andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

The line between electro-rock and hip-hop was never exactly straight in the first place, but this year has more or less witnessed its disappearance. The most recent installments in the collabo hall of fame popped up on Pitchfork this week.

First, there was Matt & Kim’s reworked “Daylight (Troublemaker Remix).” Now, this song is perfect just the way it is but with rap legends De La Soul on the remixed track, there is a whole other dimension of mind-boggling pop mastery.

The signature chorus (”Cause in the daylight I don’t pick up my phone”) is looped atop an amplified version of the song’s backbeat, with a spaced out synth riff to boot. In between, De La Soul spit their classic rhymes (”Leave your message after the tone/while I lay around actin’ like I’m too old for this shit”), transforming the song from hair-shaking hipster dance party to a groovy soul redub.

The song will be featured on the NBA Live 2010 soundtrack when the game is released on Oct. 6. It will also appear in every playlist I make for the next month.

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It should go without saying that unless you are The Clash, you should never open your album with a track that outshines the rest of the songs. Too often, musicians put everything out there all at once in the form of a single: the catchiest song, the defining song, the best song. All in one neat little bow.

Take Peter, Bjorn and John. The band penned “Young Folks”, undoubtedly one of the hottest whistle-chorus songs since Gene Kelly. They slot it in as the first song of their debut album, “Writer’s Block” – a promising start. Yet the rest of the album is completely useless. Boring, ambling, flat pop. They blew their premature load all over the place, and never recovered.(Their sophomore album was released in April and committed the same offence. “Lay It Down,” though appearing later in the track list, is an adorable and danceable hit. Every other song, however, is filler.)

Now, as annoying as this is, I too am guilty of perpetuating the curse. It’s so easy to fall in love with one song and never give the rest of the album a second thought. Especially when it’s the first song you hear. For example, I recently fell head over heels for “Daylight” by Matt & Kim. I made the world very aware of my infatuation, playing it for everyone I knew, Facebook status-ing the shit out of it, and listening to it on my own at least four times in one sitting, four times a day.

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