Our look back at all things 2010 continues this week as we highlight some of the year's most overlooked tracks. In this edition: club anthems.
Discodeine Featuring Jarvis Cocker, "Synchronize" (from the Synchronize 12") DFA sorta just snuck this collaboration between the French DJ duo and everyone's favorite pop sociologist out there in 2010, and it more or less slipped by unnoticed.
ranted, slipping by unnoticed is a favored songwriting tendency for Cocker, and amidst the syrupy disco strings and pulsating house piano of "Synchronize," he offers one of his uniquely sly thick descriptions-this sentence around the interpersonal machinations that go unseen on dancefloors. That's why Jarvis is here, and that's why we know him: he leans against the wall sipping a drink, noting his subjects writhing away to "organized noise," oblivious to each other at first. That's until one of them times their move just right, with the music, the beat, and the question of that other person-if you haven't been lucky enough to really do it, you've dreamed you could-and so suddenly, your heart starts beating in time with the drums. Jarvis: he slips out and grabs a cab.
Mark E. "You (Full Vocal Mix)" (from the Get Yourself Together 12") Diana Ross's 1978 single "You Were the One" is transcendent like so many of her legendary disco tracks. 32 years later, we note that it's got two key shortcomings: first, it's about 4 minutes too short.Second, she gets to the chorus waaaaaaay too soon.Birmingham-based house DJ Mark E. has thankfully rectified these heretofore unseen problems with this course on which, let's say, he lets the beat build.We don't hear Lady D until four-and-a-half minutes in, and still that appearance only comprises some rolling, repetitive vocables at first. We've been fascinated by his slow build, so it's okay. But no one's ready for the way he revs up the track's second half until the whole thing just explodes in joy at its conclusion, when we eventually get to that chorus we've been teasing ourselves with for so long. I've only danced to this strain on headphones so far in 2010, but I get a certain kind of thrill imagining the absolute destruction "You" can play on an actual dancefloor.
Scissor Sisters, "Invisible Light" (from Night Work) Jake Shears and co. buried the best song on Night Work at the end of the show with 2010's most telltale cover art. It makes sense when you mind to it-this matter is designed to just annihilate everything that comes after it. "Invisible Light" is, plain and simple, 2010's most indulgent, dramatic, lavish, and just plain weird dance anthem-the form of matter around which Weekend Update's Stefon could craft an entire exegesis. It pulls from the usual realms-Shears vacillates deliriously between a Neil Tennant-delivered monologue on the verses and Barry Gibb's honeyed yelp on the chorus-and adds only the right style of Animotion's classic "Obsession" for full measure, but that's only part of its thrill. Every moment of this monster just drips epic, like those big budget Frankie Goes to Hollywood camp classics that early MTV had to play, but had no thought how to decode. Open up your joy and the sailors climb the walls-fucking Gandalf is in the building.
Previously:The Most Overlooked Tracks of 2010: El Debarge Featuring Fabolous, Quadron, Travie McCoy Featuring Cee-LoThe Most Overlooked Tracks of 2010: Disappears, Future Islands, Luna Is HoneyThe Most Overlooked Tracks of 2010: Benoit Piolard, Groove Armada featuring Jess Larabee, Holly MirandaThe Most Overlooked Tracks of 2010: The Bad Plus, CocoRosie, Parenthetical GirlsThe Most Overlooked Tracks of 2010: Alley Boy and Young Dro, Trae, Husalah, and More