Gotta love the way this new Common track sounds – like it’s straight out of Planet Rock, straight b-boy style.

Universal Mind Control by Common(ft Pharrell): I wonder who did the music? I assume it was Pharrell since he is the producer about town but it doesn’t really sound like him so maybe it was Common or even someone else and Pharrell is just a guest vocalist. Anyway, great song to an album that hasn’t been released yet. I heard this on So You Think You Can Dance the other day.  By the way, fun fact about Common – he used to be a ball boy for the Chicago Bulls – you know, one of those kids who runs on the floor and wipes sweat off the court during timeouts or fetches player’s balls for them in warm up.

Planet Rock by Afrika Bambaataa – just as a reference point to the Common song. This song was composed from rerecorded parts of German pioneers Kraftwerk’s song Trans-Europe Express

Transeuropa-Express by P.L. (aka Peter Low or Pit Low): You knew it couldn’t be that easy. I’m not sure which track came first Bambaataa’s or P.L.s but one clearly influenced the other. I have read interviews with the producer of the Bambaataa one and he makes it sound like they replayed parts of it in the studio modeled after the original Kraftwerk song so I”m inclined to believe this Italian disco version one came after Planet Rock but who knows. The only fishy thing is the string sound from the P.L. track sounds a lot like Italian string sounds from that time period and the A.B. track’s strings are exactly the same which would be a little out of place(but not impossible) in the New York dance scene. This one came out in early 1982 while Planet Rock came out in 82 too. You decide.

Trans Europe Express by Kraftwerk: The original that inspired Planet Rock which in turn inspired the Common track…