Hey, if for some reason you're reading this, and you used to read via RSS, please note you'll have to delete the feed and re-add it after the server rebuild. Of course, if you tracked this via RSS, I don't know how you would be seeing this in order to find this out. Because I also posted it on Bluesky, which seems like the only other place you'd find out about this post, and I told people to do that over there. So, I dunno. This is pointless. Everything about Five Songs is pointless. Let the yawning intentionless void consume you!
Solar Wimp, "Entwined With Glass"
Generally speaking, my favorite metal acts tend to be the avant-garde ones. The unpredictability, chaos, noise, and utter disregard for genre boundaries are very appealing. Solar Wimp very much is in that tradition. There's aspects of metalcore, some math rock here and there, plenty of riffing, the vocals are interesting, there's shifts all over the place. It's just a really interesting track, and an interesting album. It screeches, it lurches, it defies my limited capability of describing it.
Pizza Hotline, "Region Free"
Pizza Hotline describe themselves as "video game flavored electronic music", and yeah, sure, that fits. This kind of thing can be a nice break from, well, the kind of thing in the first track. That's not dismissive or anything, just that there's music that is demanding, that wants you to go along for a hike over difficult terrain, to have study the terrain to make it through safely. And there's music that wants you to lay back and chill and float down the river. Intellectual stimulation vs. just straight limbic stimulation. That probably doesn't make any sense.
Superchunk, "What Do I"
The very first song on the very first Superchunk release. Superchunk sounded very much like themselves right from the hop, which is a neat trick. While the band would continue to refine the formula, this is the framework that they would continue fill out for their whole career. One which is still going, with their thirteenth LP coming out just a few weeks ago as of this writing.
But if you like Superchunk and haven't picked up on the first couple singles collections, they're absolutely worth your time.
The Aquabats!, "Super Show Theme Song!"
(This makes two Track Ones in this roundup.)
The Aquabats! have a television show. I've never seen it. Uh, that's about all I have to say, I suppose.
Kendrick Lamar, "Backseat Freestyle"
Good Kid, M.A.A.D City is the album where Kendrick Lamar became the most praised artist in hip-hop, maybe all of music. That more or less hasn't stopped in the intervening decade. While his fame just keeps increasing, I'd just like to say that this record is really incredible and if you haven't spent time with it, it's tremendous. I guess this is a recommendation day.