We'll take the esteemed word of
Vogue — along with reports of Karl Lagerfeld's 60,000-CD collection — as evidence that this two-disc comp of the iconic fashion designer's "favorite songs" isn't the product of a focus group. But there's something tragic about a man born in 1933 (according to birth records — he has claimed 1938) championing music that mainly postdates 2003. Aside from Xavier Cugat's biggest hit and a no-brainer from Siouxsie and the Banshees, these 23 tracks play like the iPod favorites of someone whose universe is circumscribed by
Pitchforkmedia.com — Devendra Banhart at his hammiest, English girl-group hype magnets the Pipettes, the cinematic electro-fizz of Minotaur Shock, the recent Fall song that appears in a Mitsubishi commercial. C'mon, Karl, isn't there an oddity from the postwar European airwaves you still love, or some disco trash burned into your synapses at Studio 54? Then again, songs like those would make you look ... (cue blood-curdling screams) old.
