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Liz Phair, Morningwood Rock Us: DLC Singles Bring Tunes and Attitude

Filed under: DLC News / Tags: liz-phair, morningwood / 4 comments

This week's singles DLC singles are devoted to some notable RWAs - that's Rock Women with Attitude. Chantal Claret of the NY/LA duo Morningwood has one of the brassiest voices around and Liz Phair's "Rock Me" is definitely not a song for prudes.

Indie-rock queen Liz Phair shocked the world when she released "Rock Me" on her self-titled fourth album in 2003. Leaving behind the homemade low-fi sound of her cult classic debut Exile in Guyville, this was a swing into glossy, fully-produced pop, with no less a production team than the Matrix - yes, the same team who'd worked chart magic with Britney Spears and Avril Lavigne. (Phair said she got she was partly influenced by learning that one of the Neptunes was, like herself, a single mom). Lyrically, the song brings "teen-friendly" to new heights, as Liz tells exactly what she likes about her affair with a much younger guy. Some of the Playstation and Wii fans here disputed the song's Xbox reference, but everybody's got to love the moment where she works her own name into the lyric.

If you prefer singers who can exhaust you with their energy, you and Morningwood frontwoman Chantal Claret should be fast friends. She and musical partner Pedro Yanowitz throw pop, metal, and alt-rock moves into a snappy, sexy package; and their two tracks ("Best of Me" and "Sugarbaby") mark Morningwood's return after a couple of touch-and-go years. They parted company with a major label and started their own, then faced some interpersonal rough spots as Claret moved to LA and Yanowitz stayed in New York (the pair met eight years ago at a cocktail party at the famous Dakota Building). "Best of Me" should be familiar if you watch VH1, which has been featuring the song over the past month, leading Claret to note that "TV really is the new radio."

All tracks are sold separately, "Rock Me" is $1.99 (160 Microsoft Points for Xbox 360) and the two Morningwood songs are $0.99 each (80 Microsoft Points each for Xbox 360). Available October 27 for Xbox 360 and Wii; October 29 for PlayStation 3.

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