Santigold -- Santogold

8/10

Almost ten years ago, I heard Santigold's "Lights Out" in a beer commercial, went to the record store, and bought her album. It was like $9 for the vinyl. I miss The Compact Disc Store on Jefferson, ironically for its nice, fairly priced vinyl collection. That was nine bucks well spent. Santigold's confusingly titled debut, Santogold,is excellent, a diverse collection of pop-songs tinged with 80's new wave and reggae. There's even some dub tossed in just for fun. I generally hate pop-music, unless it's well written, well performed, and contains semblance of actual humanity, generally because the actual artists wrote the songs, and I don't know, people actually played real instruments to make it--this album's got all those things and great atmosphere to boot. Santigold manages to infuse both an island and grimy New York punk feel into these eleven tracks, and considering my earliest childhood memories of enjoying music involve both Bob Marley and The Police, and I went punk rock crazy the first year of college, these songs easily unlock my dopamine chambers. Santigold's vocal performance itself is one of the most fun on record from the 00's, careening from snarky punk attitude, to melodic near-rapping, to lightly sweet. She's put out two albums since this one, and I feel bad that I don't own them, as well. I'd trade 1,000 of whoever's popular now for 1 Santigold.
Also, this album works great on vinyl! Ending side A with the dark and trippy "My Superman," then springing side B with the upbeat and bright "Lights Out" is brilliant. Also, that gold-vomiting album cover can always stand to be bigger.


2008 Downtown Records
1. L.E.S. Artistes 3:24
2. You'll Find a Way 3:00
3. Shove It 3:46
4. Say Aha 3:35
5. Creator 3:33
6. My Superman 3:00
7. Lights Out 3:12
8. Starstruck 3:54
9. Unstoppable 3:32
10. I'm a Lady 3:43
11. Anne 3:28
12. You'll Find a Way 3:12