s Island!! - over sustained commitment to the myriad of other deeper endemic problems that revolve around people’s engagement with the civic sphere plague the real business going on in this country, a thesis a priority-lover would love.

Indeed, it is the dark end of the street. But what will the new year bring?

LCD Soundsystem - New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down
Tanya Stephens - Way Back
James Carr - The Dark End Of The Street

we’re going to set up a music blog with mixes and other some such links to music. please stay tuned. te quiero.