Production Breakdown: Sharam’s “She Came Along”

We're eight days into 2010, and you know what that means? It's almost time for us to stop dwelling on the past and turn our attention to what lies ahead. Almost. Since I've yet to hop on the “retrospective” bandwagon, I'm going to take that opportunity before it's too late, and discuss what I've officially chosen to be my favorite song – and beat – of the past year.

When I began the “Production Breakdown” column, shortly after the launch of RefinedHype.com (hard to believe that was just a few short months ago, huh?) one of the first thoughts to go through my mind was “Oh, too bad Sharam's "She Came Along" hit the Booth way back in April. That sh*t was fire!” Well, that's a loose paraphrase, but you get the gist.

In a world where songs were pictures and dictionaries were non-alphabetized collections of multiword phrases, “She Came Along” would be right there between “greater than the sum of its parts” and “crazy enough to work.” Semi-incongruously included on the Deep Dish producer's '09 solo debut, Get Wild, the cut flipped a loping sample from Patsy Cline's “Strange” into a spaced-out country-rap meditation on the ménage à trois, with rhymes (and a little deadpan singing) from hip-hop's favorite 'lonely stoner,' Kid Cudi. Top it all off with one of the smoothest, trippiest intros I've heard in my life (seriously, if it doesn't make you say “Whoa” and rewind it the first time around, you probably need better headphones), the track was the weirdest and best example of genre-blending to hit my eardrums in '09.

In short, it's original – to me, it's the kind of original that casts a harsh light on the rest of the game. I was going to go into the differences between Sharam's approach on “She Came Along,” and the dubious experimentation which certain other artists (cough, Weezy) have been indulging in but, you know what? In the interest of starting 2010 on a positive note, I'm gong to leave that dead horse where it lies. Instead, I'll get right to the point: Music Industry, if you still haven't settled on a New Year's resolution, how about leaving this kind of innovation in the '00s, where it belongs:



and doing more of this:



If nothing else, it'll help me achieve my resolution to cut down on horrible music-induced headaches.