Dean Gray "American Edit": Aidin Vaziri | With "American Idiot," Green Day ditched its punk past, lifted a bunch of chords from the Time-Life library of classic rock and embraced a production style so slick that even Nickelback would wince. The album may have sold 4 million copies, but ultimately the whole thing felt a bit hollow. That is until rogue remix duo Dean Gray (a.k.a. Party Ben, pictured left, and Team 9) took apart the disc's original tracks, stirred in hits by the likes of Johnny Cash, Kanye West and Depeche Mode, and diligently restored each one with the fun and cunning the East Bay trio had seemingly outgrown. In the spirit of DJ Danger Mouse's "Grey Album," which brilliantly mashed up the Beatles' "White" album with Jay-Z's "Black" album, "American Edit" bristles with creativity at every turn. Released free online, the set acts as both criticism and tribute, revealing the band's embarrassing source material (the Bangles and Dire Straits, who knew?) while applauding its sheer audacity. "Novocaine" is seamlessly grafted onto Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," the "Doctor Who" theme makes a snug fit with the chorus of "Holiday," while the Eagles' "Lying Eyes" provides an eerily appropriate soundtrack for "Wake Me Up When September Ends." The real triumph, however, is "Boulevard of Broken Songs," an epic reconstruction of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" that takes in unlicensed samples from Oasis, Aerosmith, Travis and Missy Elliott. It's the best Green Day track, even if the band had nothing to do with it. The site that hosted the initial bootlegs may have been shut down with a Warner Bros. cease-and-desist order, but that hasn't stopped indignant bloggers from spreading the MP3 files all over the Internet.
We Are Scientiests "With Love and Squalor": Aidin Vaziri | Bands with beards are usually bad news. You never know if they're going to take their shirts off and start doing Doors covers, or if they're going to throw a Frisbee at your head. Fortunately, We Are Scientists' questionable choice in facial hair (actually only one member has a beard, but it feels like more) doesn't get in the way of good taste. The Brooklyn trio's debut album is reassuringly modern, in that it sounds as if it should have come out in 1983. Perfect timing. Opening track "Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt," complete with big guitars and a nagging chorus, is also the best, mainly because it includes the line "If you want to use my body go for it." No sense in trying to top that, so the rest of the album sees the band cycling through vintage pop-punk riffs, giddy new wave melodies and songs like "Callbacks" and "The Great Escape" that Hot Hot Heat would kill for.
Sia "Colour The Small One": Aidin Vaziri | Sia might be best known for breathily singing on several tracks for chillout charlatans Zero 7, but don't hold that against her -- nor the fact that her father was one of Men at Work. The Australian-born London singer has the kind of voice that's impossible not to love. Not as vacant as Dido, nor as insistent as Cat Power, it exists somewhere in between, floating over a bed of strings, sly jazz grooves and highly effective drum loops. "Breathe Me," which turned into a minor sensation after playing in the last scene of "Six Feet Under," is a thing of wonder, a song that explodes without ever raising the pressure. Meanwhile, bittersweet numbers like the Latin-flavored "Sweet Potato" and "The Bully," co-written by Beck, confirm that "Colour the Small One" is gorgeous listening from beginning to end. Album of the year, already?
