Frank Kogan

Fucking hell, this DAs Racist bullshit is going to end up on the list isn't it...le sigh.

here is mine:

Singles:

Beyonce/Gaga Video Phone:
I am spending the year at an evangelical anglican residence. I am flipping through channels, with some people in the common room. Video Phone comes on, and people walk into the room. At the beginning, it is me and this dude named Dave, at the end of 4 minutes there are 20 people. . I remain unconvinced of Gaga's genius, but anything that introduces the other while getting Sony to pay for it must mean something.

YYY Heads Will Roll
The ambition is part of the charm, and how it works as video, as spectacle, as costume, how the gothic (think Siouxise Sioux but also think Melmoth the Wanderer) is lightened with camp horror. The sophistication of the work as a pop object is made problematic by the extraordinary sophistication of it as a song--as a musical object.

Rhianna, etc Run This Town
Rhianna's vocals are more interesting here then they are in the entire album she released this year. Her ego, unabated and unattached, overwhelms both Jay-Z and Kayne, which allows for her own voice, which is one of the goals of feminism, and one of the goals of pop. She achieved that goal best thisyear.

3Oh!3 StarStrukk
Sex is complicated, and straight boys have never quite figured out how to fuck for liberation. Let's give 'em a hand for trying. Plus, it has the best chorus to dance to in half a decade.

Ray Fever--When I Grow Up
Atmospheric, moody, slightly annoying in that Bjork way, a major earworm that prevented me from dismissing it.

John Mayer--Who Says.
The tabloid personae enjambs with some amount of emotional rawness, and although the whole fame weakens me with ennui is such a cliche, the Laurel Canyon vibe of this makes it better then the sum of its parts. This was the single that convinced me there was something there beyond whiny.

An Horse Camp Out
While we wait for Courtney Love to get her shit together, and produce something as brilliant as Mono, this Aussie dyke will tell us what we are missing. Optimistic song about crumbling, inspirational song about falling, with guitars that surge with the grace that happens in the dark with strange bodies--earnest without being obnoxious.

Britney Spears If You Seek Amy
The single entendre has a long history as blues argot, which may place Brit-Brit as more historically minded then we give her credit for. That said, what is interesting here is not the lyrics, or picking apart the meta (yes, it is about Paris Hilton; yes, the line "does she take a piece of lime for the drink I'm buying is more effective of a diss then registers on paper). What is interesting is how unhinged it is, over stuffed with robots, with vocal effects, with snycopated rhythms, with chesire cat laughing--the mania of the song (maybe literal mania) abstracts beyond any use function. If Blackout was baroque, this is Rococo.

Losin' Lately Gambler-- Corb Lund: Corb continues to add to the narratives of classic country--as the last album worked through new soilder songs and new horse songs, this one has farm songs and card songs. This is the card song, and it is about betting on home and therefore need to bet from going away. Aside from the world weariness, the sadness of the vocals, the perfect guitar work, there is a processing of the domestic and local over the international. He lives in Alberta, which is losing money and people, and where the money is disappearing, and where the recession is hard. Best song about the disaster of imminent poverty.

Surf Solar- Fuck Buttons
Noise. Dance. Attack. Noise. Dance. Attack.