"Pump It Up" In Rock Band 2

Being Poisoned Letter's resident gamer geek, it didn't escape my notice that "Pump It Up" is on the track list of Rock Band 2. Which is good news, except that I'm still having trouble getting five stars on the thing on Hard. It frustrates me more than Elvis Costello should. It's the master recording, not a cover, and other than the chord-y bits that vex me, it's fun to play.

I'm hoping that this means we get some more Elvis as downloadable content in the future. The question is what other songs would translate well to video game format? I think "Veronica" is a good choice, and "American Gangster Time," and I want to name "I Want You" in spite of logic because of the smoldering guitar part that ignites in that too-brief solo.

What three songs would you recommend for a DLC Elvis Costello pack?

EC Covered: Girl Talk swipes "Pump It Up"

I've been a fan of mashups for a couple years now, but no one has taken it to quite the luscious extremes of Girl Talk. His tunes are less mashups than total reimaginings of pop and hip-hop tracks built from the detritus of sound itself. It's like cutting together fifty different scenes from fifty different movies to create a new film, or swiping paragraphs from different novels to craft one whole story. 

On his latest album, Feed the Animals, Girl Talk executes a brilliant swipe of our very own Mr. Costello. Download, listen, enjoy, and give it time--the EC bit's a couple minutes in. 

Girl Talk - "Here's the Thing"