The 333 Best Pop Songs of the 2000s: #204

#204: "Ultimate" (2007) - Gogol Bordello

We leave Israel--though we're disappointed that Kaplan never told us if that chick singer had a sister-- and we now have one last stop to make on our journery. We fly over to Eastern Europe, where we disembark and catch a carriage to the Carpathian Mountains. We then discover that among the rugged peaks that crown down upon the Borgo Pass are found crumbling castles of a bygone age, and atop the tallest battlement of the foremost castle sits Count Gogola, known (and feared) by his countrymen as DJ Eugene Hutz the Fire-Bucket Player. The Count surrounds himself with a band of gypsies, many of whom are of Eastern-European descent.

We ascend to the Count's throneroom, and we meekly inquire of his music, based on a traditional gypsy folk music using traditional instruments but filtered through the contemporary style of punk. We ask the Count if he's using punk music as a gateway for followers to enter, luring the unbeknownst with a popular sound into the fantastic world of good-old authentic music. Real music. The Count laughs. He then bellows, "There were never any good old days. They are today. They are tomorrow. It's a stupid thing we say. Cursing tomorrow with sorrow." His stoic-faced band of minstrels then launch into...a traditional-sounding gypsy round. Then, as Count Gogol calls us all "a bunch of zeroes," we notice a lifeless figure in the corner, saxophone lying broken at his feet--it's Ori Kaplan! What's he doing here? What's happened to him? Before we can ask, our host and his company start playing and marching double-time, punk time, all around us, shouting, ready for attack, ready for battle.

We depart as quickly as we can, running down the halls, but we stumble over vermin, and we look up and notice the lofty timbers, that the walls around are bare, and we realize that we're no longer in Transylvania; in fact, we wonder if we ever were, for our immediate surroundings now look an awful lot like the Upper East Side of NYC. We must have been under a spell. We laugh at our foolishness, but we notice that the walls are echoing to our laughter as though the dead were there. We hear a voice in the distance shout, "Quaff a cup to the dead already, hooray for the next to die!"

That's it. We're outta here. We're staying in country from now on. We're crazy with it.