The Anti-Hit List

10. FRANZ FERDINAND VS. BEASTIE BOYS , "Franzie Boys": This legitimately released McSleazy mash-up conjoins the angular taunting of the former's "Take Me Out" with the schoolyard swagger of the latter's "Triple Trouble," and continually relocates the line that divides alt-rock and hip-hop. In the process, it also clarifies the Beasties'To the 5 Boroughs disc for what it truly is: raw material. (http://www.mcsleazy.net/)

9. THE DINNER IS RUINED, "Give Hope a Chance: Dejection Year '04": Though this long-MIA Toronto aggregation is in the midst of recording a new full-length, this complex and ambitiously feral 10-minute epic sounds like they've already finished an entire album -- they just chose to cram it into one song. Interspersed with snippets of speeches by Bush, this roiling opus is so exuberantly diffuse, its value as a statement on the imminent US election is highly debatable. Its value as a giddy musical experience, however, is unqualified. (Available for $2.22 at zunior.com)

8. BABYSHAMBLES, "Killamangiro": This live, car crash of a recording by exiled Libertines drug addict Pete Doherty will no doubt become a distant memory once the studio version is released next week, but there's something undeniably fascinating about this distinctly amateurish performance that fans will find touching -- and everyone else will probably regard as simply amateurish. (www.babyshambles.net/babyshambleslive.html)

7. JOE STRUMMER, "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" (live): The concluding track on a highly enjoyable compilation CD curated in part by Mick Jones and Paul Simonon, this previously unreleased recording was captured at London's legendary 100 Club, which Strummer revisited in 2000. The way he could shift from amiable to intense in the blink of an eye remains a sorely missed talent. (From Radio Clash, MOJO magazine, October)

6. THE EARLIES, "Morning Wonder": The droning heart of this British/American outfit's latest single manages to evoke both The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" and Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea." The result is hypnotic enough to make the pain of having to pay import prices to buy the thing here a little more palatable. (From These Were The Earlies, http://www.theearlies.com/)

5. BETTYE SWANN, "Stand by Your Man": The key to this 35-year-old, horn-drenched overhaul of the quintessential passive/non-aggressive female country song comes early on, when this remarkably dexterous, half-forgotten soulstress takes the seemingly innocuous line "After all, he's just a man" and subtly transforms its meaning. Where it originally came off as a flimsy rationalization, here it signifies something downright subversive: "After all, he's not a woman." (From Bettye Swann, http://www.honestjons.com/)

4. TIM BOOTH, "Redneck": Unlike the soaring pop Booth mastered with fitfully successful UK outfit James, this meditation on the ephemerality of existence seems to draw its musical inspiration from U2's "40." The song's oddly soothing tone of contemplative whimsy also contributes to the feeling that Booth knows something we don't. (From Bone, www.sanctuaryrecordsgroup.co.uk/tim/index.html, out in Canada on Jan. 25, 2005)

3. STEVIE WONDER VS. DESTINY'S CHILD, "Bootystition": A seamless, grin-inducing mash-up of "Superstitious" and "Bootylicious" by the sadly retired Smash, who also sneaks in the flute flourish from Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" as a bonus. It makes you wonder when labels, publishers and artists will find a way to make these witty concoctions a standard part of greatest-hit compilations, in place of the token (and invariably substandard) "two new songs" ploy they use to sucker us in now. (mashmix.com/xoops/modules/mydownloads)

2. THE ALPS, "End of October": Remarkably dissimilar to "As it Comes," which showed up in this space last month (and which frontman Daniel emailed about to opine that it didn't sound like The Strokes, but rather The Jam), this evocative ballad by the rising London band opens with a two-note piano part that sounds like Bacharach-David's "Anyone Who Had a Heart" before going its own plaintive way. One to watch. (http://www.planetofthealps.com/)

1. THE DEAD 60s, "Riot Radio": Unabashedly retro though they may be, this Liverpool four-piece brings so much zeal to their plundering, you have to marvel at their audacity. Besides, some of us are more than happy to listen to an approximation of what Graham Parker would sound like if he'd cut an early version of "This Is Radio Clash." (UK single, http://www.deltasonic.co.uk/)

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