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Download: Poni Hoax "Budapest"

Lord knows I love me some Facebook, even all the nasty messages I still get from "rap heads" over my Roots The Tipping Point review from a thousand years ago. It's a shitty album! Get over it! Leave my shit in your mouth!

As I've said elsewhere, we've reached the point where people take the service seriously for the most part, or at the least not skeptically, no fear of being too too fucked with, etc. People list their real interests, at worst interests they think would be interesting to have, because they know they can put all their fake interests over on Myspace. So all you perverts who gave up pretending to be 13-year-olds in the Britney chatroom after all the ABC 'dangerous internet' specials, get back on your grizzly. This new batch of 13-year-olds totally haven't seen The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes.

Facebook connoisseurs will remember the service's failed Wirehog p2p initiative, where (generally speaking) your computer was HTMLized and turned into a searchable, downloadable filesharing juggernaut so all your Facebook friends can grab your sweet 15-disc Deep Purple discography or the Lost in Translation Ass Ass Titties Titties song wherever and whenever they need it. The prog was buggy, but for a second the prospect of mixing Facebook--a thing with faces and favorite books and your classes and stuff--with FREE DOWNLOADABLE MUSIC, seemed pretty good. There was a lot of Guster I hadn't heard yet, and I looked forward to hearing every last bongo hit.

Anyway Facebook is usually the last place I turn for new tunes, but the last two weeks Face Zuckerbook and friends hooked up a ridiculously great deal with iTunes: 25 hot new downloads each week, and each week a new genre. Inexplicably, the selections are pretty solid too. Two weeks ago was indie rock, which included selections from Maritime, Phoenix, Granddaddy, Dirty on Purpose, The Twilight Singers, The Rakes, Mates of State, and Goldfrapp. The Phoenix song "Consolation Prizes" has this Belle&Sebastian vs. Cure vs. "Footloose" feel to it that earned itself a few extra clicks and a trip to my iPod. Dirty on Purpose's "Light Pollution" isn't a half-bad attempt at writing a "Maps" so guess what--I listened to it for more than fifteen seconds. Goldfrapp's "Fly Me Away" is already on my harddrive AND iPod but guess what, I'm deleting both and keeping the Facebook version.

This past week--dance music--blew me the hell away. I think Justice's "Waters of Nazareth" is total dogshit along the lines of every other heavy metal disco song I've ever heard, but I'm shocked--shocked--to see it among the Facebook 25, and now I might even like it a little. Audion's "Kisses"--this is on here too? And did the Facebook guys put the Ursula 1000 & Cristina track on here because they knew Cristina spent some time at Harvard, or because they know that I unsuccessfully pitched an article about her to Harvard Magazine? I never would have bothered with Daedelus's new album but "Sundown" is on here and the Books w/Four Tet drumsound shit he's on now is gorgeous. Junior Boys' "In the Morning" is on here too--what?

So applause. Can't wait for the Facebook/iTunes weeks on College Rock '99--every track is a different version of Dave Matthews' "Crash"--and Smooth Jazz '06--25 photos of me writing a Boney James review.

79/100 RIFFS