Perfect Fit for the Machine:
The Best in Music 2005
by Flak Staff

Tracks 11-15

 Streaming Audio

11. "Your Little Hoodrat Friend" · The Hold Steady · Separation Sunday (Flak review) · French Kiss Records · 3:52

Band leader Craig Finn attempts some actual singing on this track; the sound itself is a notch or two below Neil Young, but his intensity and phrasing carry the day. There's something necessary about an untrained voice really savoring a lyric like "She said 'I ain't gonna do anything sexual with you/ I'm kinda saving myself for the scene.'" Finn is a great rock storyteller, and the Hold Steady play great rock riffs — this one comes augmented with thick Fender rhythm guitar clicks, a bridge layered with feedback and cathedral organ, and a snare drum that sounds like it's being beaten to death. (— Christopher Hickman)

12. "Lose Control" · Missy Elliott · The Cookbook · Atlantic · 3:47

Why do music critics never take hip hop seriously? And when critics do take hip hop seriously, why is their writing built on NPR-style postcolonial condescension, like a man in a pith helmet discovering some strange and unspoiled native ritual? Hip hop brings a crowd, makes a crowd and finishes a crowd off. In the hip hop hive of rump-shaking drones, Missy Elliott is definitely the queen bee. Since starting her career as a record producer, Missy has gained notoriety, and kept it, with well-produced albums that each include at least one instant club classic. Mozart they ain't; but then again, neither is anything reviewed in this feature.

Missy's single "Lose Control" is a four-minute hurricane of cool. The song is backed up by a synth track from 1981, and a periodic bass sting, making the song sound a lot like a Run DMC album played at 600 rpm. She knows her hip hop history, and she knows what works. She lays her cool, relaxed lyrics over the top of the frenzy, creating a song that is at once totally frenetic and totally sexy. It's danceable, it's sexable, it's head nod-able. In short, it's what makes all music great, not just hip hop. Navel-gazing sad rockers, take note: this girl just wants to lose control. (— Aemilia Scott)

13. "Ladyflash" · The Go! Team · Thunder, Lightning, Strike · Sony · 4:09

There is a certain category of songs best described as "irresistable," and "Ladyflash" sits squarely within it. These are tracks that compel motion. The retro-techno explosion that is "Ladyflash" boasts a relentless optimism that's tempered with just enough street-cred to make it both infinitely dancable and eminently listenable, a peanut-butter and chocolatesque combination that's rare as a rainbow.

Every possible aspect of this song — from the band name (The Go! Team) to the album name (Thunder, Lightning, Strike), to the song title ("Ladyflash") to its up-tempo breakbeat and slight-but-winning hip-hop accents — conveys a sense of speed and impact.

The track's professional polish and cheerful mojo hearken directly back to the brief-but-pleasantly awesome heyday of the Pizzacato Five, and if you've got access to a clear floor, you'll find it nearly impossible to stop from dancing the shit out of it "while Dave cuts the record down to the bone." (— James Norton)

14. "The Vice and Virtue Ministry" · The Happy Bullets · The Vice and Virtue Ministry · Undeniable Records · 3:28

What an odd unit, these six, who fell in together over a love of obscure albums, crafted a sublime, shimmering pop sound that gets its full expression on their second album, and whose music, lyrics and vocal affectations make reference to the British, though the band are all Texans. It might sound dangerously close to cutesy pop or, even worse, ironic pop. Their performance, however, is guileless; a martial rhythm section buoys the strained, earnest tenor of singer-songwriter Jason Roberts, as he promises that, once you've joined the ministry, you'll "play croquet on the greens/ wear out monocles/ quote articles/ from Tennyson and Keats." The most royal horns that lead the song through its coda are a nice, Beatles-y touch. (— Christopher Hickman)

15. "Pom Poms" · Scout Niblett · Kidnapped by Neptune · Too Pure/Beggars · 3:56