Smash Your Head Part 1

1.Girl Talk - “Smash Your Head”
2.My Chemical Romance - “How I Disappear”
3.The Strokes - “Red Light”
4.OK Go - “A Million Ways”
5.The Apples In Stereo - “Sunndal Song”
6.Veruca Salt - “Save You”
7.Timbaland & The Hives - “Throw It On Me”
8.+44 - “Baby Come On”
9.Social Distortion - “It Coulda Been Me”
10.The Pipettes - “One Night Stand”
11.Pedro The Lion - “Discretion”
12.Living Things - “Monsters of Man”
13.No Knife - “The Red Bedroom”
14.Linkin Park - “Bleed It Out”
15.The Automatic - “Monster”
16.Rev. Horton Heat - “Revival”
17.The Start - “Blood On My Hands”
18.The Grates - “19-20-20”
19.The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - “Don't Know How to Party”
20.Broken Social Scene - “Fire Eye'd Boy”
21.Glue - “Beat Beat Beat”
22.Feist - “I Feel It All”
23.Flogging Molly - “Seven Deadly Sins”
24.Tori Amos - “Teenage Hustling”

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A relatively new mix, with some new songs by old favorites. This is part one of a two-part mix, because I haven't made a "recent additions" mix in quite some time. There was originally going to be a third disc, but I threw most of those songs out.

We start with Girl Talk, a DJ with mad skills and deep crates who just wants us to have some fun. Welding Fall Out Boy to MC Lyte, Elton John to Notorious BIG and many many more, Girl Talk's semi-legal album Night Ripper is bound to be the Grey Album of 2007. The kicking Nirvana sample (from "Scentless Apprentice") lends the entire drum scheme for the second half of "Smash Your Head" - appropriate as Girl Talk have been known to cover the song at live shows.

The Black Parade is an exemplary album for emo stalwarts My Chemical Romance, who managed to not only avoid the sophomore slump after Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, but managed to outshine their previous release. "How I Disappear" is but one of many examples of this - all rock guitars, Freddy Mercury vocal acrobatics and dark lyrics.

People, including myself until recently, overlooked The Strokes' third album, First Impressions of Earth. Maybe it was the over-cooked single "Juicebox", maybe it was the weird style changes... or maybe their audience had grown fickle. Either way, the record is stacked with songs like "Red Light", which have the classic Strokes sound plus a little something extra.

Those treadmill-dancing maniacs in OK Go do one thing they do it well : they craft rocking pop songs that have hooks to spare. "A Million Ways", which also has a choreographed dance video, is a sultry, sexy tune that slinks along on that tender bassline and the sparse jangle of them guitars. The rest of Oh No is as good, if not better than this.

No one changes styles like The Apples In Stereo. They manage to keep themselves full of hooks and pop charm on the album New Magnetic Wonder, which trades The Velocity of Sound's fuzzy punk for a more art-rock approach. "Sunndal Song" sounds old and new at the same time, just like the record as a whole.

After Nina Gordon left Veruca Salt for her solo career, things got mighty heavy. "Save You", from the EP Lords of Sounds and Lesser Things, manages to bridge the gap between old and new Veruca Salt. Which is harder than it sounds, with half the creative team behind the songs now gone.

Fewer people have had years as good as Timbaland is having on 07. Huge hits from his produced acts, Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake, encouraged him to release a record full of one-offs and oddball gems entitled Shock Value. "Throw It On Me", a collaboration with Swedish rockers The Hives, is one such track - a driving guitar anthem buried in Timba's production with a thrusting chorus and goofy raps for verses.

When Blink 182 split up, the two bands that emerged, Box Car Racer (now Angels and Airwaves) and +44. The better of the two, +44, fill their songs with lyrical barbs and sharp hooks. From the album When Your Heart Stops Beating, "Baby, Come On" starts soft and ends heavy, like all good songs.

I haven't seen Social Distortion in about 10 years, but I remember each and every time they came through St. Louis. The release of Social Distortion in 1990 is a big deal to me, because without that record, who knows where I would have ended up. "It Coulda Been Me", with the laundry list of possible outcomes for people - prison, marriage, drug addiction, suicide - was a spiritual kindred to Jim Carroll's "People Who Died", both potent songs about the times.

The Pipettes are a charming trio of English ladies who use old-school pop music to deliver modern ideas. In "One Night Stand", and all over We Are The Pipettes, they sing girl-group songs that The Supremes wouldn't have ever dreamt of.

It's funny that Achille's Heel, the most recent album from Pedro The Lion, may be his own Achilles Heel. Songs like "Discretion" take the Pedro template and add more guitars, pop song structure and a bit more verve, making something fresh.

A lot of ink was spilled on Living Things, a St. Louis band who got dropped from a big name label for their anti-Bush stage antics. But few were really ready for the album, Ahead of The Lions. It's a blast of Iggy Pop and Motorhead, full-throttle old school rock. "Monsters of Man" is one of the fuzziest, grungiest examples. (There is a horn, buried somewhere in there...)

I had totally forgotten about No Knife, until I found my copy of Riot For Romance buried in a desk drawer. And I'm really glad I did. These guys have hooks to spare, lyrics that cut and arrangements that are often rivaling those of art-rock gods Minus The Bear. They've been around for 10+ years (1995 was their first cd, Drunk On The Moon.) and you should most definitely check them out - starting with "The Red Bedroom".

Righteous handclaps? Check. Vitriolic rhymes? Double check. "Bleed It Out" from Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight continues to impress - their style gets flipped on its hygenic head for this raw clap-along rock number.

Apparently, a song my band does sounds like the intro to "Monster" by The Automatic. Thanks to Chad for hooking me up with this record, Not Accepted Anywhere. Their songs are excellent rock numbers with a dense echo-ey guitar and a disco beat. Awesome.

2007 was the year of the Return of the Reverend. Horton Heat, that is. The appropriately titled Revival continues the Rev. Horton Heat legend, filled with great tunes and plenty of rockabilly attitude. The title track, "Revival" chugs along on its own energy and smolders in its own ashes towards the end. Classic Rev.

My friend Ken introduced me to The Start in 1999, but I had since forgotten about them. Then I saw the cover art for the album Ciao, Baby! and it came back to me. "Blood On My Hands" is a great example of the dance-y rock songs that make The Start so excellent.

The Grates, lead by elastic-voiced charmer Patience Hodgson, is fun, bouncy music with shades of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and other New York bands. On Gravity Won't Get You High, the guitars are sharp and angular, the vocals are yelped, moaned and squealed, the songs are ridiculous and the overall result is amusing rock music - songs like "19-20-20" included.

A lot of people I know hate on The Mighty Mighty Bosstones for their successful albums and pop radio hits. They completely ignore the fact that these ska-core devils pre-date alot of their contemporaries and have been crafting ska/rock songs for decades. Including "Don't Know How to Party" from the EP of the same name.

Falling victim to the dreaded Sophomore Slump, Broken Social Scene's second record, Broken Social Scene, is doing miserably on the charts while getting excellent reviews. And those reviewers couldn't be more right. "Fire Eye'd Boy" and a handful of others from the album, deserve to be revered for the messy pop gems that they are.

Chicago hip-hop has been and remains my favorite strain. Adeem, now part of the 3-piece called Glue, is a breathless, big-brained flow maniac. On songs like "Beat Beat Beat" he crams words in like he's going to die any minute. It's that urgency that drives the album Catch as Catch Can and their previous record Seconds Away.

Canadian pop singers don't come any better than Feist. Pretty songs with delicate vocals are the norm on Feist's second album The Reminder and on songs like "I Feel It All". RIYL Regina Spektor, Cat Power.

How do you resist a raucous pirate-themed anthem from Irish punks Flogging Molly? You can't, you won't, just give up and rock out to "Seven Deadly Sins". The newest from Flogging Molly's massive Miles From Home, a solid slab of traditional Irish music wrapped in punk rock's tattered rags.

Tori Amos once said, "I guess you go too far, when pianos try to be guitars." It's appropriate then that "Teenage Hustling" features a real guitar and Tori's signature piano. Rock songs about on Ms. Amos' new record, American Doll Posse, each sung from a fractured perspective. This one from the vantage point of a reformed teenage ho, slinks and slides all over the place with its grinding guitar, stomping chorus and Tori's jagged glass vocals.