Miss Kittin and the Hacker

Electro's "it girl," the ever chilly Miss Kittin, escapes cameo hell to take centre stage, busting deadpan irony while singing about not "wanting tainted love" and how her "DJ plays déjà vu as we were in '82" on her aptly titled The First Album with co-conspirator the Hacker. Of course, these French cats have been surfing electro-noir since only 1997, but it's long enough to have given them firm footing on the tightrope between parody and homage. But as her recent appearance on Golden Boy's disc shows, her detached delivery is not enough to save an album, which is why the Hacker's Autobahn-friendly soundscapes feel so refreshing. Heck, I bet if Frank Sinatra was still alive, Kittin's cool quotient would've pre-empted any complaints about getting dissed on his eponymous cut, but he sure as hell would have tried to bed her.