Said the Gramophone

Top Banana Grandma

M.I.A. - "Paper Planes (DFA Remix)"

The biggest hurdle for me to enjoying a remix is forgetting how good the original is. "Paper Planes" is one of the most memorable songs of last year, so trying to forget it is kind of impossible. Which is why DFA is so right-on by getting rid of the gunshots. No gunshots? Yes! No gunshots! And it's still a successful song. It finds a marvelous beauty in M.I.A.'s singing, it places her squarely in the place of a funk diva, and look at her go! No one on the corner has swagger like this. And there's even a jaunty piano solo at the end, where DFA is channelling Huey Smith for a minute or so. It's a risky, brilliant vision of a song I previously considered untouchable. [site]

Thee Oh Sees - "Block of Ice"

1. The B-52's, on medieval beach blankets, stilettos in the sand.

2. Grace Slick lost in a punching-bag gauntlet, being chased by monster-cops.

3. Thee Oh Sees, surviving only on bridge mixture and broadband, emitting light from every point of impact. The pick on the strings, the sticks on the skins, the bones at all the joints.

[April 8th]