Dirty, Smutty Hipster Disco: MSTRKRFT vs. Simian Mobile Disco

What's really good?

OK, so it's no secret I spent more than two years wasting my talent slinging porn at a Wal-Mart sized sex store, the name of which rhymes with "induction."

In addition to the promised slightly-more-than minimum wage, this job offered me a few decent perks before it caused my soul to implode.

They included the following:

1) Discounted porn.

2) Free (read, stolen) porn.

3) Long, uninterrupted stretches of time to read, write, eat and stare at the walls.

4) An excuse to start reading Fleshbot on a regular basis. (By the way, it's not like I'm making news here, but Fleshbot may be the absolute best thing on the web. If you're not a regular reader you've been napping for like half a decade.)

5) An ability to differentiate high quality smut from middling smut.

It's the last two that are really important here.

There was a period of time in 2006 where Fleshbot was regularly posting music videos that would not make the rotation on MuchMusic or MTV. It turns out that YouTube is a veritable treasure trove of musical smutitude. Now, as it turns out, a lot of it is crappy re-hashings of old David Lee Roth videos. But some of it is pretty awesome.

I decided to take two of those videos and pit them against each other in a battle to see whose filth is hotter.

A couple things about these videos. They have more in common than just nakedness. Both bands produce a sort of music that straddles the gap between straight up house and retro-'80s electro, a sound I've dubbed Hipster Disco, in part because it's accurate and in part because I've always wanted to invent a genre.

The Main Event

In the red corner, from Toronto, Ontario, with a pretension factor of no vowels, MSTRKRFT!

Pretty much everyone already knows the MSTRKRFT story. The group was started by Jesse Keeler from Death From Above 1979 and Toronto producer Al-P as an outlet for Keeler's housey, DFA-inappropriate musical urges. A year later, DFA was no more and MSTRKRFT was all Keeler had.

(Two asides: One, Al-P is in no way related to El-P or Al B. Sure, which sucks. Two, I am still not 100% over the death of Death From Above 1979.)

This video was one of the '06 Fleshbot classics, and with good reason. Not only is this song a fucking banger, the crew at Fleshbot wasn't lying when they called this bad boy Jules Jordan-esque. (Be aware that there be a porn link, kiddies. For those of you who don't know, Jules Jordan isn't just a pornographer. In my mind, he's THE pornographer. Really and truly, this man has provided countless hours of enjoyment for me.)

That said, this video isn't just pervy. It really doesn't make any sense, either. I dig that. There's no reason for a milkshake to fall from the sky. It just does.



And now the opposition.

In the blue corner, from Manchester, England, with a pretension factor of a long, goofy name and releasing shit on a French label, SIMIAN MO-bile DISCOOOO!

Where MSTRKRFT came as the result of a side project, Simian Mobile Disco rose phoenix like from the ashes of electro-rock act Simian.

Here's what I know about Simian. When I was working for an excellent little campus paper at a less-than-excellent university, I got a review copy of Simian's We Are Your Friends. I don't remember if I ever got around to writing the review, but I remember really liking the album. I think I may still have it. I should probably go look at some point.

After the band's 2005 break-up, half the guys from Simian started remixing songs for acts like Muse, The Go! Team and Air. In 2006 Kitsuné records released "Hustler" and the rest, as they say, is history.

As far as I can tell, and I won't front like I put extensive research into this blog, their are two "official" videos for "Hustler." Both of them are righteously dirty, but I picked this one because I think it contrasts with the MSTRKRFT joint a little better.

A few things I like about this video:

1) Girls kissing girls. It's cheesy, it's clichéd and to be totally honest with you, I don't really like all-girl porn that much, but in music videos it works. Hell, just ask Pittsburgh Slim.

2) The slow build. There's no action until two-thirds of the way through. Again, not so cool in porn, but it works in the smutty music video context.

3) The cheese-bag, '80s art school film vibe. I'm going to assume this was like a "meta" type reference to art school film, rather than actually thinking that's cool.

If the MSTRKRFT video is lay it all out early, cumshots 'til you explode, Jules Jordan-style joint, the Simian Mobile Disco video is more like an Eon McKai video. It's art you can jack off to, if you really, really need to jack off.

(Again, two asides. One, Cadence Weapon did an absolutely insane mash-up of "Hustler" and Rick Ross' "Hustlin'" called, not surprisingly, "Hustlin' Hustler." I suggest you all go find it when you're done here. Two, my former co-worker Marty once made an excellent observation on the work of Eon McKai. "It's a gritty portrayal of urban life, it's fucking awful .... Do you jerk off to Scorsese films?")



OK, so once again voting closes midnight Friday. Sorry to take away a day of democracy, but my trip to the hinterland through me off schedule. Won't happen again.