It Took Seconds

Three minutes and forty seconds:

the lyrics of radio-ready pop often pretend that the only relevant zone of human interaction outside the bedroom, the only place that matters, is “the club,” and even more claustrophobic, the V.I.P. room, where the main options are drinking brand-name booze, bragging about sexual conquests and enumerating designer accessories.

- Jon Pareles on current pop

Every night with my star friends we eat caviar and drink champagne, sniffing in the VIP area we talk about Frank Sinatra. “You know Frank Sinatra? He’s dead!”

- Miss Kittin, “Frank Sinatra”

This is one of my very favourite 00s pop songs. It’s fabulously amoral. It doesn’t think the people in the VIP area are all that, because it breaks down their lives into ludicrous repetition. But it certainly doesn’t think the people outside are all that either, they don’t even register. It doesn’t think anything much, nothing it won’t hide behind that mirthless skeleton laugh - “he’s dead, hahahaha” - but it’s still out-thinking anyone coming at it. Most electroclash I got tired of but I keep coming back to “Frank Sinatra”, there’s a seam of jet in it, real glittering negation like in “Get Off Of My Cloud” or “Holidays In The Sun” if you want comparisons. Intoxicating, hollow, horrible, addictive, funny.

What would your 3’40” track be?