Flak Magazine: They Don't Love You Like We Do, Tracks 11-15, 02.03.04

Mike Skinner Award for Best Grimy Limey Alterna-Hop. Other cuts from Boy in Da Corner may be better ("I Love U" is downright astonishing), but this one encapsulates in four mournful minutes much of what's so compelling about East London's grime-presario Dizzee Rascal. Finger-waggingly conservative ("I plan to make my pay/ But put some away for an off-key day," "Pregnant girls who think they love," "I know it's wrong to question but I need answers") yet quivering with coltish adolescent doubt and a bewildered apprehension his occasional perfunctory bravado can't quite hide, Dizzee's staccato words ride on a sweet 'n' sour Hougaku-like melody and spare icy beats whose resemblance to US hip-hop grows thinner the more you hear them together (to-geh-voh). Aside from maybe Tupac, it's pretty rare for a Stateside rapper to juxtapose the likes of "...guys wanna test my words/ So I can't just cater for second and third" with "You can look in my face, you see the pain in my eyes/ Tears ready to fall like the rain in the skies." You could even say: not a boy, not yet a man. (— David Antrobus)

12. "City Girl" | Kevin Shields | Lost in Translation | Emperor Norton | 3:48

Official 2003 "Quirkyalone" Day Theme Song. All hail the return of the recluse. Kevin Shields is credited as the mastermind behind My Bloody Valentine's 1991 Loveless, a fixture of the critical/underground canon. It's been a long 12-or-so years for Shields, in which he repeatedly scrapped follow-up attempts, admitted to spending recording money on dope, and only fairly recently wet his feet in the world of actual released recordings in his capacity as a remix artist and as a sideman for Primal Scream.

So there was naturally a great deal of anticipation when Sofia Coppola tapped Shields to provide new songs for the soundtrack of her brilliant Lost in Translation. Obviously there's really no way to meet expectations raised by dropping an epochal album then dropping off the map. Instead "City Girl" and its peers sound — totally pleasantly — like something Shields could have produced the year after Loveless. The woozy guitar and whispery vocals are there, only with the layers of texture-as-texture stripped, i.e., it actually sounds like it was created by humans. It's all a tad bit unassuming. Lyrics, alas, are never Shields' strength, when you can indeed make out what he sings; and we don't necessarily award medals to those who refine their own revolution rather than forging ahead constant "progress." But when the results are as pretty and refreshing as "City Girl," the best thing is to toss aside all the "expectation" bollocks and gracefully say, "Welcome back. We missed you." (— Wayne Lewis)

13. "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" | The Darkness | Permission to Land | Atlantic | 3:36

Best Joke Heavy Metal Act. No, Wait, Best Legit Heavy Metal Act. No, Joke. No, Legit. Bertolt Brecht once compared music composed for purely emotional effect to a host offering his guests "a dish that one has already eaten oneself." His preference, in musical performance, was that "he who was showing should himself be shown." The Darkness delight in showing you the mechanism behind their music and their image. You see their influences as recipe instructions — there's a lead guitar fill from the Scorpions, here's a progression off a Judas Priest disc, the leopard-skin one-piece is Steven Tyler, the leg kicks a dash of David Lee Roth. Their tour of '70s and '80s hair metal is so specific and bombastic that many critics think their work is a send-up and the band satirists on par with Christopher Guest and Michael McKean. Mammoth bass chords and frontman Justin Hawkin's otherworldly falsetto, plus two guitar breaks straight from a ream of Ronnie James Dio tablature, no doubt helped make "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" a minor chart hit. But while devotion to the power chord and the Freddie Mercury fashion sense are often hilarious, the guys in the Darkness mean it. They believe it. And they want you to understand it, so you'll love it. (— Christopher Hickman)

14. "Love at First Light" | Joe Jackson Band | Volume 4 (Flak review) | Restless/Ryko | 4:50

Best Song About Hooking Up. The aftermath of a one-night stand never is a comfortable scene, with the script usually consisting of small talk, the exchange of phone numbers and stiff goodbyes. But instead of following the standard course of action, the night-owl characters in "Love at First Light" awkwardly pursue a road less traveled — that is, lingering in each other's presence long after the last drink is consumed.

The story unfolds slowly, beginning at "the crack of noon," as Joe Jackson's narrator struggles to recall the other person's name and ponders what will happen when they're both awake. A post-slumber smile is followed by a quick discussion about breakfast — one prefers coffee and aspirin, the other suggests raw eggs — resulting in laughs and a lighter mood.

Yet they're still tiptoeing toward each other on very thin ice, and the sparse and hesitant piano-led ballad reflects this delicacy perfectly. Toward the song's end, the overnight guest feels comfortable enough to drape a robe on the host and pull a favorite book from a shelf. The notion to "do something human like walk through the park" is mentioned as a way to maybe re-ignite the flame that burned hours before. It's a fitting way to wrap up a cinematic tune, leaving it up to the listener to decide if the characters live happily ever after. (— Chris M. Junior)

15. "Crazy in Love" | Beyoncé (feat. Jay-Z) | Dangerously in Love | Columbia | 3:56

Best Appeal to the Insanity Defense for Loving Someone Dangerously. (Or Best Use of the Word "Chinchilla.") Like OutKast's "Hey Ya!," this song is damn near impossible to separate from its ubiquitous video, playing less on heavy-rotation than on the triple g-force kind between summer and snowfall. From those inflammable, sampled Chi-Lites horns on through burning cars and exotic fur references, this pulse-raising paean to the fizzing electrical madness of love keeps increasing the voltage until (Jay-Z's relatively low-key short-circuiting cameo notwithstanding) your head feels exactly like that fire hydrant. When the pressure builds, and a strangely stunning über-Beyoncé hits those high notes at the end of the bridge ("HE-E-EE-E-EY!"), the whole thing just blows. In a good way. You feel the power grid between New York and Detroit might surge, dip, and go down at any second. (Holy shit, the best song Holland, Holland and Dozier never wrote?) (— David Antrobus)

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