Drink some cherry wine!

I did some massive archiving/cleaningup of my laptop harddrive last week, mostly a ton of music to an external drive (or deleting the unlucky altogether). And before I knew it, I had kept only a few selected CDs and mixtapes downloaded over the past year or two; hundreds of others bit the dust..

So this was the elite.

Among those left digitally-intact on the ol' laptop was the "We Are the Future Mix", by Futurecop; I had found it back in July on the everspring-of-dopeness that is the Disco Dust blog. (I need to dig through those archives for my next mix! Soon!)

"We Are the Future" starts with the warbled piano (piano?) of "Borderline" by Madonna. And that pretty much sets the stage for this epic-80's-lovefest. C'mon.. one of the middle tracks is "Hungry Eyes"?!

I mean, none of the songs are going to blow your mind; they are all familiar (to most), yet slightly obscure (for anyone in their, ahem, early 30's or younger, anyway). In fact, it sounds like the whole thing could have been mixed by your buddy-with-the-turntables playing at your houseparty. Maybe that's the appeal?

Yeah -- this mix would be awesome at your next houseparty.

No crazy technical whizz-bang; but after a few listens, you come to realize that this simplicity fits with the vibe of the songs themselves (i.e. songs from a "simpler time"). And, somehow, the whole is so much more than its FM-lite constituents..

In short, it's not brain (um, ear?) food, but it's totally fun; here's the tracklist:

1. Madonna – Borderline
2. Cameo – Word Up (video)
3. Phil Collins – Sussudio
4. Belinda Carlisle - We Want The Same Thing
5. Janet Jackson – Principle Pleasure (video)
6. Jermaine Stewart – We Don't Have To Take Clothes Off (video)
7. Futurecop! – Tonight's Hero
8. Eric Carmen - Hungry Eyes (video)
9. Bruce Hornsby – The Long Race
10. Kenny Loggins – St Elmo's Fire
11. Robert Tepper – No Easy Way Out
12. Simple Minds – Don't you (Forget About Me)
13. Futurecop! – Transformers
14. Robbie Robb – In Time (Futurecop! Edit)

And the funnest -- the funnest! (funniest?) -- part of all comes in at minute 11:55.. Jermaine Stewart lets us know that he's not a piece of meat on "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off". A little bit silly, yes; but it's oh-so-catchy.

Drink some cherry wine! Check the video here. (video)

I've basically been playing it non-stop for the past two weeks. Really! Yeah, so, beyond any hipsterbusiness I download from the music blogs over the next couple of months, this song is definitely going on the next mix. I gotta. haha.

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Branching off, you'll find a couple remakes (tributes?) of "We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off" on youtube; most are crap, but I actually like this poprock version by Lil' Chris:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGVqEDk9YpE (video)

I mean, his voice is a little too young and emo (for lack of a better word) and the production is a little too "clean" for my tastes, but I can get beyond those things. To start, I love the na-na-na part of the chorus up front, and, besides, the filled-out band sound (guitars, drums, etc.) really works. Overall, this version makes for a totally different vibe, but still captures the essence of the original for a new audience. Naiveté is universal! haha.

Oh -- one last Jermaine Stewart-related thing.. do not adjust your television set (um, computer screen) for this last video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGVqEDk9YpE (video)

There is no irony in its creation or delivery; it's just a totally tripped-out piece of work (in the best way possible.) hahahah.

Huh.. I think it *does* have artistic merit, regardless of the director's (danceyman's?) intention. At the least, it could (should!) be employed as a wonderful hypnosis device; add some research-grade ecstasy, and let the healing begin! Amen! And hallelujah. haha.

Yeah -- we gotta get this thing into the MOMA (SF or NYC); if I'm not mistaken, I think they're trying to bolster their respective video art collections. This shizz is gold.. nice one, Christopher Reynolds (i.e. the young man *feeling* the music in that last video); I'm willing to share any tribute payment MOMA bestows on me for such a quality submission. ;)