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[title][video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBcPZXQPdsE]
“Video Games”
Lana Del Rey[fivestar:4]
A great voice is like a great cinematographer. Through its filter, pretty crummy material can be made beautiful. And the pipes of expertly manufactured ingenue Lana Del Rey are like Janusz Kaminski’s lens to a Kingdom of the Crystal Skull–quality tune. The lyrics are inane. Liz Phair bad. “Open up your beer and you say get over here and play a video game,” she purrs. Her beau may be an Xboxing man-boy, but he does possess the unique ability to go about “whistlin’ [her] name.” An unlikely linguistic feat, but still not as impressive as Del Rey’s voice, which is pure silk and slim cigarettes. The newcomer slithers through the song like Veronica Lake, pouting her anaphylactic lips and batting her vampire eyelashes.
The slo-mo, swooning backdrop sprinkles harp, bummed-out piano and drunken strings. It’s gorgeous, and enough to overcome rhyming “I say you’re the bestest” with “lean in for a big kiss.” She’s a femme fatale for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slqQ4ND8NGY]
“Leck Mich Im Arsch”
Jack White & Insane Clown Posse[fivestar:1]
Jack White moved to Nashville years ago. He gave up on Detroit. I point this out to note that the etiolated rock guru has no good excuse for working with the Insane Clown Posse. The two painted Juggalos shout detailed instructions on how to toss their salad over Mozart loops (sigh) and chunks of guitar sludge (provided by JEFF the Brotherhood, whom we’re also not letting off the hook). Oddly, there’s some historical basis for this scatological raunch. In his vocal canon Difficile lectu, the mischievous Mozart penned a bit of pidgin Latin, “lectu mihi mars.” It’s a phonetic twin for the German phrase “Lick my ass.” This is all probably the idea of Jack White, not the doofs who think that magnets are the work of wizards. White has made records with Conan and Colbert, too. It’s all just a joke. But when Violent J asks, “Yo, is this BEETH OVEN?” it’s a 20-year-old joke stolen from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.