In the Lounge
A perfect mix for end-of-summer lounging . . .
1. My Name Is Coco – Señor Coconut & His Orchestra
2. Yellow Magic (Tong Poo) – Señor Coconut & His Orchestra
A bored German DJ moves to Chile, takes up salsa, and adopts the nickname Señor Coconut. He forms an eight-piece Latin orchestra and with it covers the works of a seminal Japanese electronica band . . . who join him on the album. What?
3. Hello, Dolly – Mariachi Nuevo Tecalitlan
Somewhere between Louis Armstrong and Babs you’ll find mariachi. This horned-up version of the Broadway hit features legendary brothers Pepe Martínez Barajas and Fernando Martínez Barajas.
First of all, Nico Gomez is not, apparently, this person. Also, my favorite description of the album from which this track was lifted, Bossa Nova, calls it “a real peep into the mad mind” of said Señor Gomez. Indeed. So please. Samba responsibly.
I never tire of this song. It was written by the Cuban bandleader Compay Segundo, who testified, “I didn’t compose ‘Chan Chan,’ I dreamed it.” Imagine what it must have been like, then, to wake up in Morocco with this hunky French Algerian singing it. Weird.
Gal Costa is “an awarded singer,” which is Brazilian Portuguese for “awesome.” As a member of the Tropicalismo movement, she often flirted with prison, and on this album cover she was definitely flirting with the censors. They won. And yet, in a way, we all did.
“¡Hola, soy Celia Cruz!” Any song that begins with these words can’t be half bad. I would even go so far as to say that The Fugees are half good, although no one can outshine Cruz (the Shakira of her day)—even if they do have Lauryn Hill on their side.
8. Tip My Canoe – Dengue Fever
A bored L.A. hipster has a nasty run-in with a Cambodian mosquito. He and fellow white hipsters then form a band covering ’60s Cambodian psychedelia and find a real live Cambodian chick to do the vocals . . . in Khmer. What?
9. Sugar Shake – Danyel Gérard
Once upon a time, which is to say, 1963, a band from New Mexico with the outstanding name of Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs sang “Sugar Shack” [Mp3], a song which, among other things, extolled the virtues of a good espresso; surprisingly, it became a monster hit. Although Greil Marcus, in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, called it “the worst excuse for itself that rock and roll had yet produced,” that could hardly deter a baby-faced Frenchman from releasing an earnest cover. Why “Sugar Shake” and not “Sugar Shack”? Exactly.
10. D’ou Reviens-Tu Billie Boy? – Danyel Gérard
Although he would grow up to wear a beard and floppy hats, Gérard recorded this when he was still a teenager. The lyrics are said to be by the French dramatist Boris Vian, who died in 1959 while yelling at the screen during the screening of a film adaptation of one of his own novels. “These guys are supposed to be American? My ass!” Seriously.
11. Je t’aime tant – Julie Delpy
I haven’t seen those ever-so-serious indie flicks Delpy did with Ethan Hawke, but this song is from the first one. It features, counterintuitively, a plucked banjo. More predictable is that Oh-my-god-I’m-French!-style heavy breathing at the end. It’s code for “I wanna do you in the a-hole.”
12. Dirty Laundry – Bitter:Sweet
This song has everything: 007 drama, big horns, scratching turntables, electronic blips & blurs, a short interlude of salsa, and plenty of breathy come-ons courtesy of Shana Halligan.
13. Karma wa kimagure – Oui Oui (Nomiya Maki & Teramoto Rieko)
Boy George channeled through Shibuya-kei, which is an actual Japanese term that means, “You are not nearly hipster enough for our new stereophonic sound spectacular!”
14. Heart of Glass – Nouvelle Vague
Blondie channeled through Nouvelle Vague, which is a French phrase meaning François Truffaut. Listen carefully and you can hear the absurdity of all existence.
15. Suicide Is Painless – Johnny Mandel
In which the absurdity of all existence is dramatized in the form of a short ditty co-written by Mandel (music) and Mike Altman (lyrics) for Altman’s dad’s film M*A*S*H. Altman the Younger, by the way, was all of 14 when he penned the words. Bonus: “The attention of this video is of course NOT to say: kill yourself is a good way.” In case you were wondering.
16. Days Like This – Mose Allison
I must be on somebody’s list / A goblin tried to give me a kiss / Excuse me while I slash my wrist / They always told me there’d be days like this . . . Ooooooooh, Mose Allison is so cool. Even when threatening to off himself. Van Morrison, who has professed his love for Mose in the form of a tribute CD, also recorded a song (and a whole album) called “Days Like This” [Mp3], but he forgot one thing: the whole point of the song is that it’s supposed to be about a bad day!
17. Jan Pahechan Ho – Mohammed Rafi
You may remember this from Ghost World, but it originally appeared in the 1965 film Gumnaam, the opening sequence of which featured Rafi and Laxmi Chhaya jumping all around and singing and laughing in typical Bollywood style. The song’s Urdu title means, appropriately, “We should get to know each other!”
18. Body Building – Orchester Werner Müller
This is just juvenile.
19. Pussy Baby – Bill Lawrence
So is this. Sometimes that’s what Germany is for.
Keren Ann is Dutch and Israeli but now lives in France, where she has perfected that whole breathy thing (see Julie Delpy & Bitter:Sweet above). She is also half of the group Lady & Bird (the other half being Icelandic, one nationality that Ann, for once, is not), which, in 2003, recorded a devastating version of “Suicide Is Painless” [Mp3].
21. Harley Davidson – Brigitte Bardot et Serge Gainsbourg
Brigitte Bardot is a French phrase meaning “sex kitten.” Serge Gainsbourg is also French and roughly translates to “creepy old man who makes gross videos with his teenaged daughter.” Here they rev their engines together.
22. L’Ailleurs – Elli Medeiros
She’s not even French, for crying out loud! She’s from Uruguay. But she’s hot, which is born out by the fact that she was once in a band called The Stinky Toys.
Pour Molly.
ADDITIONALLY: Download the complete mix in a zip file.
PREVIOUSLY: The International Mix of Action and My Sweet Hunk o’ Trash and The Bix Mix
Comments