Hot Mix 2013: #60 to 51

| Hot Mix 2013 on Spotify |

| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

60. Big Sean ft. Nicki Minaj & Juicy J “MILF”
Instead of approaching "MILF" as a sequel to "Dance(A$$)(Remix)," Sean and Nicki sorta took the route of Tommy Boy & Black Sheep, casting the same chemistry partners in a different scenario. The result is probably the weirdest love song of the year, describing the complexities of falling for a MILF. We thought the kids were singing "Man on my mama," but Rap Genius reveals it's "Man, not my mama." When the kids aren't looking, Big Sean eats their snacks. When Seany's not looking, they're peeping through the keyhole. It's implied that Nicki Minaj plays the part of the 50-something MILF on welfare with fake teeth, an interesting twist that would fit more typically in a bizarre Sundance Festival film than within modern hiphop.
https://soundcloud.com/hot-hhc-band/big-sean-ft-nicki-minaj-juicy

59. Ariana Grande featuring Mac Miller “The Way”
For some reason, "the song on the summer" seemed to have been emphasized through internet and radio marketing more so than in previous summers, and "The Way" def wins for top 5 summer 2013 jams, beating out "Blurred Lines" by a long shot. Thicke's and Pharrell's interpolation of "Got To Give It Up" didn't add as much sweetness (and dopeness, frankly) as Ariana's triple-thick frosting spread over the "Still Not A Playa" cupcake. By the time April showers turned to July thundershowers, "The Way" became inescapable and familiar enough to remove her Mariah similarities from the equation, embodying the jam entirely, and significantly upping the ante from Thalia and Fat Joe's interpolation ten years prior.
https://soundcloud.com/macmillersongs/ariana-grande-the-way-ft-mac

58. Krill “Never a Joke”
Apart from having one of the catchiest earworm-basslines of the year, "Never a Joke" derives from the LP that spawned this historic blurb from our staff writers: When your path crosses Krill getting wasted in the gutter, they won't shout expletives at you or ask for change. They might not even want your attention. But if you give them 3 minutes, you'll be in on the joke. Despite its endearing wit, this record's enormity never quits. Bummer slack. Stay in bed for a week. Some of those caterwauls might be hiccups. - Staff writers.


57. Cultes des Ghoules “The Passion of a Sorcereess”
The song title suggests witchcraft, but we're hearing Satanic stews a-brewin'. Right when “Sorceress” hits the throttle within its first minute, the rhythm section and guitars quickly lose any sense of synchronicity, suggesting stumblingly drunk raw power. Halfway through, Fred Phelps (or someone) condemns the heathens just before a monstrously thrashy riff brings it home for 4 or 5 minutes, only occasionally joined by Cultes' vocalist, scream-laughing while shoveling the non-believer souls into the eternal incinerator.


56. Jay-Z featuring Rick Ross “Fuckwithmeyouknowigotit”

We're happy to announce this as the first Hot Mix since 2009 with no Drake. Praise the Lord. (Unless you wanna count the cliched Drake-influenced bassline in this surprisingly chill banger.)

55. Vanessa Paradis “Love Song”
Yeah, we simply dug the song and assumed she was a more recent breaking artist, but it turns out she's been releasing shit since the late 80s and is famous enough to have dated Johnny Depp for something like 12 years (and bore his child). But whether or not she's an officially certified celeb makes little difference to Hot Mix 2013. The reason "Love Song" made the cut has everything to do with the boner-generating bouncy bass line and faux-untrained whispery vocal delivery, falling somewhere between two French vocalists who we can't completely pin down at the moment, so let's just go with Serge Gainsborg and France Gall. Sure, why not...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QdWxKDdx_4

54. Action Bronson & Party Supplies “Contemporary Man”
A less adventurous pairing of DJ & Rapper might have split this into 5 or 6 separate jams. Leave it to Party Supplies to make good on his chosen DJ name, serving up mostly familiar samples from more unexpectedly uncovered areas of 80s MTV than Puff Daddy's first solo record...
- “Sledgehammer”: Officially certified monster sample. Who knew?
- “Sussudio”: Always reliable as one of the all time so-bad-it's-good ironic bangers, but sounding way more enormous in this context, only slightly chopped & screwed. (Sounds like he lowered the turntable speed a bit.)
- “Jack & Diane”: Sampled tastefully enough to make up for Jessica Simpson's abysmal “I Think I'm In Love” almost entirely. Almost.
- “Another Day in Paradise”: The biggest surprise of all, since we've never liked this song, but now we sneak it onto our Spotify playlists when no one's looking. That's the positive power of Party Supplies. Guilty pleasures don't exist? Pshh.
- The fifth sample: Not sure what song this is, but Bronson's double-tracked once-sung refrain sets up the pins nicely for the mini-verse of dopeness that follows.
- The last sample: A weird finale, but sometimes serious ragers come to strange conclusions. Hey, that's party life.
https://soundcloud.com/jukeboxdc/09-action-bronson-party

53. Nelly featuring Nicki Minaj & Pharrell “Get Like Me”
Throwing some Minaj into the mixture was a nice touch, but not enough to launch “Get Like Me” into its well deserved placement within the Top 40 stratosphere. Most fans of Pharrell who've been awaiting some sort of Neptunes resurgence probably expected it to sound like this song, as opposed to his two genuine summer 2013 megahits. Under normal circumstances (if Top 40 radio hadn't completely turned to shit over the past 2-3 years), “Get Like Me” could have easily fit into heavy rotation. Unfortunately, Nelly and Pharrell shot for an era of nostalgia that wasn't marketable in 2013, with a beat that was dope as hell, albeit less than immediate. There's always next summer.
https://soundcloud.com/jaifrigginlala/nelly-get-like-me-ft-nicki

52. My Bloody Valentine “If I Am”
The past few years have been rough times for the most mysterious rock stars. Since Loveless, Kevin Shields remained elusive as his records grew more legendary, only intensified as the years progressed without a follow up. By the time it was finally released, MBV arrived long after legend-debunking trolls began fueling an age of anti-mystique, discouraging mystery and legend, suddenly placing every article and interview piece very close by to anyone with access to Google searches. The intensely layered guitar jings and effects pedal filtering transcends past the debunkers, preserving the mystique required for their sparkly brand of spacewarp. We're also guessing the last 15 seconds of this song are everything that precedes played backwards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ0axgeNbWU

51. Daft Punk featuring Pharrell “Get Lucky (Radio Edit)”
Ten years on, the phenomenon of the unclassifiable indie/R&B/hiphop crossover continues, following a decent lineage of songs that typically place at #1 on Spin Magazine's favorite singles of the year: “Hey Ya,” “Feel Good Inc,” “Crazy,” “Paper Planes,” and “Fuck You.” This time around, it only makes sense for EDM to fall somewhere into this crossover equation, nicely laying down the red carpet just in time for “Get Lucky” to take the world by storm. After quickly getting suckered into its brilliant marketing campaign, many of us assumed throughout May and June that “Get Lucky” was the bees knees of summer jams. While this assumption failed to hold water, it's still dope enough to qualify as “essential summer 2013” (far more so than “Blurred Lines” or “Applause”) and the best song from a slightly disappointing albeit decent record. (LP version is about 2 minutes too long. Radio edit wins.) P.S. “Song of the summer” seems to have turned into an annoying internet marketing phrase. Expect an attempt to repeat of this next year with similar-sounding dancey stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qhd5_JeRQYI

| Hot Mix 2013 on Spotify |

| #100 - 91 | #90 - 81 | #80 - 71 | #70 - 61 | #60 - 51 |
| #50 - 41 | #40 - 31 | #30 - 21 | #20 - 11 | #10 - 1 |

Summer Jamz report & The "New Shit" Radar featuring Yeezus, No Age, Two Inch Astronaut, Fat History Month, ASG, Ryan Power, Ovlov, Speedy Ortiz, Washed Out

Summer Jams 2013
Did we mention that our chief editor fired the entire staff two weeks ago? That explains the infrequent updates. Well that, and the excitement over June-fest, which is sadly almost half over without any big posts.

Summer Jams report is here to help in any way we can.

It's been years since this many summer jams have shown up all at once. (Maybe since 2007. That's a long time ago.) But we're damn good and ready:

Daft Punk "Get Lucky": along with whatever other singles they end up releasing. Duh.

Bruno Mars "Treasure": Yes we're serious. This placed somewhere in the 40s or 50s on our Hot Mix 2012, and we've been pumped to hear radio catching onto it.

Mariah Carey & Miguel "#Beautiful": "Get Lucky," "Treasure" and "#Beautiful" are part of an unexpectedly outstanding trifecta of Top 40 singles that actually sound summery. It's been years since this has come together so nicely, and more summer jams have been proven to assist the vibe's longevity (or "gevity" as Yeezus would say). For example, summer 2012: We were stuck with the standalone summery-sounding "Call Me Maybe" which got old very quickly because it was literally the only good song on the radio for 2 months.

Disclosure "When a Fire Starts to Burn": A P4k jam, and not something we expect to be all over the radio anytime soon. But the hipsters need summer jams too sometimes.

Deerhunter "Back to the Middle": Summer air-guitar in the car.

YEEZUS: With all the "event" albums over the past few months (most of which we're still pretty psyched on), it's possible that we've found the jam album that's gotten us most excited. It's only be a few hours, but we're nearly ready (prematurely?) to go all out and label this "The album of the summer." (Sorry Daft Punk.)

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Alright kids, time for THE NEW SHIT RADAR, brought to you by THE INNERNETTE


Kanye West "On Sight"
Thank you leak. Pant fulla bone fully realized. Any attempts to upload these songs to Youtube over the past 3-4 hours have proven unsuccessful, but this shit here might be enough...


No Age "C'mon Stimming"
Def a grower. Normally we would have quickly made this song our top story, but ya'know... Yeezus. (P.S. No Age is still our #1 band of the moment. But I mean c'mon... Yeezus. The fucking Kid A of rap has arrived.)


Two Inch Astronaut "Sternum"
Something weird's been going on when a band leaks five songs from their album prior to its release, but we have no complaints since it's enabled us to get half the album firmly planted in our heads prior to June 18 when the whole thing can finally be processed as a whole. This one got stuck about 2 hours ago:


Fat History Month "Sad History Month"
Intensely deep. Loss for words at how crazy this song is. This is one of those songs that's so good that it's urging us to do exactly what we didn't want to do this December and actually go through with an entire Hot Mix 2013 list all over again. (Damn you Fat.)


ASG "Avalanche"


Ryan Power "New Attitude"


Ovlov "Nu Punk"


Speedy Ortiz "No Below"


Washed Out "It All Feels Right"

Daft Punk "Get Lucky"

No one's sure what this new Daft Punk song is supposed to be called, but it sounds like they're singing "Get Lucky" over and over, so this is possibly the title.

We're still huge suckers for new exciting types of marketing campaigns that successfully build huge levels of anticipation for a forthcoming release. The mini-documentaries on Vice and the commercials shown during SNL have our balls wound up pretty tight. One of the many gifts the internet age has provided is immediacy, and music fans generally don't have to wait very long to hear a hugely anticipated release. So far, the only available music from Daft Punk's forthcoming collection are two 30 second clips of the same song, presumably the first single.

While Homework, Discovery and Human After All were all huge records, Daft Punk's tour in 2007 (two years after their last official full-length) somewhat marked what we consider their first official moment of household-name type superstardom. And thanks to the advent of dubstep, 2013 is officially the pinnacle of EDM's popularity. Random Access Memories is their first release since these events, creating a carefully honed moment of attack which has unquestionably resulted in their most anticipated record to date, and probably the most anticipated record of the year, period (with regards to My Bloody Valentine ... A lot of people waited a very long time to hear M B V, but ultimately more people will hear Random Access Memories).

90's Jams #8: Stardust "Music Sounds Better With You" (1998)

Deep ambiguous nostalgia... Is it retro 70's? 80's? 90's? "Love might bring us back together." Whenever "together" happened, it's clearly not happening now. Scattered memories are often a happy effect of weed consumption, which could possibly be the "You" in the song title, although the song itself mostly sounds like E. In any case, this fills up the listener with a rush of SOMETHING... Coursing through the bloodstream, and "feels so good." Perhaps love is this ultimate drug?

And then there's the middle section... Bangalter's sticks to his trademark "turn down the treble so it sounds like you're listening to the song being played at the apartment down the hallway" used previously in "Phoenix" and "Revolution 909" and pretty much every other song on Homework, and perfected in this case... The bass drum groove continues pumping, like our hearts continuing? To pound out of our chests? When a huge moment of our lives is right in front of us? Perhaps this is overthinking simplicity...

By the way, it might be tough to remember this, but Daft Punk and Chemical Brothers actually used to receive airplay on daytime MTV throughout Spring and Summer 1997. Hard to believe, but yes it's true, right around the time "Electronica" became a buzzword. Prodigy & Chem Bros recieved most of the hype for riding the wave commercially, while Daft Punk were the slow burner... "Around The World" got some daytime spins. By the time Stardust happened, MTV airplay was confined to AMP & 120 Minutes. Perhaps Gondry's most underrated video...