​Broad shoulders, dark hair, and chiseled cheekbones. Basshunter is definitely easy on the eyes. But it's (also) his music that's made him a DJ-producer-singer superstar in dance clubs worldwide.

He unapologetically lays down "Euro trash" tracks, marked by relentless pounding, cellular phone-like bleeps, and mind-numbingly simple lyrics. (This is the stuff the kids on Jersey Shore go nuts over.)

Basshunter's new album Bass Generation is sleeker than his previous efforts, but will impress clubgoers far more than it will critics. So what? It's damn fun. If you like chugging vodka-Red Bulls, dancing on elevated surfaces, and oh perhaps, fist pumping, then this is an album for you.

Basshunter performs songs off his new record at Cirque Events Center at 9 p.m. More deets here.

As Pauly D would say, beat up the beat!

The video for Philly flamethrower Freeway and Seattle super-producer Jake One's Rick James-sampled "She Makes Me Feel Alright," off their debut collaboration The Stimulus Package, will premiere May 2 during a special edition of MTV Jams dedicated to the ironically titled City of Brotherly Love. (Sorry, Philly: I got jacked there in 2002, and though I left with all my teeth, I had to make an unscheduled stop at the ATM. For a less violent view of the city, check out XL8R's latest City Guide episode.)

The first video off Free and Jake's disc was for "Know What I Mean," which is conveniently available for your viewing pleasure below. For the official propaganda on the new vid, hop the jump. Between this news and word this morning from Matson on Music that Shabazz Palaces is getting some national attention, all in all, it's been a pretty good week for Seattle hip-hop.

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Pearly Gate Music's debut full-length (out May 18 on Barsuk) drops two weeks earlier in the UK--which is also good news for Zach Tillman's stateside fans. Bella Union, the album's overseas distributor, has posted every track on their website in anticipation of the May 3 UK release. (Thanks to Sound on the Sound for the tip.) Pearly Gate Music is filled with fluid, dreamlike tracks, like "I Woke Up," which you can listen to now. But the whole album is worth a listen--and worth picking up on May 18.

Pearly Gate Music - I Woke UpbyBella Union

Everybody Was In The French Resistance...Now! is the side project of the cheeky Art Brut front man Eddie Argos. Argos and Dylan Valdes of The Blood Arm just released a record called Fixin' the Charts, Volume 1, a collection of songs that are responses to well-known pop songs. For example, for Kanye West's "Gold Digger," there's "Coal Digger," "Billie's Genes" is of course a response to "Billie Jean," and the above song, "G.I.R.L.F.R.E.N.," is a clap-happy play on Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend."

Everybody Was In French Resistance...Now! is playing the High Dive tomorrow night with the Tea Cozies at 9:30pm. Want to go for free? The first person to email me at ethompson@seattleweekly.com gets a pair of free tickets. Starting now. Go.

"Beyond the Wheel," via SoundgardenWorld.com, from their set at Showbox at the Market on Friday, April 16.

Woman of power Lady Gaga

​Time.com readers have voted and chosen Iranian opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi as their #1 most influential person of 2010, and close behind at #5 is Lady Gaga.
Says Time:

If you like dance and pop, the music is great -- well-produced and delightfully contagious. But the spectacle that is Lady Gaga is not really about the music, even though she did win two Grammys this year. It's not even about the outfits, including the crazy glam-rock bodices and odd headgear. Rather, Stefani Joanne Germanotta has become famous by being obsessed with fame (her two albums are called The Fame and The Fame Monster). It's performance art, and at least for now, everyone is loving the performance.

Such distinction placed Gaga ahead (at least in the voters' minds) of Barack Obama (#21), Bill and Melinda Gates (#70), and Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan (#43). Although, to be fair here, these discerning voters also placed the Korean pop star Rain at #4, and Ashton Kutcher and Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi in the top 100.

Read the full list here; other musicians who made it include Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Kanye West, and T-Bone Burnett.

Mystikal: former No Limit soldier and prison inmate.

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Remember Mystikal? He was perhaps the most visible member of New Orleans' No Limit crew--save, of course, for Master P and his spit-shined gold fronts--and one of its finest MCs, right up there with the woefully underappreciated Young Bleed, both of whom made Lil Wayne look like the pubescent pipsqueak he was back then.

Before his conviction on sexual battery charges and subsequent term in prison (he was released in January), Mystikal, like all No Limit "soldiers," churned out record after record (or tape after tape, which is how we bumped that shit during No Limit's '90s heyday) via an assembly line method that saw artists sharing song themes (smoking weed and ghetto life, most prominently), as well as cheesy, graphics-based, cut-and-paste artwork. This down and dirty marketing strategy, while effective for a time, ultimately served to diminish the quality of much of No Limit's output by reducing otherwise important art to mass-produced product.

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Liars are playing Neumos tomorrow night.

​I thought Liars' first video from their latest record, the brilliaint Sisterworld, made me tense, but the second one, "The Overachievers," is downright skin-crawling. The video features one of those guys who goes to the gym and drinks protein shakes, a shadowy room, and a dripping bag of blood. The fact that it looks like a home video makes it even creepier. It was directed by the band's own guitarist, Aaron Hemphill.

Click here to watch the video. Liars will headline Neumos tomorrow night.

Yes, it's perhaps a bit calculated, but I appreciated the programming strategy of Robert Spano, who guest-conducted the Seattle Symphony last night, of making Rachmaninoff more palatable by sweetening it with a little contemporary music: John Adams' Harmonielehre, the concert's second half, made his Second Piano Concerto go down much easier. Kidding aside, I enjoy the critically bashed "Rach 2" when I'm in the mood for it, and soloist Dejan Lazic ensured that.

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​Animal Collective "Graze" from Fall Be Kind. I bought this EP from the interesting group. The tune starts as dreamy with the treated vocals that I know the Collective for. But it changes gears in a big way with these wild flutes. Listening reminded me that we're nearing the second decade of the 21st Century. It's music for our age.

Fela Kuti and his Africa '70. "My Lady Frustration" This is a nice addition to my 10" EP collection. It's Fela and his troupe at their finest. There are four songs on this release so it's not the usual epic 15 minute Afro-Beat jam. But it's all there in "My Lady Frustration" - big sound, sweet brass with Fela at the helm. Check out my previous article on Fela Ransome Kuti the Original Frist Black President.

Charlotte Gainsbourg "Heaven Can Wait" Alternate Version. This is a 7" single of another take of "Heaven Can Wait" from the Gainsbourg release IRM. It's kind of loose, which makes it fun. The tune is written and produced by Beck and he's prominently in the mix.