#80) Electric Six - Fire (released in 2003, I first borrowed a promo from City Lights and then bought a copy with the artwork as soon as they could get one in)

The trick is that while every song on Fire, the full-length debut from the only disco-metal band in business today (if I'm wrong, please alert me, I'll be grateful), none of them are ABOUT being weird. Unlike the usual absurdity-for-absurdity's sake shit that festers in the record collections of dateless nerds (check mine if you want proof), these songs are about being awesome, dancing, and finding other awesome people to hang around and have sex with. These songs are bonkers but emotionally expressive - yelling "3, 2, 1/I'm the bomb/ and I'm ready to go off in your shit," might not be the best way to introduce yourself to someone at the singles bar, but damn if tracks like "I'm The Bomb," "Electric Demons In Love" and "Danger! High Voltage!" don't express the devilish glee of just grooving on someone. That everything gets blown up into a apocalyptic boogie frenzy (a.k.a. "Nuclear War (On The Dance Floor)") just makes it even better.

The Electric Six are shameless about all the right things, ripping off great lines (courtesy of David Lee Roth, Arthur Brown, God knows who else) and great hooks (courtesy of Wire, Roxy Music, God knows who else), merging the power of rawk with the festive hedonism of dance music and over-the-topping it with leader Dick Valentine's beautiful bluntness ("And you know it gets hotter than a microwave oven/ when you and I commence the lovin'/ And you like what I'm doin'/ And I like what I'm doin' to you/ And everybody's happy, happy tonight!"). Last summer, I wanted to hear the sacriligeous surf-sickness of "Gay Bar" blasting out of car stereos the way I heard The Marshall Mathers LP fill the air three years earlier, but somehow this album didn't get past the hipster set (damn it). The bittersweet new wave beauty of "Synthesizer" was THE song of 2003 for me: I laughed, I cried, I lived, I died, I spent my days asking why - but I couldn't ignore their techno.

(props to the good folks on I Love Music, without which I may never have heard this)