Every boy growing up asks the question: when will I become a man? A whole genre of self-help literature has tried to identify this hallowed demarcation. It?s the point that marks the emergence of the independent individual, leaving the vestiges of immature juvenile to the realm of skateboards, computer games and lad?s mags. I?ve heard it all.

?It?s when you get your first pay check.?

Hell no. I certainly didn?t feel the empowerment that comes with minimum wage.

?It?s when you first fall in love?

Don?t know. There?s a reason why I dance about architecture instead of, you know, engaging in a real relationship.

?It?s when you become a father?

Don?t want to know. I can barely look after myself.

Wherever you draw the boundaries, an artist making the transition to manhood is Bob Evans. This solo artist is better known in some circles as Kevin Mitchell, lead singer of pop/rock quartet Jebediah. These Australians experienced a wave of homeland popularity in the late 90s, releasing four albums of emo rockers (to make the kids jump around) and earnest ballads (to make the kids brood with angst). Jebediah?s bluster wasn?t exactly seminal, but back in the day every 15-year-old Australian would be screaming at their parents as ?Leaving Home? blasted from their CD player. Mitchell was barely older than the mosh pits in front of him and this leant his songs an authenticity where they perhaps lacked artistry and maturity.

However, the audience soon grew up and found jobs, married and began listening to Coldplay. Mitchell must have felt increasingly naff singing lyrics like ?What you see / Inside of me / Has been set free / When I’m wasted / Wasted,? because a few years ago he reinvented himself as the singer-songwriter Bob Evans. The first record, Suburban Kid, was a revelation: instead of electric guitars, there was a warm acoustic strum. Songs held a definite country twang?the antithesis to the moshpit-ready rockers of before. Mitchell affirmed his credentials as a talented songwriter, with addictive melodies and hooks in each song.

Most remarkable was his lyrical transformation. Opening track ?For Today? possessed the same lyrical earnestness of the Jebediah material, but there was honesty where before there was white noise. Lyrics were written with sincerity, rather than to fill the gap between the power chords and drum fills. Singing about ?girls who never called me back,? there was an effacement that could only come with maturity and, yes, being a man. Bob Evans/Kevin Mitchell no longer sings that ?I?m better off without you.? He now writes songs like ?Stevie?s Song,? singing that ?I?m really glad I?ve got you in my corner?.

So is the answer to the eternal question simply of unplugging your Stratocaster and picking up a Maton jumbo? Should I ditch ?Teenage Kicks? and listen to Gram Parsons? I don?t think so. When you?re a man, you just know. Despite what the music writer, critic, fan, in me would like to believe, you can?t find the answers to life in a pop song. However, Bob Evans/Kevin Mitchell?whatever the hell you want to call him?shows that nevertheless the proof is often in the music.

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Homage is a funny thing. The word can be used to describe anything from a subtle reference to another work to a complete rip-off. Maybe if the Red Hot Chili Peppers had announced �Dani California� as homage to Tom Petty they wouldn�t have come under such criticism. (I�m sure Kiedis and the boys are crying all the way to the bank.)

The Beach Boys, along with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, probably have more to complain about than Petty. Brian Wilson has been imitated by everyone from groups who have dedicated their careers to replicating their sound (High Llamas, The Wondermints) to those that simply wish to expand their sonic palette (everyone from The Beatles to Wilco). Clearly there is a fine line�sometimes a litigious line if Cat Stevens is involved�between paying tribute and stealing someone else�s song.

R.E.M. �At My Most Beautiful�

Now, R.E.M. is probably in my top five bands of all time; I believe them to be the best band of the 80s and one of the best bands of the 90s. Their work from Murmur to New Adventures in Hi-Fi, despite a few missteps, is unparalleled by any other group of their generation. Something happened when drummer Bill Berry left, though. While he was the one man in the group who seemed least essential, his absence left a massive, gaping hole from which they still haven�t recovered. And for some reason, instead of trying to fill that hole creatively, they became obsessed with Pet Sounds and decided to rip it off wholesale. It started with this track from Up.

I can see where they were going with this; �hey, lets have a Pet Sounds vibe on this one,� but as most of that album will prove to the discerning listener, the boys weren�t exactly at their songwriting peak, so instead they took the music from �God Only Knows,� slowed it down, maybe changed the key and had Michael Stipe sing a different vocal melody. It�s got the same string sections, vocal harmonizing breakdowns, and almost the exact same piano line�but I think the drum part may come from �Good Vibrations.� It�s not a bad song mind you; it�s an enjoyable listen and all�it�s just about as close to the Beach Boys classic as you can get without being taken to court. Hell, Brian Wilson could probably still take them to court, but he may still be smarting from that suit Chuck Berry filed to get sole writing credit for �Surfin USA.� Listen to their follow-up Reveal for even more Beach Boys aping.

J Mascis � �Take a Run at the Sun�

The last person you might expect to be able to make a viable Beach Boys homage would be the creaky voiced, distortion obsessed guitar hero from Dinosaur Jr.�but somehow he pulls it off effortlessly. Starting off with an intricate a capella harmony section, it quickly lunges into a surf guitar line backed by a theremin, probably the best instrument to use if you want to sound like the Beach Boys. But the theremin also brings with it some baggage; you�re basically comparing your song to �Good Vibrations.� Since Mascis was writing this song for the Grace of My Heart soundtrack�a love story about a Carole King type songwriter falling for the leader of a surf-rock band (Matt Dillon as a thinly disguised Brian Wilson)�he probably didn�t feel quite as constricted; he was supposed to be ripping off the Beach Boys.

The homage should be a fearless attempt to make a song that could possibly be proudly held against the work of the artist they�re honoring�no matter how difficult a task that may be. This is where R.E.M. went wrong�they were so humble in their attempt at a tribute that they were far too reverent to Wilson�s style.

And that�s the best part about �Sun� (and what separates it from �At My Most Beautiful�). It doesn�t sound like a Beach Boys song�it�s not something Brian Wilson ever would have written or recorded. It sounds like a J. Mascis song heavily influenced by some of the best elements of Wilson�s genius.

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I like Styrofoam. Styrofoam, cardboard, asphalt, generic neon signs (”OPEN”, “CLOSED”, “GIRLS XXX”). I like exhaust trails and the way the sky looks behind power lines. I even like strip malls, though only after the aesthetic and anthropological fashion of an archeologist looking at a Mayan temple�it’s strange and fascinating and nice to look at, but you wouldn’t want to be the guy on the top. Such a predilection is�at least in the circles I inhabit�only marginally more respectable than pedophilia. Few collective beliefs are as certain as that the accoutrements of middle-class sprawl are sad, soul-deadening, and empty. Sad? Well, certainly. Soul-deadening? I don’t think so. Empty? What? Look at all those people!

Granted, it’s a love-hate relationship. Which is why something like Sleater-Kinney’s “Modern Girl” appeals to me so: sunny FM pop from beginning to end, some overlaid distortion the only concession to S-K’s rowdier roots in general and The Woods‘ classic-rock fixation in particular, the song charms me from its first childish abandonment of conventional grammar for an advertiser’s approach to language: “My baby loves me, I’m so happy / Happy makes me a modern girl.” What follows is a languid array of lowbrow iconography�TV�s, donuts, cheerfully vapid art�sandwiched between two absolutely impeccable hook lines: the aforementioned assertion about my baby, as ancient a rock ‘n’ roll line as you can find, and “My whole life looks like a picture of a sunny day.” A love letter to McDonalds it isn’t, but nor is it a pipe bomb; there’s a kind of muddled fondness here for the whole sad mess. The acknowledgement of incompleteness that runs through the song�when S-K’s protagonist buys a donut, “the hole’s the size of the entire world”�tempts one to write the whole thing off as irony, a vicious stab at girls for whom a picture of a sunny day is good enough; but the music speaks otherwise, and there’s no band in the world clever enough to escape “my baby loves me.”

Modest Mouse, meanwhile, rarely leave themselves so open. “Teeth Like God’s Shoeshine“�an acquired taste, like every Modest Mouse song recorded before Isaac Brock stopped screaming�intersperses said screaming with one of Brock’s best choruses, in which the man with the titular teeth “sparkles, shimmers, shines,” and we bid farewell to the “soon-to-be ghost towns” Brock makes of the malls. Well, yeah, this is a pipe bomb. But most of the bands tearing down what they’ve been taught is worthless lack the graceful understanding of their targets: where others might take shots at Coke or 7-Up, Brock sings “Let’s all have another Orange Julius,” and there’s a priceless precision in his choice of symbol. And towards the end, when the rumbling, frantic band is “on the corner of this and this and this and this,” Brock’s claustrophobia is perfect. He might want to tear it down, but at least he knows what it looks like, and why it needs to go.

But in a way I’ve saved the best for last. Kimya Dawson, who as the better half of the Moldy Peaches played the little girl to Adam Green’s dick-joking little boy, has a song called “Hadlock Padlock,” a patty cake poem which possesses no more in the way of musical virtuosity than anything else in Dawson’s or the Peaches’ canon but acts as a four-minute overview of everything sad and funny and sweet about power lines and candy-bar wrappers, as well as every reason a person needs to escape them. Opening with Dawson’s cross-suburb investigation into a death that turns out probably not to have happened (”That was just a rumor / Super-duper small-town true-mor / He was shipped off to treatment last night”), the song quickly clothes itself in mundanity and constructs a ballet from the smallest gestures possible�little Davey is learning to skate, an eleven-year-old girl is warding off the attentions of lonely pedophiles, and “the kids all pray that they’ll either get away / Or get a job like Chad’s dad’s meth lab and become rich someday.” All of this small-town imprisonment is raised to a kind of sublimity by the song’s billowing flute and the specificity of Dawson’s references�the entire song is set in and around my girlfriend’s home town, a completely unnecessary piece of information impossible to infer unless you’ve actually gone to Penny Saver for “two roast beef Mighty Bites.” The localization has an invisible effect similar to Brock’s Orange Julius line: for all their mundane sordidness, Dawson’s vignettes are invested with an unmistakable love, and when she finally wonders “if this climbing that you city people do / Ever leads you to a place with such a pretty view,” she’s earned all the grace she gets. Sad, certainly; soul-deadening, maybe; empty, never.

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There exists a slightly snobby attitude that a lengthy piece of music is a sign that a musician is serious, conciseness is considered to be the tool of lightweight pop acts or shouty punk bands. There are a few artists however, who excel in producing small, perfectly-formed pieces of music.

Gordon Anderson, currently a member of The Aliens (and formerly of the Beta Band), specializes in the small song. Under the alias Lone Pigeon he has released four solo albums that all consist of tiny musical fragments. As you listen, choruses searching for the rest of their song and hissy vocal samples run into the backs of half-finished instrumentals. A Lone Pigeon album often sounds like a compilation tape made from the best bits of the best songs in someone’s music collection?fluttering from teary eyed folk, to dour electro, to a reworking of the chorus from ?Dry the Rain? using wine glasses. This scattergun approach to music making is exemplified by ?Empty Town? from the Touched by Tomoko EP. A warm and woozy traveller’s song starts before LP gets bored before he’s even begun and decides to end the track after the intro.

While LP delights in keeping his musical promises unfulfilled, Boards of Canada are experts in creating tiny tracks that are entirely self-contained. Their three major albums alternate between longer, beat driven songs and shorter melodic exercises. The wistful synthesizers on these interludes are the reason the word “nostalgic” has been used in every BOC review since 1997. The chiming electric pianos and twinkling melody of ?Roygbiv? (from Music Has The Right To Children) is frequently heaped with praise but just as good is the preceding track, ?Bocuma.? Deceptively simple, consisting of not much more than a few repeated modal melodies on some keyboards that have seen better days, the melancholia of ?Bocuma? is proof that electronic music can be every bit as emotionally affecting as a man with a guitar singing about his girlfriend.

Hip-hop has never been as guilty of over-indulgence as guitar or electronic music. Few hip-hop or rap songs go past the five-minute mark. Madlib certainly doesn?t help things?nearly all of his records consist of 20 or so tracks often not much longer than a minute or two. Although he doesn’t genre-hop like El-P, he shares the same short attention span, the desire to move on from a track as soon as he has created something he likes. The vocal hook in ?Eye? (from the MF Doom collaboration Madvillainy) is so damn cool that you might wonder why he didn’t add an extra three minutes and a couple of guests MCs and use it as the chorus to a “proper” hip-hop track. But this is to miss the point, the vocal hook is so damn cool that the track doesn’t require anything else.

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There is a special sort of musician who revels in the infinite creative possibilities of sound. With disregard for the rules of tradition music, they collide moments of brilliant melody with stabs of atonal dissonance, force eruptions of radio static and scathing white noise erupt out from the cracks in between notes, and rein in the sputtering screeches of pure electricity. Artists in this vein come from all musical backgrounds, ranging from techno to metal to jazz, but they all share a common devotion to the freedom offered by experimentation with pure sound. I�m not entirely sure why I�ve been so enamored with this sort of music lately, maybe it�s because Tim Hecker records make such a great soundtrack for late night thunderstorms; regardless, these artists are getting a lot of play around my apartment lately, and now here they are for your listening pleasure:

Belong, �I Never Lose. Never Really,� from October Language
At times seeming like a futuristic version of My Bloody Valentine�s Loveless as produced by Christian Fennesz, Belong�s debut, October Language, is an accomplished slice of power drone and cinematic ambience. Swathes of soft-as-a-feather keyboards sliced through with overdriven guitar swells swirl about the disc, while a healthy dose of distortion and electronic processing dirties up the whole mess. It�s an overwhelming specimen of a record that achieves a sound capable of filling even the furthest corners of a room, and this track, the album�s lead cut, is absolutely devastating: by far the most compelling composition of its sort to come along for quite awhile.

Tim Hecker, �Acephale,� from Mirages
On his 2004 Mirages LP, Tim Hecker abandoned the more serene ambient-glitch meditations of his previous works in favor of a more aggressive approach. It�s been called Hecker�s metal record, and that�s not too far off base. On �Acephale,� he assaults the listener with squeals of blistering guitar feedback and white noise from the opening seconds of the record, only to steadily ratchet up the volume and noise level as the track develops, scouring the fa�ade of the pristine guitar drone that lies beneath. Is it metal? Sure, it�s just that in place of explosive double kick drums and pummeling guitar action, Hecker submerges his inner rock god deep under the sea, wreaking his sonic mayhem from the streets of Atlantis.

Growing, �Anaheim II,� from The Soul of the Rainbow and the Harmony of Light
Taking their cues from groups like Sunn O))) and Earth, Growing generally strike a fine balance between the harsh and pristine. �Anaheim II,� however, opts for a more full on approach. With wave after massive wave of distorted harmonic feedback cranked to eleven, this track is one of the most physical listening experiences ever. There�s nothing more to even say. Pure sonic destruction.

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As North American college students gallivant in varying states of sobriety during their summer break, I only have memories of my Australian university summer nearly six months ago. Beyond the usual lifestyle of the beach, cricket, and Crappy Summer Jobs, my enduring memory of that holiday is of highway asphalt. It was a summer of driving to friends� houses for long nights of poker, and of interstate coach rides for job interviews and trips to beachside towns. Sure, I experienced more than enough car sickness, but the laughter, fun, and employment made the long journeys worthwhile. But for every opportunity I was four-wheeling towards, I was leaving something else behind.

At the start of the university summer, I packed my things into the car�why do I own so many CDs?�and drove home from college. Inside my back pocket sat a not insignificant prize�a girl�s phone number. There is no better way to inflate a man�s ego�or make him serene during the worst of Australian highway traffic�than to find him a nice girl and give him a real opportunity with her.

Those prized digits remained unused for two of the three months of my summer break. I always found excuses to avoid making the phone call � you�re in a different city, it�s too late in the day to call. And for all of the travelling I did, I never managed to book a ticket to go and see her. To be sure, I was pining for her, but I wasn�t about to act on it. I don�t hide behind the pen and a few hundred words of well-crafted prose because I�m brimming with Don Juan confidence. So, instead I strummed my guitar and listened to Brilliant Fanzine, finding meaning in the melodies of a band tucked away in Melbourne, Australia.

�One in 10,000� is the song of my hesitation. The insistent 4/4 beat on the snare transports me to a cramped seat on an interstate coach. It could be the throb of my headache, or it could be the seams in the asphalt under-tire. It could be my heart beating as I called the girl on her birthday�don�t fuck it up. The five note piano figure is the sound of me staring out the car window to see dried Australian plantation zoom past. Wistful moments contemplating�no, dreaming about�what could happen between this girl and yours truly.

I am haunted by the vocals: �And right from the first time I met you, I couldn�t forget you.� When Brilliant Fanzine penned that simple line, I�m certain they were referring to feelings that go beyond mere infatuation. After almost 22 years of living, breathing�feeling�on these brown lands, I can�t say that I have felt any real depth of emotions about any one person. I don�t even know if I�ve come close.

I have been looking for my one in 10,000; girls here, girls there. The story of my so-called life is really a series of shorter stories about girls. And the soundtrack can be found in the warm acoustic strum at the core of this song, which resurrects every lost opportunity, missed call or unspoken word. Despite its bittersweet associations, I cannot speak highly enough about this band and their evocative tune.

It is six months on from my holiday, and my yearning, and I barely even talk to this girl. The last time we spoke was after-dark and after much wine at her housewarming. People were dancing in her living room to Bob Sinclar�goddamn I hate that song�and I made valiant attempts to gyrate with all the grace I could muster, but soon gave up. I stood to the side, waiting to make my grand exit. In the end there was no goodbye, just a slight cuss under my breath and a bolt out the door. I could only think of my university summer as I ran across her yard to be confronted, once again, by more asphalt, more hesitation, and the ringing of �One in 10,000� in my ears.

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People often ask if I plan to leave the grand U.S. of A. once I finish my studies, and I never know how to respond. Despite the multitude of reasons to do so, I cannot deny that I am bound to this land, utterly and completely, through its music.

And they hear that and tell me it�s a phase. They always say it�s a phase. That once I really start to work and live and choke on the politics of this place I�ll be running so far and so fast that I�ll wish I had inserted the obligatory Fugazi or Zombies reference here.

Those who read this know better because they, like me, live for their love of music.

Which brings me to Sixteen Horsepower, a band (until recently) in the business of serving up thick slabs of sound more frequently than �songs� in the traditional sense. They are one of the many reasons I hesitate before answering questions like the one above, and they make me reexamine the importance of asking which came first, the song or the song title? With �American Wheeze� I suspect the latter. I hear the raspy strain of the Chemnitzer Concertina�one hand attempting to catch up with the other�and think of the battle between the old, the able, and tradition versus adaptation.

It is beyond me to attempt any sort of genre classification in regards Sixteen Horsepower, but suffice it to say I breathe their music and inhale the South. And the West. And the Midwest. Pretty much everywhere on this nearly four million square mile piece of land but the Northeast, which is impressive for a three-piece band hailing from Denver, Colorado.

The first Sixteen Horsepower song I heard, �Outlaw Song� off 2002�s Folklore, made me feel the crunch of the grit between my teeth. I heard the steady plodding step of the banjo and knew the lyrics that followed would not be, �Oh. My name? My name is David Eugene Edwards. And you are?� Instead they were �So they asked again what was my name / They asked again what was my name / And two were dead before they could move / Two were dead before they could move / That�s my name / That�s my name, if you please.� That is when I knew I�d found a band that could transport me, all of me, to a time of cowboys and outlaws better than any Sergio Leone film. And that�s saying something.

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The Golden Republic might hate me for this article.

Now, they really shouldn�t. Everything following is written from a place of great affection for a hard-working rock band. These guys from Missouri have been shopping their brand of Ameri-can blues-rock around for quite some time now, mostly touring as the supporting act for more popular foreign ensembles. Unfortunately, as much as it absolutely pains me to admit, I really only liked them before they signed to a major label.

I know, I know. Why slap the most obnoxious critique on the planet to a band I actually like? The story goes like this: I saw them open for Idlewild years ago under a different name. Back then they were The People. I was pleasantly surprised to witness an opening act that seemed to have a chance of success. At least, lead singer Ben Grimes� sculpted faux-hawk hair showed great promise. Upon leaving the theater that evening, I purchased their homemade disc, entitled The Basement Recordings. I proceeded to hear nothing of the band for about three years. Over that amount of time, The Basement Recordings and its six roughly-cut tunes grew strongly on me. �I Do� makes revenge sound downright groovy as much it showcases killer guitar thump-ing, while �Robots� tells the tale of tragic superficiality without sounding clich�.

Onwards to 2005. While getting excited to see personal messiah/guitar-hero Graham Coxon, I googled his opening act, The Golden Republic. It was revealed to me that they were The People, v 2.0. Wonder of wonders, that dog-and-pony outfit now had a contract with Astralwerks, and had released a proper full-length. Oh, what triumph I felt�my little band had done good. I pur-chased the disc, excited to hear my favorite songs under the benefit of funding and nicer equip-ment. I was destined to be disappointed. These songs lacked an edge, Grimes� voice was with-out its nasal signature, and there were way too many guitar lines crammed on any single track. For example, the new mixing of �I Do� reworked and dubbed �Not My Kind,� had gone from gritty indie tune to overly compressed nothing-burger. My mini-anthem turned into a standard FM rocker. Punchy versus bland. Basement versus studio.
So in essence, I am telling you to listen to The Golden Republic�but only when they were The People. Buy their stuff, but only the early demos instead of the actual album they spent time working on. Sorry, Ben Grimes and company. The basement sometimes has better acoustics than you think.

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My girlfriend had been in Thailand for several months. The distance had strained our relationship, reducing communications to misunderstood emails and brief phone calls whose subjects rarely strayed beyond explanations of those misunderstood emails. Fall had exploded and begun to fade and Chicago�s demented version of October cruelly reminded everyone that winter intended to kick their collective ass.

I was living with three other guys in a house that maintained a lofty beer to human ratio, in a room without a window, save for the one separating me from our enclosed porch. It was an odd time, marked by excessive drinking and the occasional party, but much of that social activity seemed to border on the habitual. I remember being somewhat disengaged from my surroundings, a feeling certainly fueled by my frequent hangovers and alcohol-induced sleep deprivation. I was counting down the days until she got back and until I had something desirable to break up my monotony.

I had destroyed the walls of my room by mounting my 5.1 system so that the speakers surrounded my bed. I kept my subwoofer beside my mattress and my laptop, the hub for those countless wires, in close reach. It was a setup I prided myself on, but few shared my enthusiasm. After all, who wants to sit in a windowless room and listen to music with a guy who prides himself on surrounding his bed with speakers?

On one very special Saturday morning, fate was kind enough not to wake me with the routinely obscene and constantly unnecessary noises of my roommates� morning activities. Do you really need to put away silverware at 9 AM? Do you absolutely have to do so by launching it into the drawer and projecting an ear-piercing chime every time a hurled spoon ricochets off a fork?

I laid in bed, trying my best to appreciate the faintest of breezes that somehow managed to trickle in from the open windows a full room away. By the time I got the air, it was carrying the stale scents of our foul porch that had all but turned into a giant, beer-soaked ashtray. The apartment was silent, a rarity at any time of day.

I remember putting Broken Social Scene�s You Forgot It In People on the stereo and attending to it with the attention and appreciation that we often reserve for first dates. �KC Accidental� enveloped my senses and for a moment I felt completely lost, as if the past few months were part of some documentary I was studying. I listened to the entire album, but my only memory is of that one song and the interruption it offered.

I harbor no negative feelings about that year or its unique brand of madness. It seemed appropriate and, at the time, remarkably enjoyable. That doesn�t mean a little fresh air wasn�t appreciated, regardless of whether or not it smelled like Classic Ice. Summer is here, ending the cold and rainy spring and making winter the most impossible of thoughts. It�s a reprieve we earn with our weather-worn umbrellas and pants ruined by salt deposits. For those of us who live in the more climatically cruel of locations, it�s nothing short of a blessing and, lately, I can�t help but listen to �KC Accidental.�

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I started off this article with the three songs that I knew that were about masturbation off the top of my head. That is to say three songs I knew off the top of head, not three songs about some kind of strange genital/top of the head masturbatory technique. Once you start digging around, it�s surprising just how many tracks there are on the subject�from greasy rockers with one hand down their leather trousers, to pop princesses polishing the peanut. What�s also surprising is when you find out the song you�ve just written about (The Vapors� �Turning Japanese�), turns out not in fact to be about it at all.

Do: make wanking the least interesting thing about the song

Pixies- Holiday Song

OK, so giving away a Pixies song on an alternative music website is like bringing pie to a dinner party at Frank Black�s house. Even the meaning of this song is debated en masse, but in my mind, it definitely fits in with this week�s theme. �He took his sister from his head and then painted her on the sheets� seems pretty clear to me. Sure there�s also some incest in there, but this is a Pixies song we�re talking about here�all their early material sounds like the soundtrack to the best film Almodovar never made.

Do: Invite Everyone to the Party

The High & Mighty featuring Bobbito Garcia, Kool Keith, What What- Hands On Experience Part 2

Another surprise was just how much hip-hop there was dedicated to this subject. In the main, it�s not the most humble of genres, and a confession of masturbation is generally an admission of not being able to get your rocks off. So you�d be forgiven of thinking that fisting your mister would figure somewhere between impotence and ironing in the list of hip-hop�s lyrical themes. Not so. This song narrowly beat The Pharcyde�s �On the DL� (although this song may appear in a forthcoming article about songs that mention washing your testicles). The reason High and Mighty takes it is the sheer levels of sleaze from both the sexes on display. What What wins the day, surely, with an attitude towards self-love that borders on the heroic �Holdin� myself down when I’m on the clit / I’ve got gadgets like I’m fuckin James Bond and shit.�

Don�t: Use it to say �I Love You�

The Divinyls � I Touch Myself

Really I�m including this song because its musical quality is so low, and certainly one of the worst ever to take on this week�s topic. However, since I�m working to a self-imposed limit of specifics, I�ll have to do better than �The Divinyls song is a bit well, y�know�crap�. So I guess I�ll go with the idea that in a desperate bid to avoid love song clich�s, they have in fact gone for words that are cheap and attention-seeking. If anything this song does make me want to abuse myself. But in a bad way.

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