3/17/2007 Playlist (Clapping is the new lead guitar)
So I’ve recently been playing with SeeqPod, which is a nice little search engine that searches for publicly available audio and video content on the Web (it’s the same engine that powers Songerize) and then allows you to compile that content into an embedded flash player. I’ve been looking for a way to post playlists (you know, in lieu of actual written content) easily without having to go through the hassle of uploading everything myself, and kids, this just might be it. So here we go with what could be the first of many thrilling playlist adventures.
This particular playlist is all about the clappin’. Some time last summer, Madelyn Burgess, the bass player from Hula and I were talking about stuff, and naturally the subject of handclaps came up, because I don’t know how to talk about anything else. I declared that handclaps are the best thing that you can ever have in music, eclipsing gutars, horns, keyboards and the other stuff that, you know, white people like. Madelyn and I both declared that we would make competing tear-your-face-off clapping mixes and vote on who’s was better. After having established clear ground rules (artificial handclaps, as in Missy Elliot’s “Pass That Dutch” were acceptable, but audience participation handclaps were not, meaning all of “Frampton Comes Alive” got axed), we went to work. However, when time came to play and vote on our respective mixes, I voted for my clapping mix and Madelyn voted for hers, leaving us with no clear victor in the contest (unfortunately Delmar, our tiebreaker vote, simply voted for “you fellers”).
I don’t know if we’ll ever know who won, but I do think my original clapping mix was pretty strong; it featured both the remixed version of Herbie Hancock’s “Doin’ It” (the one with the mighty handclaps) and the German-language version of “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” This list here is kind of a distillation of that original mix, with some added stuff that’s come out in the last year or so. For whatever reason, 2007 saw an explosion in handclapping in music, which just convinced me that I was riding the crest of a wave with this whole thing. The new Spoon record has handclaps on almost every other song; ditto the recent Jens Lenkman, Menomena, Enon, etc., etc., etc. I’ve included some of those songs here, along with some classics.
I’d planned on writing more about what each song means to me, but now this post has already gone on longer than I’d planned. Suffice to say, I have done you, the listener, a favor by electing to include the remix version of N.E.R.D.’s “She Wants to Move” which sadly loses the delicious bridge, but mercifully also loses Pharell’s “her ass is a spaceship I want to ride” line. Enjoy the playlist, kids!
