Listen to this fucking voice. Does it not sound just like Aretha? I got a jones for this type of singing; gospel that is. This is God-loving music that makes your soul shimmy. And what’s even better than some soul-stirring gospel with phat rhodes and rollicking piano licks? At about 3:30 Ms. Nesby’s riffs just start piling up over a walking bassline and an off-beat synth clap. So Much Joy has the slowest most incredible breakdown one could imagine. When I heard this I knew it probably circulated down in Miami, especially in the circles I would have walked, but I know I would have remembered it. That distinctive wail said praise’m. Hard to believe this woman has had 5 top 10 singles in the dance charts right under my nose (well, in the early ninties so more like under my double chin) AND starred in a terrible Beyonce film.

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I knew that I loved Keane, despite my anti-VH1 prejudices, the first time I heard them. I believe I was peddling at DIR in Barcelona and they came on the closed circuit music station. The lush piano and warm, childlike vocals took me back to when I loved Coldplay and all those other post-shoegazing British pop groups. The new album, Under The Iron Sea, is really just more of the same cushy chords and dollface lyrics; ultimately I’ve decided that the absence of a guitar doesn’t bother me. Is it any wonder, being that this IS a band from the UK, that they got a great remix by an elite British DJ? I mean, if Tall Paul doesn’t have two kids by an African-born model yet, I’d be surprised. The only other remix I have of his is his rockin’ vocal house take on Samantha Mumba’s Bowie rip-off: Body II Body. This Keane number is pretty by the books and sounds strikingly like one or two U2 remixes I’ve heard before, but what can I say … I love me some bouncey, friendly, indiepop with a kick drum under it.

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Recently I realized that most of the music I like is being produced by people my age. It was one of those revelations akin to the day I noted that I was no longer younger than the casts of The Real World and thus had to take responsibility for the sad actions of my generation. The Sunshine Underground is a youngish band from Leeds that has been supporting LCD Soundsystem and taking the UK rock club circuit by storm. They have a new single out, freshly minted with a gorgeous, bass-laden Serge Santiago remix. Santiago, formerly half of the bootylicious duo Radioslave, has churned out a steady stream of vocal, guitar-filtered, indiedance anthems since leaving Matt Edwards’ side last year. He recently did a sturdy mix for Tim Sweeney’s Beats In Space show as well.

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No, its not that Madonna happens to be 48 that made being on the floor at her show in Boston tonight grotesque. Its that her fanbase, or at least the fans with the cheddar to shell out $350 for seats so close, is much older than that. I could smell people rotting around me and hear them deriding die-hard fans who were standing in front of them prior to the start of the show (yes, before the music even started grandma was getting bitchy). I could tell that the “dancing queen,” as she so proudly dubbed herself by virtue of wearing a satin cape with said text embroidered on the back, has pretty much lost all sense of what is interesting. If it weren’t for Stuart Price backing her up on the mixing boards she’d be right up there with Celine Dion performing every night in Vegas. Hell, her latest stage show, apart from some wicked visuals of horses and scantily clad people of color wearing S&M equestrian masks, relied on Jesus imagery and the Clinton Foundation to give it an avant garde underpining. Even when Madonna burns and pilages foreign cultures her poor taste usually comes off as ridiculous rather than offensive. Thank God the bitch can still dance. This joint is an excellent example of what went right in the early ninties: Sassy organ, glockenspiel, and that ridiculously slow house beat that betrays the secret roots of great dance music: r’n'b.

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