The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #249

#249: "Sour Cherry" (2008) - The Kills

Alison Mosshart & Jamie Hince--girlfriend & boyfriend duo, playing distorted, blues-derived, raw rawk & roll--sound familiar? Yeah, they're not the White Stripes--not as famous, not as talented (at least in the writing department), and not as magnetic. They've got one thing, though, that Jack & Meg don't--a legitimately hip-hop sounding song--a great one, too. This one. "Sour Cherry." Doesn't sound anything like what The Kills had recorded before, yet it sounds so them. The production is minimal, and it sounds almost homemade, but it moves and it shakes, and this track would work wonders just as an instrumental--a hip-hop instrumental, too! Except for the militant drumming near the end...well, Kanye West has appropriated that sound, now, too (he swiped it from Gang of Four, who swiped it from funk bands because Gang of Four didn't have any horn or keyboard players, so they punctuated how and where they could), and I guess you could say that The Kills are swiping it back! I wouldn't say that though. Unless I just did. Doesn't matter, though, not as long as those handclaps keep handclapping, and those drumsticks keep clicking, and the drum machine keeps dink-dinking, and Hince's guitar keeps plinking that exotic Middle-Eastern solo, and Mossheart keeps stage-whispering those vocals, all sultry come-on, all bedroom tease, promising, promising, and then sending us away, telling us to get off the ride, telling us to go home 'cause it's over, knowing the whole time that we'll keep coming back 'cause when she's singing and the music keeps shaking and swinging this hard, she's the only cherry on the fruit stand, and we want a bite.