This is the newly rebuilt Five Random Songs: chock full of posts, each featuring five random songs from my collection of music. Along with some other junk. Everything is tagged by artist. Poke around some, it’s been here since 2017. Starting in 2026, I shifted to twice-weekly posts with a little longer format. If you want to keep up, you can use RSS, sign up for email, or follow me on Bluesky.
One of the great things that punk is able to do when it’s on is produce a short song that nevertheless is complete and satisfying. This thing clocks in at 1:40 and you’d hardly notice that it’s not the usual three minute pop song. Lance Hahn was able to pull this off time after time, in way that should shame so many people out there writing rock songs.
[Read More]I don’t have a ton to say today.
You know, you should all thank me that I haven’t yet made a “it’s time for some game theory!” joke! Or “joke”, really. Uh, until now, I suppose.
There should be more rock duos, in my opinion. The Spinanes don’t suffer from the spare instrumentation at all. It gives more space to focus on the individual elements of the band, which is totally OK with me! I wonder what Rebecca Gates is up to these days? Probably shouldn’t look. Never learn anything, that’s my motto.
[Read More]Took a little break over the holiday. Why not! Anyway, I’m back, let’s see what we get!
Not bad! Tenement play melodic punk, I suppose you’d call it, although it’s really stretching the work “punk” pretty far. I guess it’s just kind of “rock” at this point. If you were to guess where they’re from, you might guess the Midwest, given the long pedigree for this type of music in that area. And you’d be right! You’re so smart, person who doesn’t exist!
[Read More]At what point does a prog rock album cross the border from rock into something else? How far can you stretch rock before it breaks? These aren’t questions being asked directly by Gabriel Riccio, who is the force behind this album, but those questions are certainly present. This is a concept album about…something, I dunno. It’s all very high concept. Let’s put it this way: this is the opening track to the album. This is how it kicks off. So clearly, he’s not going for accessible here.
[Read More]I dunno, feels like we’ve had a good mix recently. Today is no different.
Sebadoh’s Sub Pop debut, Smash Your Head On The Punk Rock, would prove to be a transitional album. Taking the sprawling, brilliant mess of III and at least partially taming it, the focus and professionalism that Sebadoh started exhibiting here would eventually result in much more coherent albums. This period is my favorite one of the band, as I like a little chaos in my music, so when they mostly worked that stuff out of their sound, I stopped paying as much attention. So, the three album stretch from III through Bubble and Scrape is where I mostly listen.
[Read More]Action Bronson bubbled up from the underground after making the transition from chef to rapper. After breaking his leg, he decided to try making his hobby into his main career, putting together his debut Dr. Lecter, a fun album full of energy, food metaphors, and tons of rhyming. It’s an entertaining listen, but it remained to be seen if Bronson would move past the Ghostface worship. His next album, Well-Done, a collaboration with Statik Selektah, answered that question: no. No, he would not.
[Read More]Long time reader/listeners (both of you!) know that I’m a huge Uncle Tupelo stan, but my favorite alt-country album isn’t one of theirs. It’s probably Your Favorite Music, Clem Snide’s second album. Thanks to their willingness to stretch out and leave space for Eef Barzelay’s intimate delivery and elliptical lyrics, the entire album manages to create a mood of melancholy without really giving you a specific reason for it. It’s a little disorienting that way, but then you get to the end, and you want to give it another spin.
[Read More]We here at Five Songs often find ourselves apologizing for our content around here. With the random nature of what shuffle coughs up, sometimes it’s not great.
Uh, in other news, here’s today.
The lesson of clipping., beyond any other, is how much space there still remains for rap to continue to stretch out across other types of music and how much there remains to experiment with. We’ve seen noise marry with rap with tremendous success, and that should indicate that there still remains so many frontiers left to conquer.
[Read More]Goddamn, listen to those strings! With Cloud Nine, the Temptations laid down some of the building blocks of funk, as they departed from the traditional Motown sound and pointed the way to the 70s.
Indie pop band The xx kind of exploded out the door and were critical darlings right away with their electronic take on the genre, especially with the dual vocalists. And it’s here where I admit that a) I can never keep straight who The xx are and b) I clearly bought this at some point and I’m not entirely sure I’ve listened to it before. But I know I’ve read about them at various times! I totally didn’t have to look up stuff about them!
[Read More]Two songs that I had to upload today! That’s when you know you’re getting the good stuff. And by good stuff, I mean “probably forgotten underground rock or C-list third-wave ska.”
Paid In Full, one of the foundational albums of rap, was later reissued in a deluxe edition called the Platinum Edition. It featured a second disc of various rarities, including this tune. And all that is fine, but what made it awesome is that they went and photoshopped the gold jewelry on the original cover to be platnium. It’s that attention to detail that can really make a reissue. Anyway, the bonus junk is totally inessential.
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