Kanye West, "Stronger"

It's been a while since I had one of those "awestruck by pop music" moments, but a couple of days ago my jaw dropped open when I saw Kanye West's "Stronger" video for the first time. Goth clubs probably wouldn't have the guts to play this song even though the glistening keyboards and industrial-strength backbeat likely smoke just about anything else they'd normally play. I could claim that Kanye has made good on Derrick May's 20-year old futuristic utopian vision of black music (even though he had to sample Daft Punk in order to do it), but that would be going a little bit overboard (and willfully ignoring a bunch of old Wu Tang videos). Let's simplify things: the electrode-plugging, body-scanning stuff just reeks of stale pre-millenial paranoia, but screw it, Daft Punk are IN THE VIDEO, looking like cool as fuck alien svengalis, and are about to make a billion zillion dollars off this song's can't-miss success.