Sluncho's Listenings of the Week 3/1/10 - 3/7/10

DJ Sven - "Hurt the Casbah" (T.I. ft. Busta Rhymes Vs. The Clash)

Hot damn, this is somethin'. I was never really hip to the mashup and remix scene, but I've been digging lately and found all sorts of out-there stuff. Slovakia's Bozky Karol is one of the biggest talents in the scene, masterfully combing the absolute weirdest things to create hardcore dancefloor slammers. The beat here kills, jiving perfectly with each verse, Mick Jones' searing guitar a perfect compliment to the fierce gangsta swagger. The piano hits are timed masterfully, and it's come to the point where I can't listen to the original version of either of the tracks involved without thinking about how well they work together.

The Clash - "Straight to Hell"

It's rare that a punk band manages to pull off a track possessing genuine emotional depth. The British scene in particular consistently almost entirely of emotionally detached, apathetic groups like The Sex Pistols (Johnny Rotten rarely rises above a disinterested snarl, and when he does he's shrieking like a man possessed). The Clash always stood out as the odd men out in the punk scene, anyway, so it's unsurprising that I credit them as the only punk band to have written a song that moved me to tears. Instantly recognizable for its wonderful melody (famously sampled by M.I.A. for the fucking brilliant "Paper Planes), "Straight to Hell" was one of the big standout tracks on the oft-maligned Combat Rock and it's a tune of incredible emotional power. Attacking social injustices ranging from the closure of the factories that provided Britain's working class with an income and a meaning in life to the abandonment of Vietnamese children sired by American soldiers after the war, "Straight to Hell" is a song with a strong social conscious even by The Clash's standards. The sparse instrumentation aids Joe Strummer's passionate delivery, toning down his characteristic yelp to suit the mood. It's hard to listen to this song without feeling just a tiny bit downbeat, there's a sense of melancholy to it that I'd say is more universal than even the generic notion of "love" that pervades modern songwriting.