Friday Top Five: ’80s-Style Remixes, Songs About Alderan, French Techno

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.


mojo-photo-top50314.jpg

1. The Ting Tings – “Great DJ” (Calvin Harris Remix) (mp3 via Check the Availability)
While the British duo’s recent SF live show was enjoyable enough, it was also a bit disconcerting due to the prominence of the backing tape. But this remix by an ’80s-loving producer turns “Great DJ” into an epic floorfiller, without a care in the world.

2. James Combs – “Barely Contained” (buy on iTunes)
LA singer-songwriter Combs balances a tense, PJ Harvey-like arrangement with a dreamlike whisperiness on this swaying, triple-time track. It’s great, but one wonders, is it a conflict of interest when a KCRW producer gets KCRW’s “Today’s Top Tune”?

3. Neon Neon – “I Told Her on Alderan” (mp3 via Pop Tarts Suck Toasted)
Who knew that when you put together a Super Furry Animal and Boom Bip, they’d sound like the Cars and sing about Star Wars. Actually, that would have been as good a guess as any.

After the jump, yes it offends me, and French techno that sounds like American hip-hop!

4. Does It Offend You, Yeah? – “With A Heavy Heart (I Regret To Inform You)” (mp3 via Cause=Time)
With a band name only a blogger could love (sigh), and enough angular new-wave references to make Franz Ferdinand blush, they would offend me, if they weren’t so infectious and ecstatic. “Heart” starts off dancey, then erupts into near-heavy metal levels of intensity.

5. Alan Braxe – Addicted (mp3 via Disco Delicious)
Hey, French techno! Mais oui, Braxe is from France, but on this track from the new Kitsune compilation, he seems to be channeling Timbaland. There’s a stomping half-time breakdown and clear-as-a-bell synths, and it’s about as far from his distortion-by-numbers French colleagues as you could get.

Photos courtesy Columbia Records, Jamescombs.com, Rex Records, and under a creative commons license from Flickr users haveweallgotthebends and animalvegetable.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate