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1. Common, “I Want You.” This track has the best mellow hip-hop groove of 2007 this side of Kanye West’s “Flashing Lights,” but on “Finding Forever,” Common has the nasty habit of letting his A-list hobnobbery influence his rhymes — how is the breakup of Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn relevant to anybody? This happens a few times on “Forever,” and the effect is a little like setting InTouch magazine to a breakbeat. The disc is otherwise strong, but it’s sprinkled with random seconds of “Bleccch.”

2. The Dears, “Hate Then Love.”

3. The Shins, “Fighting in a Sack.”

4. Kate Earl, “Anything.”

5. Fujiya & Miyagi, “Reeboks in Heaven.”

 

6. Lily Allen, “Smile (Mark Ronson remix).” Nice Motown-spiced remix of Allen’s shoulda-been-huge-on-these-shores single. Right about now, we need some new Lily — her stateside label was being restructured when “Alright, Still” came out here, and we can only hope that Staticblog’s favorite will get the promotion she deserves on the next one. However, she is biding her time on delivery despite official pressure from her U.K. label to deliver a pronto follow-up.    

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