"Rock Box" Track of the Day: Aloe Blacc, "I Need a Dollar"

Song: "I Need a Dollar" by Aloe Blacc
Released: 2010
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's the opening title theme from How to Make It in America, HBO's recession-era New York dramedy (or is it more of a comma?). To promote his new Stones Throw album Good Things, Blacc recently performed "I Need a Dollar" on both Conan and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, where it sounded impressive live and won him some new fans at Studio 6A.

My reaction upon hearing "I Need a Dollar" for the first time on How to Make It in America was exactly like my initial reaction to American Gangster's original song "Do You Feel Me," a Hank Shocklee-produced throwback to the sounds of the period setting of the Denzel Washington film that was performed by Anthony Hamilton (and written by, of all people, Diane "My Heart Will Go On" Warren). I wondered, "Whose recording studio archives did they dig up this gem from?" Blacc's vintage soul sound was so convincing in "I Need a Dollar" that I was surprised to learn the track was new.

"I Need a Dollar" is the perfect song for both a show that's like Entourage's cash-strapped, bedbug bite-covered East Coast cousin and these shitty times. Blacc actually wrote it before the recession hit:

Complex: What inspired the concept for "I Need A Dollar"?

Aloe Blacc: No money problems. That was boom time. The housing industry was up. Everybody was happy. I lived in this house that we called the Monmouth Temple on a street called Monmouth in Los Angeles from 2003 to 2008. A lot of musicians tend to live in this house. One of the guys has a really nice record collection, and he gave me some chain gang field recordings of convicts, largely black, from the South, working on chain gangs. This was in my head at that time. It seemed to me a little bit like a spiritual. That's the way I originally made the song. I actually recorded it with my friends in 2007 at the Monmouth Temple when we were just sitting in the front room stomping on the wooden floor and clapping our hands. Kind of like a spiritual you could do it in church. So that's how I always heard it. At least the melody in my voice, that's always remained and it worked perfectly with the music that these guys made in New York.

That spiritual quality in Blacc's voice helps lend "I Need a Dollar" a certain timelessness that will outlast whatever fashion or beverage trend the hustlers in How to Make It in America will attempt to take advantage of all season long.



Blacc is one of many former rappers who have shifted towards more melodic material with tunes like "I Need a Dollar." In his pretty good remix of "I Need a Dollar," L.A. battle rapper Dumbfoundead dabbles with ease in this shift towards sung vocals that Blacc has fully embraced:

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: The Roots, "Here I Come"

Song: "Here I Come" by The Roots featuring Malik B. & Dice Raw
Released: 2006
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's featured in Superbad. (JANUARY 19, 2011 UPDATE: It also turns up in the Hancock closing credits.) "Here I Come" is the most upbeat (and party-friendly, hence its inclusion in Superbad) track on 2006's Game Theory, The Roots' most militant and brooding-sounding album. Game Theory was a bold move for their first album for Def Jam, a label that many feared would interfere with The Roots' sound and force the band to be more mainstream (luckily, Def Jam's been hands-off). You may be more familiar with the faster-paced version of "Here I Come" that The Roots perform each weeknight during the opening titles and end credits of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Dammit, Fallon! That was supposed to be the theme song for my talk show! You know, the one I host in my basement with my special guests, a cardboard cutout of Liza Minnelli and a cardboard cutout of Jerry Lewis?
Which moment in Superbad does it appear?: The scene where Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and Christopher Mintz-Plasse finally arrive at Emma Stone's party.

Speaking of Superbad, last night's Daily Show superimposed the face of a crying John Boehner from 60 Minutes over the body of McLovin while he lost his virginity in the movie. That cracked my ish up.

Hear Black Thought, Malik B. and Dice Raw disturb the peace at my SwiftFM site.

All the other "Rock Box" Tracks of the Day from this week:
Classic & 86, "Ridin'"
Pulp, "Like a Friend"
Run-DMC, "Rock Box"
The Crystal Method, "Starting Over"

AFOS: "Kiss Kiss Ban Ban" playlist

Airing this Wednesday at 10am and 3pm on A Fistful of Soundtracks is the Fistful of Soundtracks: The Series episode "Kiss Kiss Ban Ban" (WEB73) from February 27-March 5, 2006.

This ep, which focuses on rejected or unused original music from soundtracks to movies like Thunderball, Ocean's Twelve and Hell Up in Harlem, got a nice mention in the RiffTrax forums in 2008. The "Kiss Kiss Ban Ban" title has double meaning. It refers to both Shirley Bassey's bizarre pronunciation of "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" in the rejected Thunderball theme "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and the banishment of these tunes from the final cut.


1. Bernard Herrmann, "Prelude (from Torn Curtain)," Alfred Hitchcock Presents...Signatures in Suspense, Hip-O
2. Los Angeles Philharmonic, "The Killing," Bernard Herrmann: The Film Scores, Sony Classical
3. The National Philharmonic Orchestra, "Main Title," Alex North's 2001, Varèse Sarabande
4. The National Philharmonic Orchestra, "Space Station Docking," Alex North's 2001, Varèse Sarabande
5. James Brown, "The Payback," Dead Presidents, Capitol
6. Shirley Bassey, "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," The Best of James Bond: 30th Anniversary Limited Edition, EMI
7. Dionne Warwick, "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," The Best of James Bond: 30th Anniversary Limited Edition, EMI
8. Johnny Cash, "Thunderball," The Man in Black: 1963-1969, Bear Family
9. Blondie, "For Your Eyes Only," The Hunter, Chrysalis
10. Jerry Goldsmith, "The Dig," Timeline: Music Inspired by the Film, Varèse Sarabande
11. Lalo Schifrin, "Music from the Unused Trailer," The Exorcist, Warner Home Video
12. John Barry, "Moviola," John Barry: Moviola, Epic Soundtrax
13. Jerry Fielding, "The Water Hole," Music for The Getaway: Jerry Fielding's Original Score, Film Score Monthly
14. Jerry Fielding, "Casing the Joint," Music for The Getaway: Jerry Fielding's Original Score, Film Score Monthly
15. David Holmes, "$165 Million + Interest (into) The Round Up," Ocean's Twelve, Warner Sunset/Warner Bros.
16. The Smithereens, "A Girl Like You," 11, Capitol


Other than "The Payback," my favorite part of WEB73 is hearing Shirley Bassey's "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" back-to-back with Dionne Warwick's version, as if the double shot is a battle between Bassey and Warwick like that awesome moment in Dave Chappelle's Block Party when the Roots brought Jill Scott and Erykah Badu together onstage for a "Duel of the Divas Who Sang 'You Got Me.'" (Scott wrote the chorus of the 1999 Roots track and was featured on the original recording, but MCA, the Roots' label at the time, wanted a more famous artist to be part of the Things Fall Apart album's first single, so the band replaced Scott with Badu on the released version.) The duel in Block Party ends in a draw--Scott and Badu are both terrific onstage--although I prefer Scott's original "You Got Me" because in 1999, I couldn't understand some of what Badu was singing during the chorus of the Things Fall Apart version. As for which of the two versions of "Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" is better, it's Bassey FTW, even though like with Badu's "You Got Me," I have no idea what Bassey's singing during the chorus ("Mr. Kiss Kiss Ban Ban's not a foal"?).

Reruns of AFOS: The Series air Wednesdays at 10am and 3pm. To listen to the station during either of those time slots or better yet, right now, press the play icon on the blue widget below the "About me" mini-bio on this blog. Don't be a foal like Mr. Kiss Kiss Ban Ban. Press play!

Late Night with the Roots Featuring Jimmy Fallon

Right now, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon has the rockingest theme song on TV (the Roots' sped-up version of their own 2006 tune "Here I Come," the complete opposite of The Jay Leno Show's lame opening theme, which Vulture amusingly slammed as "a rejected demo from the Beverly Hills 90210 sessions"), as well as the illest late night band (the Philly collective is one of the few bands whose albums I always buy). The Roots always pick the cleverest and most playful walk-on music for Fallon's guests, from Jay-Z's "Lost One" for Lost's Jorge Garcia to Quiet Riot's "Bang Your Head" for head-butting gossip column favorite Kiefer Sutherland. (The Late Night blog keeps track of the walk-on music, easily my favorite part of Fallon's show.) Last night, the Roots awesomely welcomed Dennis Quaid with the Lalo Schifrin theme from Quaid's 1981 movie Caveman. ?uestlove, Black Thought and their cohorts have officially outed themselves as film score geeks.