some singles out this week

ja rule ft ashanti - "mesmerize"

eight million times better and sweeter than "always on time", probably not as good as the "i'm real" rmx but few things are - it's ja rule and he's back only this time slightly less successful! so lots of dickheads can crow in music magazines about how he was never any good and posit his downturn in sales as 'proof'. motherfucker still sells more than your fave band! anyway, up until six months ago i didn't much like his stuff apart from "holla" so i'm not ready to give up on the dude yet! the video is wicked.

richard x/liberty x - "being nobody"

this fits almost disturbingly well into the liberty x thing but i can't really decide what the thing is! like, is it as simple as "omg look i can open up my chest and there's wires and shit inside!" cyborg sex? whatever it is, judging from every performance ever (even injecting some cold-steel singing and implied harsh facial expressions into their ballads), lx take it fucking seriously! it's not... a fuckin... game!! there's a shit faux-dancehall rmx on the b side, but buy it anyway!

linkin park - "somewhere i belong"

if this week's singles were from march 01 or even 02 it would be the greatest week in the history of anything, but dude it's 03, you can't keep up this shit forever, one day even spizzazzz will tire of scratching over enormous, predictable chord progressions and shirts with lots of buttons. one day. not quite today, i mean i still bought the 7" of this! i like the way singing dude starts every line for rapping dude to finish; i like the way i went red (possibly embarrassed on behalf of everyone who ever liked nu-metal) hearing the chorus for the first time, such is it's self-parodic obviousness (as with everything lp do, they won't just open the door to self-parody, they will, like the dudes in whatever tv ad that was, sprint into multiple walls and jump over a huge ravine to grab it); i dislike the overall sound which is really frustrating because that indestructable formula is still there!

n*e*r*d - "provider"

yes of course, a zero 7 rmx will be far more successful than, hmm, a neptunes rmx! ok ok it's aight. also, decent twitchy electro mix of "lapdance" on the flip. "re-recorded with live instruments" is still the worst idea anyone has ever had and will not be forgotten anytime soon.