Hand­claps. Think of all your favorite albums. Aren’t there hand­claps on at least one song? Think hard. Yeah, that’s what I thought. And now you don’t have to go a-searching for your favorite hand­clap tunes ever ever again: that’s right, the intrepid grill­pants team of pop sleuths and pin­heads takes care of you once again. This mix shows exactly how ver­sa­tile a weapon the hand­clap actu­ally is — that is to say that the variety on this mix is extreme. Also, I don’t know about the rest of the pantsters, but I had a hard time deciding on my songs, and ended up drop­ping a lot of old favorites (The Cure, X-Ray Spex) for the things you’ll see below. And ok, ok, so it’s the middle of April, and there’s no excuse, but we’re hoping this spe­cial col­lec­tion will speak (loudly) for itself (and clap along).

So happy, uh, March. March, that is, through April, to the beat of our sweet, sweet handclaps.

And with that, we humble ourselves.

[down­load the entire mix as a .zip file!]

…or don’t (jerk!):

01. Beauty Pill — “The Cig­a­rette Girl from the Future” — The Cig­a­rette Girl from the Future EP (cur­rently out of print)
I dig Chad Clark, and I dig Beauty Pill. In many, many ways, The Cig­a­rette Girl from the Future is a bomb-ass tes­ta­ment to space-dub, hyper­cul­ture, and the strange new sound of a band get­ting shit together. Off-beat hand­claps, tightly wound grooves, and a sci-fi babe staring dully at the future, draggin’ that last worn cig. Fuck haters. –-Joel

02. Yeah Yeah Yeahs — “Black Tongue” – Fever To Tell (buy)
This thing’s a fucking barn­burner. When I first heard this album back when it came out, like most of the pop­u­la­tion I loved “Maps” and one par­tic­u­larly melan­choly morning I woke up to “Y Con­trol”. The rest of the album seemed a bit… rough? Obnox­ious? Self-obsessed? Well, yes. But sur­prise sur­prise, those were the traits I even­tu­ally came to love it for. (That’s stock char­acter reversal #24, for those keeping score.) “Black Tongue” is a great little song that simul­ta­ne­ously shows off the YYYs (for­merly) great guitar tone, Karen O’s ridicu­lously theatrical/catchy vocals, and, yeah, some awe­some hand­clap­pery (to accent an already-great White Stripes-y drum bit [yeah, that might be an oxy­moron]). –Ben

03. Boys of Scan­di­navia — “Good Looking” (Regina Mix) – Kill The Party (this remix was down­load­able on their site)
Oh, so hand­claps make you want to dance? Me too. No doubt this song’s hand­claps (sham­claps) are totally syn­thetic, but I couldn’t resist, since it’s so über-indulgent a tune (the refrain [“they say! I must be good looking!”] ought to be enough, for good­ness sake!). But this song is also oh-so-current: it’s got the robot vocals and the wiggly bass riff and the nos­talgic synth sounds. But best of all, it’s self-obsessed, and that’s cool on the dance floor! And speaking of dance floors, this remix by Regina is appar­ently burnin’ them up all over (you guessed it) Fin­land. ‘Cause gpants can’t NOT talk about Fin­land. Though this isn’t really about them. –Niina

04. Mirah Yomtov Zeitlyn, Ginger Brooks Taka­hashi and Friends – “Oh! Sep­tember” – Songs from the Black Moun­tain Music Project (buy)
A ram­shackle cot­tage, two indie babes and an eight-track: it’s not just one of your more inven­tive amorous sce­narios, but the mis-en-scene of this jumpin, lo-fi Motown throw­back. Besides, as I under­stand it, Mirah has eyes for the fairer sex, and so your awk­ward charm would prob­ably be lost on her. “Oh! Sep­tember” makes a virtue of restraint, waiting until the pre-chorus to let loose the hand­claps, at which point the raunchy horn and double-time guitar riff seal the deal and the song sinks its irre­triev­ably charming hooks into you. –Mike

05. Roisin Murphy — “Ruby Blue” – Ruby Blue (buy)
This one was absolutely a must. Roisin, as you, the ded­i­cated girl­pants reader, obvi­ously recall, was a 2005 favorite of mine. This song pretty much encom­passes many of the rea­sons why. It has a funky foun­da­tion (that fuzzy bass), immac­u­late, joyful, and totally sassy vocals some­times mar­velously lay­ered over one another, and those kinds of hand­claps that compel a person to clap along. This song inevitably makes me at least tap the steering wheel, if not move my head side to side like a mid-90’s cobra, while I’m dri­ving. The album’s being released State­side at the end of April, by the way. –Niina

06. Bear­suit — “Itsuko Got Mar­ried” – Cat Spec­tac­ular (buy)
The ever-spunky tweester pets made their debut lp an extra­or­di­nary affair, compl–CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP–ete with the exu­ber­ance only hand­claps can pro­vide. On this par­tic­u­larly spe­cial number, Bear­suit conju–CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP-res up the crazy rhythms of The Boys and the cheeky pop of Heav­enly, prov–CLAP CLAP–ing their exper–CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAPC ALACPACL–tise in all things (CLAP) peppy. –Joel

07. Liars — “We Live NE of Compton” — They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Mon­u­ment On Top (buy)
I’ve lost count of the number of twists and turns that Liars have taken over their three-album career. This song from their post-dance-punk-y debut starts with a noise collage–whispered vocals, sleigh bells, back­wards guitar, cymbals–that resolves into a sudden, unac­com­pa­nied drum­beat. Sec­onds later, off-beat hand­claps come in. Another few sec­onds and the bass comes crashing over the whole thing, car­rying repeated vocals on its back. From there it’s straight ahead dan­cepunk (a bit higher-energy “Waiting Room”?). Betcha can’t help singing along, even if you can’t make out the words. –Ben

08. Oxford Col­lapse — “The Boys Go Home” – A Good Ground (buy)
Up until now, I’ve always con­sid­ered the ulti­mate man-gets-depressed-at-party-life tune to be Dis­mem­ber­ment Plan’s swan song “You Are Invited,” with the con­spir­a­tory under­tones of a para­noid causal and the chill of his self-destructive girlfriend’s smile. Oxford Col­lapse takes gold on this one, gang, from snazzy build-up and hearty chorus to a pre-climatic cheer, hand­claps mixed high. Gives new meaning to this wild col­lege life. Harr harr. Whoop, there it is. Here we come Jock Jams 5. –Joel

09. Sufjan Stevens – “The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoul­ders” – Illi­nois (buy)
There are a lot of rea­sons not to choose this song–it’s like 7 min­utes long and thus guar­an­teed to muck up the flow of any mix, and it’s done by Mr. Indie Christ him­self Sufjan Stevens. Joel and Ben imagine that they rack up cred points by slag­ging him, and this regret­table stance has prompted not a few heated exchanges by the girl­pants water-cooler. On second thought, that alone prob­ably merits inclu­sion. [Editor’s note: I got your back, Mike.] [Editor’s editor’s note: You tip your hand by even acknowl­edging the exis­tence of cred points, Mike.]

If you’re still uncon­vinced, here are some more reasons:

1. Most songs with hand­claps, I imagine, are a straight 4/4 beat. The odd time sig­na­ture sets this one apart and makes it unusu­ally fun to clap along to.
2. To wit, one of my favorite mem­o­ries of Joel involves this song. Last summer we’d ride around in my car, singing and, at my insis­tence, clap­ping along in unison. It was fun and goofy and slightly haz­ardous, since I kept having to take my hands off of the wheel. Try it at your next brodown, you won’t be disappointed.
3. This song con­forms with my own chosen sub-theme of “exu­berant use of horns.”

–Mike

10. Fruit Bats — “The Earth­quake of ’73″ – Spelled in Bones (buy)
This band bothers me. Why? Well, I’ll tell you why. They’re absolutely capable of writing highlight-of-the-year type pop songs, but they only manage to pull it off once per album. Echolo­ca­tion had “Buf­falo and Deer”, Mouth­fuls had “When U Love Some­body”, and Spelled in Bones has this one. But the highs, o they are high indeed. “Earth­quake” is anchored by singer Eric Johnson’s McCart­neyesque vocals, mixed way up high over care­fully picked acoustic gui­tars. A buzzing bass (synth?) bub­bles in the low end as the simple but simply stun­ning lyrics soar over­head. The hand­claps come in with about a minute to go–almost an afterthought–and carry the song toward its sunset finish. –Ben

11. Tilly And The Wall – “Bad Edu­ca­tion” – Bot­toms of Bar­rels (buy)
Well, this song, from Tilly And The Wall’s forth­coming and cur­rently pre-orderable album, is like some kind of oddly exu­berant mix­ture of an Andalu­sian fla­menco joint and a sound­track to a Taran­tino film. It’s got that Spanish flouncy-skirt-and-castanets vibe, but also the vin­tage choral sound that gets all the com­mu­nists moving. And in addi­tion to the clap­ping, there’s all kinds of other com­pelling per­cus­sion too (feel free to tap dance along, guys; it’ll help to get rid of that hip­ster malaise). –Niina

12. Jens Lekman – “A Sweet Summer’s Night on Hammer Hill” – Oh You’re So Silent Jens (buy)
Like the Sufjan cut, this song has that inclu­sive, com­munal vibe that hand­claps evoke so well, but whereas the former is a stately, chore­o­graphed pro­ces­sional, this is more like a good-natured drunken bar­beque, replete with the whoopin’ and hol­lerin’ of ram­bunc­tious Scan­di­na­vians. Come to think of it, this is not unlike get-togethers at Niina’s place. Finally, there is this price­less, poignant inquiry: “I still remember Reg­u­late with Warren G / could that have been back in the sweet summer of 1993?” Indeed it could, Mr. Lekman. Indeed it could. –Mike