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.
Today’s set is, frankly, a mess. The hazards of the random number generator.
210 songs in my collection from Andrew Bird, and this stupid thing picked a repeat song. Sure, we get Six Songs today, but come on. I do feel like the number of repeats I’ve seen is higher than I would expect. I also know that humans are TERRIBLE at estimating the randomness of a system and related probabilities. I should work it out for real.
[Read More]Today’s music. Sometimes, while I’m assembling the play list, the next song that pops up is something I desperately want to add. And yet I resist. Why do I do that? The rules on this thing are dumb.
I don’t feel like I acknowledge great band names enough when they come up here, so for the record: Cretin is a great band name. Playing something between death metal and grindcore, Cretin are either going to get you banging your head and wrecking stuff at your desk, or are going to seriously try your patience for the next couple minutes.
[Read More]One of these songs is not like the others.
Another piece from Deathsentences of the Polished And Structurally Weak. This album was really more about creating a mood and atmosphere than it was about anything as conventional as songs. It’s a pure exploration of sound for its own sake, and as such, forms quite an interesting experiment.
From one experimental electronic artist to another. Jelinek works with small bits and pieces of sounds, up to and especially including glitchy noises and artifacts, and reassembles them into warm, understated songs. This track, from the magnificent Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records, is a great example of the kind of music he creates. Subtlety is an underappreciated skill for musicians.
[Read More]Hey, I know somebody playing on one of these! (SPOILER ALERT: not the first one.)
It feels really wrong to just have one track from The Wall in here. It further feels like this is the wrong time to discuss Pink Floyd. Maybe I’ll do a Pink Floyd special at some point. Anyway, suffice it to say, The Wall is over the top and ridiculous, and nevertheless I still love every part of its hammy majesty.
[Read More]Sorry about the second song in the playlist. You’ll see when you get there.
From Stepfather, an album that featured some pretty experimental songs, distinguishing itself from its more straightforward predecessors. “You” is built around a nice, conventional funk sample, though.
To the extent Front 242 ever had a “hit”, it was this song, briefly a staple of a certain sort of dance club. And just in case you wanted to hear that industrial dance beat more clearly, they helpfully provided an instrumental remix on the inevitable 12" single of the song, along with six more versions of it. Say what you want about the purveyors of industrial dance, but they got their money’s worth out of any song that got traction.
[Read More]Oh god, this is a bad song. I’m so, so sorry, if anybody is listening to this. This is like something straight out of the cheesiest fever swamps of power metal, but with no ridiculous flaming guitar solo.
Much better! One of the slower songs from Burning Airlines, but still with that little keening guitar line to keep things interesting. And I love the way that they recorded the bass for their albums.
[Read More]Ex-Helmet drummer John Stanier joined with Ian Williams of Don Caballero to form Battles. Given the pedigree, it’s no surprise that the focus was on complex, prog-y songs. Somewhat surprising, given the muscular nature of those two bands and the tough-sounding name, is the fact that Battles actually ends up playing pretty playful stuff. It’s not just wall-to-wall power, but ends up instead focusing on finesse.
[Read More]Some strong hip hop, some great reggae, an instrumental trifle, and some classic rock. It’s Five Songs!
Part of a blossoming reaction to the preeminent aesthetic of late 80s hip hop, A Tribe Called Quest quickly became the greatest of the acts rejecting the posturing of so many of their peers. From their very first album, People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (which this song comes from), they were already executing a fully realized artistic vision, one perfected in their next album, The Low End Theory. The focus on addressing topics that other groups weren’t talking about along with a sonic palette that included far more jazz than was the norm helped them stand out from just about anybody else, excepting maybe De La Soul (who were frequent collaborators). Simply put, A Tribe Called Quest is one of the giants of hip-hop, and their first three albums are all essential listening.
[Read More]I get itchy when we go too long without a Stax track. This is one of Eddie Floyd’s biggest hits, later covered by Al Green on his magnificent Let’s Stay Together.
There have been multiple bands called 400 Blows (all named after the Truffaut film, one presumes), but this is the noise rock one from California. This song comes from Black Rainbow, and is full of this kind of start/stop fun and yelling. Good times!
[Read More]Happy Halloween! This is coming to you late, because I forgot to put it together before now. Well, better late than never.
You know, up until this track came up, I had kind of forgotten that A Moon Shaped Pool existed. I pre-ordered it, and then forgot to listen to it when it arrived. Well, no time like the present! Dig those strings!
(NB: I pulled up a live version, because the studio version seems to be missing.)
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