Oh, Manchester, So Much To Answer For

Fuckin' A, "Lucky Star" by Basement Jaxx featuring Dizzee Rascal rocks my body the way I wanna rock J-Tim's. It rocks me like a hurricane and kicks like a mule - especially played loud, on headphones. The Jaxx just push the meters into the red, up to 11, piling on everything they can think of and then taking additional suggestions from the audience (flamenco guitars!). Dizzee rips shit like a cheetah biting into a tender gazelle for dinner - is he the most important, not British, but from-any-land MC at the moment? "Lucky Star" is an incredibly subversive single (not song, single, as in available-in-stores - except in the fucking U.S., of course), bending over the pop form like PiL's "Public Image." [For those who've forgotten, it was Armand Van Helden who said a few years back that Jaxx had taken house music and "fucked it up the ass." Who's gonna disagree?] Just with this one single, they've upped the ante considerably, but when you add on the thoroughly smashing album of the year Kish Kash, Simon and Felix are clearly operating in another league now. Beyoncé, honey, I'm sorry, but you're gonna have to step down; there's a new single of the year in town.