Major Lazer f/ Mr. Lexx & Santigold: "Hold The Line"

On paper Major Lazer sounds like an only-in-2k9 absurdity, notable mostly for how M.I.A. going top five probably hooked Diplo and Switch’s dubbed-out blaxploitation Gorillaz up with a major label deal. It’s like 1980 all over again, except instead of the Clash and Bob Marley making reggae safe for teenyboppers, it’s Santigold as mother figure for roofied up electro-party soldiers.

CMG headquarters isn’t exactly buzzing over this hyped-up piece of Scene Product, and honestly I didn’t expect to be standing up for (the endearingly, preposterously titled) Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do‘s first single “Hold The Line,” especially over the bland, busy Ghislain Poirier remix. What D&S seem to be going for on the original is an impossible b-movie trailer, full of horse hooves, ominous phone calls, crashes, “A Milli,” spaghetti western guitar, animal noises, and sticky smooches. That movie would make less sense than Southland Tales directed by Heidi & Spencer, but that’s all the more reason to turn it into a song by ratcheting up the guitar tension from Western to Surf, and making it do some wokka-wokka over textbook dub.

Mr. Lexx and (a pleasantly atonal) Santigold’s unintelligible, fuck-all attitude brings the beat+noises ambience from a funny dance into something as intimidating as Major Lazer’s Planet Terror rip-off laser arm. Diplo and Switch remember that the reason people like Johnny Rotten were into reggae to begin with was that the deep dub cuts could be intimidating as hell, UB40 pop potential aside. And so maybe, just maybe, Major Lazer can take advantage of its gimmicky fifteen minutes of fame and remind everyone what exactly the dancehall of yesteryear has to offer the dance halls of today.