the yeah yeah yeahs - "gold lion" (from the show your bones lp, released march 28, available for preorder here.)
the yeah yeah yeahs - "gold lion (diplo remix)" (from the internet, available everywhere.)

in brief : when the single is bungled, get the remix, hot & fresh out the jungle.

it's never a good sign when the first version of your single that appears is the remix. often, some shitty dj takes a sample of the song found on the net and then extends it into a song. not so in the case of the new yeah yeah yeahs' single, "gold lion," particularly since diplo is no shitty dj.

remixes have long been prevalent in the rap/r&b world, but the notion of the remix used to be met in the rock community w/ the old saw, "if you got it right the first time, you wouldn't need to remix it." i'm not sure what exactly brought about this sea change, though two events come to mind. first, in 1999, the flaming lips had r. kelly engineer peter mokran remix two of the songs on the soft bulletin to great effect; second, r. kelly himself has almost singlehandedly reinvented the remix himself in the twenty-first century. given all of the bands who rip off the lips and the countless covers of "ignition" by indie acts, surely such moves carried weight.

and thus diplo. but first, let me say something about the original.

it's also never a good sign when the new single by a "rock" act starts off w/ an acoustic guitar; this holds true for the yyy's. it's been slightly less than three years since the release of fever to tell, but much has changed, including a reduction in the number of radio stations that would play a song like "maps" and the general failure of bands who would write songs like "maps," bands from the class of '01 when definite articles were all the rage. evolve or die out is the way of the jungle these days, but i'm not sure that "gold lion" is the surest way of survival.

at least not in its original form, which brings us to diplo, who is all the rage in '06. his remix is squelchy and rhythmic, as one has come to expect, and taken at a pace that the yyy's might have attempted several years ago. the peak is the refrain, karen o's sped-up voice going "ooh-OOOH, ooh-OOOH," like she was trapped in the closet. one wonders whether there might be a remix album in the works, what w/ the yyy's recently involved in the gang of four remix project and the success of the numerous remixes that accompanied beck's guero and resulted in guerolito. after all, if you don't get it right the first time ...