Yo, CDC, there are far cooler pieces of music to time your hand-washing with than "Happy Birthday to You"

Writer's block is a problem I've been afflicted with since the days when I had to churn out college term papers, and it took me 17 years to realize that film and TV score albums--the kind of album I sometimes listened to as term paper writing music, as well as the kind of radio format I dabbled in for the past 18 years--are ineffective as a solution to writer's block. They're far from a solution. They're the cause of the problem.

Score albums are really shitty as music that helps me to concentrate on writing. In 2013, I wrote, "As study music, score albums were especially effective because... they often don't contain words, so they don't distract you too much from whatever you're reading." But when I'm not reading and I'm trying to write a blog post, score albums distract me, especially when a grandiose-sounding action movie score cue starts blasting in my headphones. That kind of music often wrecks my attempt to concentrate on filling a blank space with a paragraph and causes me to start thinking about the action sequence the cue was written for, followed by all the camerawork that went into it and then how excellent the action sequence choreography was. And then my brain starts to shout, "Yeaaaah, go, Iko Uwais!," or "Yeaaaah, throw that shovel hook, Michael B.!," and my concentration is completely destroyed.

Classical music and instrumental hip-hop don't come with that kind of baggage, which is why a few years ago, I switched to listening to those two genres while trying to write, and they've helped immensely. Having the Bay Area classical music station KDFC in my headphones helped me to finish writing a long post about David Bowie and Labyrinth and a longer post about The Grinder. But the classical music hasn't been working for me while I've been trying to get started on a post I've been wanting to write since December about Creed, Ludwig Goransson's catchy score from that film and Ryan Coogler's sublime use of 2Pac's "Hail Mary" as Donnie Creed's ring entrance music. I don't know why KDFC has failed to prevent writer's block in that instance, and it's made me notice one thing about KDFC: why is Hoyt Smith weirdly obsessed with germs? Every time I've awoken to Smith's program being broadcast in my headphones, it seems like his idea of morning-show levity is to intersperse the classical music suites with either disgusting studies about pillows that contain bacteria or studies about hand-washing. When did Adrian Monk find the time to become a classical music DJ? Because Monk as a classical music DJ is oddly awesome.

Smith mentioned something about hand-washing I was never aware of: people use "Happy Birthday to You" to time their hand-washing. So I Googled "Happy Birthday to You" together with "hand-washing" to see if this is actually a thing, and I found out from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that you should "scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds," and if you need to time yourself, "hum the 'Happy Birthday' song from beginning to end twice."

Uh, "Happy Birthday to You"? I have enough trouble trying to power through that ditty when I have to join in singing it to a person I dislike, and now I'm being told I ought to hum that song to nobody, while I'm washing my hands? Nah, B, I'll pass. "Happy Birthday to You" should only be hummed or sung above a birthday cake. Above a bathroom sink is just weird. Also, "Happy Birthday to You" is expensive to clear, and I might get sued.

There are much more effective--and much less awkwardness-inducing--20-to-40-second pieces of music than "Happy Birthday to You" to time your hand-washing with, and in keeping with my ban on listicles because the AFOS blog is a listicle-free zone, I'm going to replace the CDC's choice of "Happy Birthday to You" with any one of those pieces of music, without inanely organizing them into a list. A KDFC listener suggested to Smith that a snippet of Mozart's take on "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" would work like gangbusters as a hand-washing timer from the classical music world, but if you're a film score music nerd, you don't want to hear "Twinkle, Twinkle" or "Happy Birthday to You" while you're bathing your hands. You want your hand-washing to be soundtracked by the 1997 Men in Black trailer music, a.k.a. Elliot Goldenthal's 32-second "Confronting the Chief" from Demolition Man, the bizarre 1993 sci-fi flick that's either a reflection of Sylvester Stallone's right-leaning politics (many interpret the film as a conservative parody of Clinton's America) or a liberal's satirical nightmare about a conservative's idea of utopia (Sandra Bullock lives in a future where people get fined for swearing and anti-abortionists won out in the abortion debate) or is possibly intended to be both things at the same time.

I use my phone mainly as a music player, and I fill it with hip-hop mixes or singles. I don't have it inside my phone right now, but if it were inside my phone and my headphones were plugged in to my phone while washing my hands, I would put on as a hand-washing timer DJ Shadow's 41-second "Why Hip-Hop Sucks in '96."

Why wash my hands like a brain-dead zombie when I can both wash my hands and think about the greed of the copyright industry and its crippling effect on creativity in hip-hop at the same time? People hate on Sacramento all the time, but if it weren't for Sacramento, we wouldn't have Shadow or the succinct genius of "Why Hip-Hop Sucks in '96."

But if you're a white person with OCD, go with "Kashmir."

And if you're a person of color with OCD? Kanye's "Last Call."

See, CDC? That's what happens while you're busy trying to protect the world from Chipotle. Your Spotify playlist comes off as if it's frozen in 1893. There's a whole world of beautiful music out there besides the song that keeps the pockets of Warner/Chappell's copyright lawyers fat and makes world-weary waiters and waitresses want to shove some cake into the faces of annoying customers who demand that they sing it to them.

The Creed score, the score that will make you frequently say, "Yeaaaah, hit him with the quickness, Michael B.," is the penultimate score to be added to the AFOS playlists. The final score that's been added to the playlists is John Williams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens score. Both scores are currently being streamed on AFOS until the station goes off the air for good on January 31.

"Brokedown Merry-Go-Round" Show of the Week: South Park, "The Hobbit"

(Photo source: South Park Archives)

Every Friday in "'Brokedown Merry-Go-Round' Show of the Week," I discuss the week's best first-run animated series episode I saw. "Brokedown Merry-Go-Round," a two-hour block of original score tracks from animated shows or movies, airs weekdays at 2pm Pacific on AFOS.

Of all the memeable and hashtaggable things Kanye West has said or done since the release of his latest album Yeezus--from "You don't got the answers, Sway!" to "Do I look like a motherfucking comedian? Don't fucking heckle me. I'm Kanye motherfucking West!"--the South Park 17th-season finale has chosen to zero in on Yeezy's bizarre remolding of Kim Kardashian into Beyoncé, something I never really noticed until South Park pointed it out. Kim's currently dyed blond hair makes a whole lot of sense now. (By the way, I like how Trey Parker and Matt Stone didn't give a shit about updating Yeezy's look, so 'Ye still looks the same as he did when he transformed into a gay fish at the end of South Park's 2009 "Fishsticks" episode: barefoot and rocking that 808s & Heartbreak-era mullet that made him look like Theo Huxtable, circa 1985.)

Parker brilliantly ties Yeezy's Vertigo-ing of Kim into recent headlines about women relying on Photoshop to remove imperfections in their selfies for an episode that's South Park at its most vicious in the celebrity parody department. Other than correctly predicting Time magazine's pick of Pope Francis as its Person of the Year and the gut-punch of an ending I'll get into in a moment, the most remarkable thing about "The Hobbit" is that outside of a few pinups of Kim on Butters' locker when Wendy Testaburger points out to Butters the cold, hard facts about his favorite pinup girl, Kim is never seen at all, not even during the show's descriptions of her as a short, fat and hairy Hobbit. Yeezy's bungled attempts to discredit his future wife's Hobbitness were amusing the first couple of times but got tiresome about halfway through the episode, even during the "Bound 2" video parody, which I actually like a little more than James Franco and Seth Rogen's overlong "Bound 3" parody. Then like a lot of Sideshow Bob rake scene-ish running gags, they somehow regained their funniness when the episode cycled through them for the final time.

(Photo source: South Park Archives)

(Photo source: South Park Archives)

But what elevates "The Hobbit" from "B" territory to "A" territory aren't the jabs at Kanye and Kim (or Britney Spears' "Work Bitch" video or news anchors' strained attempts to look hip) but Wendy's arc--she attempts to take her anti-Photoshop crusade to the local news and the state Senate--and its downbeat conclusion. South Park rarely strives for genuine pathos. Some of those attempts at pathos have fallen flat, but then there are other times where the seriousness works, and the wordless final scene of "The Hobbit" is one of those times. Parker usually throws in one last comedic punchline before the end credits, but he opts instead for a dramatic punchline, and it's mad devastating.

Wendy, who inadvertently created a monster when her Photoshop skills led the other girls at school to Photoshop themselves, succumbs to pressure. With tears in her eyes, she doctors her own photo and e-mails it to everyone (compare this self-inflicted Photoshop makeover to the makeover Ally Sheedy's misfit character receives from Molly Ringwald's character at the end of The Breakfast Club, and the "Hobbit" conclusion drives home how much I hate that Breakfast Club scene where the Sheedy character loses everything that made her unique and likable--it's one of Reaganite filmmaker John Hughes' most Reagan-ish, pro-conformity moments). A typical South Park episode--particularly during the show's earlier years--would climax with an out-of-control situation being brought to an end by a speech from Stan or Kyle about the idiocy of the situation and what they've learned. That doesn't happen here. Instead, Stan and Kyle fall for the out-of-control bullshit in "The Hobbit," and--like what has often happened in real life with girls who struggle with their self-image--so does an anguished Wendy.

(Photo source: South Park Archives)

(Photo source: South Park Archives)

Memorable quotes:
* Wendy: "Are you just an asshole? Is that it?" Butters: "Am I just an asshole?" Wendy: "Yeah!" Butters: "Well, no. I've got arms and legs. I have everything."

* "Kim is not even in that movie. That movie is just loosely based on her television show Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which is a show about short, loud little people living in a fantasy world--hold up!"

* "And even though she still couldn't sing like Beyoncé or dance like Beyoncé or act like Beyoncé or be a decent human being like Beyoncé, the little Hobbit was looked up to and loved, just like Beyoncé. [sniffles]"

The uncensored cut of "The Hobbit" can be streamed in its entirety at South Park Studios.

7 Days 'Til 007: "Diamonds Are Forever"

Each weekday until November 9, enjoy a post about a standout vocal theme or instrumental piece from the official Bond movies.

I like Shirley Bassey's "Goldfinger" as much as the next feller, but I was always more fond of "Diamonds Are Forever," the other great original song Bassey belted out for the 007 series (and a tune that re-emerged in the public eye in 2005 when Kanye West sampled it in "Diamonds from Sierra Leone," his track about conflict diamonds). My attachment to Bassey's "Diamonds Are Forever" is due to the 1971 movie of the same name having been one of the first 007 movies I ever watched, back when ABC and HBO were the only places on the dial where viewers could find them (I remember so fondly the ABC intros to 007 movies that were read by the network's longtime announcer Ernie Anderson, a.k.a. Paul Thomas Anderson's dad, and it's both dope to be able to revisit those ABC intros on YouTube and kind of cringe-inducing because they show how horrible and faded the Bond movie prints looked on network TV about a couple of decades before those flicks were remastered for DVD and Blu-ray).

In fact, I was introduced to Diamonds Are Forever eight years before seeing Goldfinger. Seven-year-old me thought Diamonds was okay, but it was no Spy Who Loved Me. Today, [AGE REDACTED]-old me doesn't care for Diamonds because the series' nosedive from witty and subdued spy movie humor ("Red wine with fish. That should have told me something") to hacky comic relief characters and slipshod slapstick straight out of the Herbie the Love Bug sequels began not with the Roger Moore era, but with this final Sean Connery installment (hey everybody, it's Crispin Glover's dad and jazz bassist Putter Smith--don't quit your day job, Putter!--both Jar Jar-ing it up as a pair of gay lovers/henchmen who must have been one of the reasons why GLAAD was formed!).

However, like the lamest of Moore's films, Diamonds is elevated by the music of John Barry. Diamonds is a shitty Bond film with a terrific Barry score that begins to amaze right when Bassey's theme tune opens with keyboard notes that literally glisten like bling. The '70s rhythm section should have badly dated the song, but instead, as superproducer Mark Ronson wrote for NME at the time of Barry's death, the rhythm section in "Diamonds" and much of Barry's work is "mean stuff. It's not pretty or sanitised. It sounds tough. That's why his work has been sampled so much by hip-hop artists." Like the best funk tracks, the rhythm section in "Diamonds" has aged nicely and given the theme much of its seductive power, with the help of Bassey's vocals.

No wonder new Bond girl Bérénice Marlohe played Bassey's renditions of "Diamonds" and "Goldfinger" in her trailer to get into character during the filming of Skyfall. "I always felt connected with the music on Bond movies," said Marlohe to an interviewer from WENN. "I used a lot of music too, like Shirley Bassey, who, for me, is the ultimate Bond girl. She has such a huge presence and powerful voice, so sexy and beautiful so I listened to her a lot on the set."

Filled with randy lyrics by songwriter Don Black ("Touch it, stroke it and undress it"), this song is sex on a stick, which was why Bond series co-producer Harry Saltzman hated it, and Barry responded to Saltzman with a kindly "What the fuck do you know about songwriting?"

Wow, Ben Wyatt's taste in music on Parks and Rec is... so Ben Wyatt

In last week's Parks and Rec, April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza) was trapped in a car in sweltering D.C. weather with her boss, congressional campaign manager and Star Trek: TNG fanfic author Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott), and she glumly glared at the camera as she regretted putting on one of Ben's mix CDs, which he called "Benji's Cool Times Summer Jamz Mix." The audience heard only one of Ben's jams, Salt-N-Pepa's "Shoop"--as did April, whose consciousness must have left her body by the time that Salt thanks her boo's mother for a butt like that--and now the show's official Facebook page has gone the extra mile and posted the rest of Ben's "Summer Jamz Mix" on Spotify.

These are songs you play at a wedding, where overplayed pop songs go to die and where "Call Me Maybe" and "Gangnam Style" will go to die soon. The uptight Ben is like a Top 40 station stuck in 1996.

I love the attention to detail regarding the characters' musical tastes on Parks and Rec. Ben's CD collection in his car consists mostly of '90s mixtape-style soundtrack albums like the Pulp Fiction CD because Ben loves how those albums are like mixtapes from his favorite directors, a detail that seems to be lifted from Scott's past as a teenage film geek. The actor has admitted in interviews that he admired filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Spike Lee so much as a teen that instead of bedroom posters of athletes or half-naked starlets, which is what most teenage guys prefer, Scott would put pictures and clippings of his favorite directors up on his bedroom wall.

The apathetic and snooty April is a Neutral Milk Hotel fan, just like Parks showrunner Michael Schur. Her not-too-bright husband Andy Dwyer (Chris Pratt) leads the unsigned Pawnee rock band Mouse Rat, which, according to its fake site, "takes inspiration from the greats--Dave Matthews Band, Counting Crows, and recent (but solid) discovery Train--and then spins it out of control" (I once had a job where I had to rummage through small-town rock band sites and post links to them on my company's sites, and all those bands' bios of themselves sounded exactly like Mouse Rat's, especially during the description of acts like Train as "great"). Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), who's unabashed about his libertarian politics, isn't as unabashed about his secret off-hours life as saxman and Eagleton smooth jazz sensation Duke Silver, a hit with the (older) ladies of Eagleton. Former Entertainment 720 CEO Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari), an Indian American who thinks he's the Diddy of Pawnee and lists Flo Rida as one of his heroes, has, of course, a weakness for the Dirty South sound and '90s R&B.







Like April, Tom finds Ben to be terminally uncool. I wonder what Tom's reaction to Ben's "Summer Jamz" CD would be (Tom would probably say, "You still listen to CDs? Ha!"). I also wonder what a Tom Haverford Spotify playlist would look like. It would likely include Soulja Boy's "Turn My Swag On," which Tom rapped along to at the Snakehole Lounge while kickin' it with former Indiana Pacer Detlef Schrempf, and T-Pain's "I'm N Luv (Wit a Stripper)," which Tom briefly sang while in costume as T-Pain.

(Photo source: Uproxx)

But what would the rest of that playlist look like? It's time to step into Tom's mind and think like a man who thinks he's so baller.

"Joints That Tom Haverford Probably Bumps on His iPhone" tracklist
1. Soulja Boy Tell'em, "Turn My Swag On"
2. T-Pain featuring Mike Jones, "I'm N Luv (Wit a Stripper)"
3. Montell Jordan, "This Is How We Do It"
4. Fat Joe featuring Lil Wayne, "Make It Rain"
5. Ginuwine, "Pony"
6. Ginuwine, "Differences"
7. R. Kelly, "You Remind Me of Something"
8. R. Kelly featuring Ronald and Ernie Isley, "Down Low (Nobody Has to Know)"
9. The Isley Brothers featuring R. Kelly and Chanté Moore, "Contagious"
10. R. Kelly, "Summer Bunnies"
11. R. Kelly, "Ignition Remix"
12. Jodeci, "Get on Up"
13. Johnny Gill, "Rub You the Right Way"
14. H-Town, "Part Time Lover"
15. The-Dream featuring T.I., "Make Up Bag"
16. Jay-Z, "Change Clothes"
17. Mystikal featuring Nivea, "Danger (Been So Long)"
18. Ludacris, "Southern Hospitality"
19. Rick Ross featuring Styles P, "B.M.F. (Blowin' Money Fast)"
20. Flo Rida featuring T-Pain, "Low"
21. Jamie Foxx featuring T-Pain, "Blame It"
22. Waka Flocka Flame, "Hard in Da Paint"
23. Jay-Z and Kanye West, "Otis" (the video even features a cameo by Ansari as Tom)
24. Kanye West, Big Sean, Pusha T and 2 Chainz, "Mercy"
25. Kanye West, Jay-Z and Big Sean, "Clique"

(Photo source: Flavorwire)

Mystery Andre Theater 3000

Though I run a film and TV score music station, I don't listen to score albums all the time. In fact, 95 percent of my iTunes playlists is non-score music. When I open Spotify, I don't even listen to score music all that much (plus most of the score tracks that Spotify carries are craptastic re-recordings). On Spotify, I listen to hip-hop and R&B on the regular, plus a bit of indie.

A lot of the mixtapes in my iTunes playlists contain tracks with cameos by Andre 3000, whose flow is one of the most inventive in hip-hop, as well as one of the most ubiquitous. He's been guesting on a lot of artists' joints lately. Two of my favorite tracks from the summer contain cameos by the ATLien: Rick Ross' "Sixteen"--despite the guitar solo by Andre 3K that everyone's been hating on--and recent SNL musical guest Frank Ocean's "Pink Matter" (dig these Andre couplets: "She had the kind of body/That would probably intimidate/Any of 'em that were un-Southern/Not me, cousin"). Below are 10 of my favorite records with guest verses by one of the greatest MCs around, including, of course, "Sixteen," where Andre flashes back to a time when he was "Drawin' LL Cool J album covers with Crayolas on construction paper" and "Pink Matter," as well as last summer's "Party," which Kanye West and Consequence produced for Beyoncé.

I love the late '80s/early '90s sound of "Party." I grew up listening to that new jack sound on the radio. DJ Jazzy Jeff and Mick Boogie ought to include "Party" on their next Summertime mixtape. Like Dwele, I've been racking my brains trying to remember which exact tunes from that new jack era "Party" reminds me of (at times, it reminds me of the slow jams of Keith Sweat). UGK and OutKast's Mack soundtrack-sampling "International Players Anthem" is on the playlist too. Unfortunately, the version of the UGK/OutKast collabo that Spotify has is the censored-for-radio edit.

Does the song you just wrote suck royally? Maybe what it needs is an Andre 3000 cameo to salvage it.

Walk It Out, Fosse - watch more funny videos

Mystery Science Andre 3000 - watch more funny videos

"Oh my God, that's the funky shit!": Five hours of badass sample flips

David McCallum and Dre, brought together through the magic of both Photoshop and a Wacom pen tablet

Dr. Dre is reportedly executive-producing a scripted TV series for FX about the connections between L.A. organized crime and the music industry. My reaction to that bit of news is "So when's Detox coming out?"

While we wait for an album that's never going to drop, I want to revisit one of Dre's greatest sample flips, off his last official album, 1999's 2001. "The Next Episode" kicks off "Kids Come Running for the Rich Taste of Samples," a five-hour playlist of my favorite sample flips. I've juxtaposed dozens of bangers with the tunes they sampled. So "The Next Episode" is followed by the piece it sampled, "The Edge," a cinematic-sounding 1966 David Axelrod instrumental performed by David McCallum, back when he was both Illya Kuryakin and a Capitol recording artist on the side (instead of trying to become a pop singer like Crockett or Tubbs, instrumental pop was McCallum's bag).

Likewise with Ghostface and Henry Mancini

In some cases, I've grouped a frequently sampled work with two or three of its "descendants." I've also taken a Frankenstein's monster of a track like Redman's "Tonight's Da Night" and juxtaposed it with the tunes it was formed from (in "Tonight's Da Night"'s case, Isaac Hayes' "A Few More Kisses to Go" and the Mary Jane Girls' "All Night Long").

I always enjoy playing Spot the Sample, a game that's become much easier now thanks to a site like WhoSampled or ego trip's "Sample Flips" series of interviews where beatmakers talk at length about their favorite moments of sample wizardry by other beatsmiths. A whole section of this playlist is devoted to the work of the late J Dilla, whose way with hooks (for instance, I was never aware that he chopped up Rick James' "Give It to Me Baby" on Common's "Dooinit" until Questlove pointed it out recently on Hot 97) has been frequently spoken of with awe by the interviewees during the ego trip series.

Several of the sample sources on this playlist are movie themes (the Curtis Mayfield-produced themes from Let's Do It Again and Claudine) or re-recordings of movie themes (John Dankworth's cover of his own Modesty Blaise theme). DOOM's use of a lesser-known Henry Mancini piece (the Thief Who Came to Dinner theme) for a Ghostface Killah joint he produced was a particularly inspired choice and is, of course, part of the playlist.

If FX greenlights Dre's project, will it tank like John Ridley's UPN show Platinum, the last attempt to make a serialized drama set in the rap world (not counting The L.A. Complex)? Fake hip-hop has rarely sounded convincing on these crime shows. The Law & Order franchise does an especially terrible job coming up with fake rap or rock acts whenever an episode involves the music industry. Law & Order writers' ideas of what's popular in music are always hilariously seven or eight years behind present-day sounds, like in Criminal Intent's 2007 "Flipped" episode with Fab 5 Freddy as murdered rapper Fulla T or "Discord," the Briscoe/Logan-era mothership episode that guest-starred Fringe's Sebastian Roché as a rapey hair band idol known as C Square, whose late '80s-ish, Warrant-style sound would have barely sold any CDs in the era of grunge, which was when "Discord" first aired. The involvement of Dre on one of these shows (even if it's just as an EP and not as a showrunner) could change all that.

Take it away, Dre.

Complete tracklist after the jump...

14 favorite elements of songs I currently have on rotation while I create artwork for my own book

1. The cinematic-sounding French horn lines during Kanye West's "All of the Lights"
Ye is a modern-day Mozart--as in batshit crazy, but a total musical genius.



2. The military drums during Pusha T's "My God"

(Photo source: Trebles and Blues)

3. The piano sample during Trebles and Blues' "The Tempo"

4. The handclaps during The New Pornographers' "Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk"



5. The bloops that open The Chemical Brothers' "Car Chase (Arp Worship)" from the Hanna score

6. The bass line of Lyrics Born and Sam Sparro's "Coulda Woulda Shoulda"

7. The really tight brass section during The Heavy's live 2010 performance of "That Kind of Man" for KEXP

8. The "Love You Save"-esque beat of Dennis Coffey and Mayer Hawthorne's "All Your Goodies Are Gone"

9. Dres' flow during the Black Sheep track "Elevation"

10. Bambu's delivery of "I used to sit in church and look at the stained glass and wonder why none of them look like me" during "Misused"

11. The electronic bass line of Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy end credits cue "Solar Sailer"

12. Ernie Isley's smokin' guitar solo at the end of The Isley Brothers' "Summer Breeze"
I only listen to that cover of sappy Seals and Crofts just to get to that guitar solo.

13. Teena Marie (R.I.P.) leading the female half of the Long Beach audience in a playful battle of the sexes with Rick James over which gender is louder during the live 1981 version of "I'm a Sucker for Love" that's on the deluxe edition CD of Street Songs

14. "The Michael McDonald of the rap game," Nate Dogg (R.I.P.), proving he wasn't your father's Michael McDonald when he crooned "And you even licked my balls" during Snoop Dogg's "Ain't No Fun (If the Homies Can't Have None)"

The why of fly: Michael A. Gonzales' "Gangster Boogie" details the making of the Superfly soundtrack

(Photo source: Michael A. Gonzales)

I got my first taste of the late Curtis Mayfield's Superfly soundtrack when I watched a tape of a faded-looking print of the 1972 blaxploitation flick in either 1996 or 1997. Three elements of the movie stood out for me: the late Ron O'Neal's Shakespearean performance as a coke dealer who wants to quit the game, Sheila Frazier's nice body during the bathtub love scene and Mayfield's exceptional original songs, which are more insightful than the screenplay itself (Elvis Mitchell noted that "Mayfield's score rebels against the movie's insidious mythologizing of Priest"). Any piece of music Mayfield wrote or produced for movies just plain sizzles, whether it's any of the tunes in Superfly, the Let's Do It Again theme he produced for the Staple Singers or the Claudine theme "On and On" by Gladys Knight & the Pips.

Superfly fan Michael A. Gonzales has written what has to be the definitive chronicle of the making of the Superfly soundtrack, "Gangster Boogie," the must-read cover story in the latest issue of Wax Poetics magazine (what an issue it is: Mayfield! David Holmes! Roc Raida! Do the Right Thing! Black Dynamite! Funkdafied '70s European library music!). The Superfly soundtrack's influence on R&B and hip-hop shows no signs of waning (I didn't notice "Little Child Runnin' Wild" was sampled in Kanye West's "Flashing Lights" until it was pointed out by The-Breaks.com).

What makes Michael's piece stand out from other writings I've read about the 1972 soundtrack is that it doesn't neglect the importance of the sidemen and arrangers who helped Mayfield craft the soundtrack. Michael has said he wanted to avoid writing about Superfly through the lens of the auteur theory like other writings about classic albums he's read, hence the substantial interviews with Superfly guitarists Craig McMullen and Phil Upchurch and arranger Johnny Pate, who composed a terrific instrumental score for Shaft in Africa after Superfly.

"Gangster Boogie" also sheds light on the tensions between rock musicians and traditional film scorers that arise from projects like Superfly. I wasn't aware of Mayfield's lawsuit against his former friend Pate, who claimed he was solely responsible for writing Superfly's "Junkie Chase" and "Think" instrumental cues. It's one of many juicy tidbits in a fly article about the flyest of '70s movie soundtracks.

I just want to hear Girl Talk

The moment in which Girl Talk mashes up Ahmad's "Back in the Day" with Rod Stewart's "Young Turks" during "Shut the Club Down"? Too damn genius.

Likewise with Thom Yorke being edited to look like he's singing Blackstreet's "No Diggity" (during the second video, which is based on "Still Here," track 3 from Girl Talk's Feed the Animals album). I don't know who edited these music video clips together to GT's Feed the Animals tracks, but somebody get this guy an editing award.

Music: "Still Here" by Girl Talk: