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X Ecutioners - It's Going Down
Weeks on Chart: 10 Peak: # 32 (April 2002) buy it!
It's Going Down is from the Built From Scratch CD by New York turntable experts X Ecutioners. X Ecutioners have worked with a number of guest vocalists and musicians. It's Going Down features rapper Mike Shinoda and DJ Joseph Hahn from Linkin Park. It's Going Down sounds like a good Linkin Park song. The absence of Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington is a plus in my mind. Bennington's angry wail is undoubtedly a big part of Linkin Park's huge success but I mostly find it unpleasant. X Ecutioners have laid down a tight mix with a good, hard sound. Working with a tough guitar riff, solid beats, samples, record scratching and Shinoda's rap, they've created a no nonsense collage of sound that keeps coming. It's Going Down is about how the song's "audible odyssey" "reflects the complex hybrid dialect" and "melting pot of a super futuresque style." Raps bragging about the originality of a musical style are nothing new but It's Going Down's lyric, like the song itself, is solid and unpretentious.
XTC - I'm The Man Who Murdered Love
Weeks on Chart: 6 Peak: # 44 (Aug. 2000) buy it!
XTC's last CD, Apple Venus Vol.1, was a well made but very subdued record. Wasp Star(aka Apple Venus Vol.2) is considerably more fun and lively. I'm The Man Who Murdered Love is reminiscent of their cheeky, energetic rock songs Peter Pumpkinhead and Mayor of Simpleton. Despite its topic, Man Who Murdered Love is high spirited with a good, clear guitar line. Andy Partridge shows his ability to be simultaneously cynical and light hearted. He sings that he's doing a job for all humanity, assuring there'll be no more pain from broken hearts. He claims that, after a bad century, love begged to be put out of his misery.
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