your music july

Each month, the eMusic Editorial staff suggests some of their favorite tracks on the site — for those few subscribers without insanely packed “Saved for Later” lists. We’ve finally got July’s edition up now and we’re proud to say that it features Paris Hilton, grindcore pit bulls and Dane Cook’s kid brother — among others.

J. Edward Keyes Recommends
Culture - Two Sevens Clash

Arriving on eMusic just in time to aid my flight to the familiar, the 30th anniversary reissue of Culture’s stupendous Two Sevens Clash. The music here is still startlingly fresh and lively, twin harmonies and Joseph Hill’s inspired, chattering vocals gliding gloriously over marvelously measured instrumentation. The album is justly a classic: the songs are perfectly constructed, easy, bobbing compositions built around piping organ and shouting brass. The title comes from the Rastafarian belief that the world would end in 1977 — the year when the “two sevens clash.” Its place in my playlist proved eerily timely: yesterday, a ruptured steampipe caused a street near the eMusic offices to explode, necessitating a swift evacuation and a solid hour of total confusion and concern. The phrase “Get Ready to Ride the Lion to Zion” was circling, somewhat wryly, in my head.

Download: “Get Ready to Ride the Lion to Zion,” “I’m Not Ashamed,” “Black Starliner Must Come”
For more of Joe’s selections, click here.

Michael Azerrad Recommends
Caninus – Now the Animals Have a Voice

You know how all those grindcore singers kind of sound like growling pit bulls? Well, Caninus just cut to the chase — their lead singer actually is a growling pit bull. Make that two pit bulls, named Budgie and Basil. Caninus’ MySpace page boldly claims they’re “The World’s First Ever [sic] Animal-Fronted Band.” Try telling that to the Bermuda Tree Frogs, fellas. Now, I make no claims for the musical worth of this endeavor, but you gotta throw them a bone for the concept. “Bite the Hand that Feeds You” is as good an example as any, but probably the best track here isn’t musical — it’s the aptly titled “Studio Guy Gets Pissed,” in which Budgie and Basil apparently try to bust a move, prompting some indignant protestations by the titular recordist: “WHOAH! HEY! WHOAH! C’mon, man, this isn’t a fuckin’ park! Can you get the dogs back in the vocal booth please?”

Download: “Bite the Hand that Feeds You,” “Studio Guy Gets Pissed”
For more picks from Michael, click here.

Todd Burns Recommends
Scharpling & Wurster – The Art of the Slap

Tom Scharpling and Jon Wurster have been doing long-form comedy since 1997. In that year, Wurster called up Scharpling’s radio show, The Best Show on WFMU, and took on the guise of rock know-it-all Ronald Thomas Clontle. Dubbed “the ultimate argument settler,” his book Rock, Rot & Rule was simple: divided into three columns, it listed almost any band you could think of in one of its three categories. The resulting conversation with Scharpling — and callers to the station decrying Clontle’s claims (namely that Madness invented ska and that the Beatles merely rock) — was high comedy.

On this fifth edition of greatest hits, Scharpling once again plays the straight man to Wurster’s wacky batch of characters. Which means he has to react to ridiculous situations like a roided-up computer repairman, an insufferable horror film director or, um, a fish calling into this radio show. Somehow Scharpling bears it — and even shows some compassion for the quixotic rocker determined to play the first set on top of Mt. Everest ever (with special guests Clarence Carter, Art Alexakis, Dane Cook’s kid brother and every single member of the Polyphonic Spree).

Download: “Mother 13…The First Rock Band on Mt. Everest! (Part I),” “Mother 13…The First Rock Band on Mt. Everest! (Part II),” “The Auteur”
For more picks from, er, me, click here.