palewire

Today I released the latest installment in my continuing series of pop mixes.

Here’s how it goes: Every couple months I pull my favorite pop songs of the moment together in a play list. I’ve been doing it more than two years now. It ain’t much. I don’t beatmatch or spin it. I just pull the songs together.

Since 2006 is about to wrap up, I’ve included every mix from this year. You can find today’s tracks at the bottom.

My end of the year lists won’t be up on the site for a few days yet, but you’ll find a good share of the singles list here. If you want a copy of any of them, let me know, and I’ll set you up.

Poplife 01.26.06

1. The Delays - Cavalry
2. The Darkness - Knockers
3. Robyn - Be Mine!
4. Goldfrapp - Ride A White Horse
5. Jah Cure - Love Is
6. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
7. Girls Aloud - Models
8. Junior Senior - We R The Handclaps
9. Madonna - Sorry [Man With Guitar Remix]

Poplife 04.14.06

1. Amine - J’voulais
2. Girls Aloud - Swinging London Town
3. Ashlee Simpson - L.O.V.E.
4. Mylo - Doctor Pressure [Dirty Radio Edit]
5. Tiga - Far From Home [Radio Edit]
6. Marit Larsen - Don’t Save Me
7. The Hussys - Snowboard
8. Gary Allan - Life Ain’t Always Beautiful
9. The Concretes - On The Radio
10. Alan Braxe & Fred Falke f. Savage - Bliss”[Original Mix]
11. Texas - What About Us [Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duke Remix]

Poplife 06.18.06

1. Go Home Productions - Freeezing Rain
2. Puffy AmiYumi - Call Me What You Like
3. Clipse - Re-Up Anthem [Nick Catchdubs Remix]
4. VHS or Beta - You Got Me
5. Yellowcard - Lights and Sounds
6. Phoenix - Long Distance Call
7. Lily Allen - LDN
8. Annie - The Crush [And The Left-Handed Richard X's Remix]
9. Pet Shop Boys - Twentieth Century
10. Coldplay - Talk [Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duke Remix]

Poplife 08.19.2006

1. Basement Jaxx - Hush Boy [Radio Edit]
2. The Similou - All This Love [Original Version]
3. The Pipettes - Pull Shapes
4. Scissor Sisters - Don’t Feel Like Dancing
5. Bertine Zetlitz - 500
6. Nelly Furtado - Say It Right
7. Pet Shop Boys - Flamboyant [Michael Mayer Remix]
8. Stephin Merritt - Ukulele Me

Poplife 11.28.06

1. The Killers - When You Were Young [Jacques Lu Cont's Thin White Duke Radio Edit]
2. Scissor Sisters - Lights
3. Basement Jaxx - Take Me Back To Your House
4. Luke Haines - Off My Rocker At The Art School Bop
5. The Hold Steady - Chips Ahoy!
6. Charlotte Gainsbourg - The Songs That We Sing
7. Sally Shapiro - I’ll Be By Your Side [Club Remix]

Duty calls for another online poll. This time the challenge is to name the best albums of the 1990s and order them by their relative quality.

The polling is weighted. One hundred points can be distributed among your top 10, with a maximum of 30 points for any one entry. A more savvy voter might have made his weighting decisions based upon political intent, perhaps by throwing more points behind an album judged to have a better shot of finding a consensus and topping the ultimate listing. But, playing this one by the book, I just tried to quantify my opinion in an orderly fashion.

So, yes, I guess that means I think Different Class is seven times better than Elastica. Which, now that i think about it, is pretty crazy. That album’s awesome.

Anyway, as usual, let me know what I’m an idiot for forgetting. And feel free to post your list in the comments. That would be cool.

30. Super Furry Animals - Guerrilla (2)
29. Belle and Sebastian - Tigermilk (2)
28. Massive Attack - Blue Lines (2)
27. Paul Westerberg - 14 Songs (2)
26. The KLF - White Room (2)
25. Pete Rock and CL Smooth - Mecca and the Soul Brother (2)
24. Fugazi - In on the Kill Taker (2)
23. The Coup - Steal This Album (2)
22. Jay-Z - Reasonable Doubt (2)
21. Pet Shop Boys - Very (2)
20. Rawkus Presents - Soundbombing, Vol. II (3)
19. Boards of Canada - Music has the Right to Children (3)
18. Yo La Tengo - Electr-O-Pura (3)
17. Oasis - Definetely Maybe (3)
16. Outkast - Aquemini (3)
15. Daft Punk - Homework (3)
14. Pulp - This is Hardcore (3)
13. Blur - Parklife (3)
12. Flaming Lips - Transmissions from the Satellite Heart (3)
11. Depeche Mode - Violater (3)
10. Elastica - Elastica (3)
9. Primal Scream - Screamadelica (3)
8. Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the 36 Chambers (3)
7. Pet Shop Boys - Behavior (4)
6. Saint Etienne - Tiger Bay (8)
5. Fugazi - Repeater (9)
4. My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (10)
3. Belle and Sebastian - If You’re Feeling Sinister (19)
2. Nas - Illmatic (20)
1. Pulp - Different Class (21)

A lot can change in two years. Just ask Donald Rumsfeld. Or Claire McCaskill. On Election Day 2004, Matt Blunt defeated the Missouri state auditor in the open race to be Missouri’s governor. Last night, the same electorate saw her name on the ballot again and this time chose her over incumbent U.S. Sen. Jim Talent.

I’ve pulled together a simple spreadsheet you can download here that racks the numbers and runs some comparisons. The quickest thing to scan is where McCaskill improved the most, which finds the largest vote share increases in Clark, Scotland, Lewis, Schuyler and Shannon counties. Each sent McCaskill greater than 10 percentage points more than last time around.

Those are some impressive leaps, but perhaps more crucial were the slightly smaller increases she won in larger, still predominately Republican counties like Greene, Jasper and Christian, each of which delivered a considerably larger amount of her overall vote total than in 2004.

I’m far from an expert on Missouri politics (I only lived there two years), but it seems pretty impressive that McCaskill was able to bump her share in Greene county by more than five percentage points. It seems likely that she had a harder time there last time around because Springfield is Matt Blunt’s home ballpark, but I wonder what these changes might be able to tell us about the state’s political landscape. Certainly, there are all the shake-and-bake explanations we’ve heard ad nauseum on the cable news for more than a month now, but I suspect a knowledgeable nose could sniff out something fresh here. If you’ve got one, why don’t you give it a shot? Could be fun.