Playlist is here.

Dr. Dre, “Talking To My Diary”

Depending on if you count the record The Aftermath as a Dr. Dre album or not, Dre has either made either two or three albums in the 24 years after The Chronic was released. That level of output has rendered each of those records an event. What makes it even stranger is that Compton, the most recent of those records, was supposedly made in just a year. While nothing has ever matched The Chronic, Compton is excellent, and this closing track finds Dre in a meditative mood. Given how brief his solo discography is, and how important he is to the development of the genre, all of his work is worth listening to. But, you know, not right now, because apparently this track can’t be posted on YouTube. I guess we’ll do six songs today.

Today’s music.

Down By Law, “The Last Brigade”

Does it seem like Five Songs has been kinda punk lately? I think we’ve been kinda punk. No objections here!

We Were Promised Jetpacks, “Conductor”

Part of the indie rock underground, We Were Promised Jetpacks remind me of a bunch of other bands, like Band of Horses, say. There are some post-rock-ish elements to their music as well. It adds up to a formula that should probably grab me more than it does, but I find all their songs kind of slippery in my brain. Pleasant enough while they’re going, but I can’t pull up the tune later.

Good set today.

Hepcat, “You And I”

Hepcat could really straddle the line between ska, rocksteady, and even something like soul. This song is just a low-key delight.

Wu-Tang Clan, “Shame On A Nigga”

I love it when rappers deliberately use a bogus word and correct themselves in their rhymes, like Method Man does in his verse. This song, of course, comes from Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), one of the revolutionary records of rap, and one of my very favorites. I listened to this song a second time when I put together the play list. And then YouTube pulled up “Da Mystery Of Chessboxin’”, so I listened to that too.

Excellent, punk leaning set today.

Joyce Manor, “Eighteen”

I don’t think there’s been any period of time after the punk explosion where there were not bands making pop punk of some variety or another. You can basically draw an unbroken line from, say, Stiff Little Fingers up through the bands of today. So, here’s Joyce Manor, very much in that classic pop punk tradition. And it’s fun!

christian fitness, “other men’s wives”

Andrew Falkous with another track from his solo act, which really does pretty much just sound like Future of the Left. Which I mentioned last time, but whatever.

Music over here.

Pharmakon, “Intent or Instinct”

Pharmakon is the avant garde noise project of Margaret Chardiet, one that is unflinchingly unpleasant. We go in for a fair bit of legitimately difficult music here at Five Songs, and Pharmakon is towards the top of the list. Chardiet was inspired to write it as a reaction to her own emergency surgery for a cyst, and it’s supposed to represent her abandonment by her own body. And, well, it sounds like it. Made of electronic noise and her own howls, shrieks, and agonized breathing, it’s disquieting in a way that many other extreme artists try for and don’t quite reach.

Happy Valentine’s Day! We’re going with a Special this day, searching using “love” in the old collection and then randomizing among those songs. It returned 500 songs, which makes me think it’s only the first 500 results. But whatever. Let’s hear what we got!

The Ramones, “Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World”

I kind of feel like, in tribute to the Ramones’ consistency and committment to making the same album over and over, I should just make every Ramones entry the same.

Here’s today’s music.

Norska, “Too Many Winters”

Portland band Norska combine elements of doom metal with parts of noise rock, which means I am very much interested in their ideas and would like to subscribe to their newsletter. And it pretty much delivers on that promise, with the stretched out songs of doom and guitar patterns of noise rock. The various side projects of Yob (their bassist Aaron Rieseberg is in Norska, their singer is in VHOL for example) continue to explore what metal can do when cross-polinated with other genres, an exploration that gets me excited.

Songs over here.

Mudhoney, “Make It Now Again”

It takes a bit for this to turn into a classic Mudhoney song, but once it gets rolling, it’s aboslutely vintage. This is from that rarities collection March to Fuzz, which really is a lot of fun.

Rogue Wave, “Publish My Love”

Underground pop band Rogue Wave kind of sound like an amalgam of about a half-dozen other underground pop bands from the early 2000s. It’s certainly well done, but it never really got me excited. I mean, I only own two albums!

Today’s music.

Dis, “Untitled”

Back in the day, when CDs were still fairly novel, some bands felt compelled to goof around with the medium. The best known of these goofs, and one of the most annoying, was the “hidden track”, where bands would put in a long period of silence and then follow with an extra song. Not only was the silence super annoying, but the extra song was seldom any good.

Songs!

Scarface, “In Between Us”

Scarface is one of the elder statesmen of rap, having gotten his start with the Geto Boys, who terrified the hell out of mainstream white America back in the day. After leaving them and going solo, he’s had a long string of solid records, sometimes rising above that level and making something great. He’s also someone who has had the respect of everybody in hip-hop, bridging even the east coast/west coast beef when that was going on. This song comes from The Fix, one of my favorites of his.