🎧Have You Heard? Soft Machine – Teddybears (2006)🎧

My inauspicious musical introduction to Sweden's Teddybears came in 1995 with their grindcore(?) cover of Prince's "Purple Rain". I didn't hear a peep from the group again until I was grooving to a tune while listening to the newly released Slacker Radio (remember them?) app in 2006, and looked at the screen and saw that it was a group called Teddybears feat. Mad Cobra. The title of the song was "Cobrastyle."

Then for a few weeks, it seemed that I heard the swaggering di bom digi bom di deng di deng digi-digi everywhere: stores, restaurants, movies, TV shows, pretty much anywhere where there was music playing. I resisted buying the parent album until early 2007 when I came across a promo-only copy of Soft Machine in a cardboard cover for $1.99. It had a small scratch near the center of the disc that only caused a skip in track one, an inconsequential 0:24 piece titled "Intro". I picked up a brand new copy of Soft Machine a few months later after I fell for four more tracks on the disc.

• Track four is "Yours To Keep" with Neneh Cherry singing deliberately off-key on lead vocals to show ironic detachment. It's a sassy girl-group pop song that just bounces along effortlessly on a droning backing track. Like many songs I like, the lyrics make little sense, but it's got a good beat and I can dance to it. "We can go away for the summer/We can drive around with the top down/Stereo turned up loud with a fat sound"
• Track five on Soft Machine is the electro dancehall stunner "Are You Feelin' It" with Elephant Man, aka the Energy God. I love the sound of the guitar on this track - it's processed to the max. I can't speak to Elephant Man's state, but he, too, sounds processed to the max. In answer to the Energy God's question, yes, I am feelin' it.
• Track seven features the immortal Iggy Pop stating the obvious with "Punkrocker", an unironic decree later licensed for a Cadillac commercial to give the brand some street cred among its aging boomer customer base. Makes me feel cool to sing/groan along with the Igster as we harmonize on "Cause I'm a punkrocker, yes I am/Well I'm a punkrocker, yes I am" 
• Track eleven has Daddy Boastin' on "Little Stereo", an earworm of the highest magnitude. I'm always humming this tune days after listening to it. "When I was a little stereo/I listen to the champion/And I always wonder/When will I be the number one"

Robert Christgau gave Soft Machine 3.5 stars in a positive review for Rolling Stone. He casually mentions in his review that the album recycled the best songs from a previous album, but it was all new to me.

Rolling Stone, issue 1014, 30 Nov. 2006, pp.112