Y’all, I’ve listened to that Hello, Summer album three times since it popped up randomly here, and folks: it’s good. Real good! I love that my own blog is teaching me about music…from my own collection.

Less Than Jake, “She’s Gonna Break Soon”

What makes late model Less Than Jake work is that, yeah, it’s more or less just standard pop punk with horns. But it’s catchy, cheerful, energetic, and just the musical equivalent of comfort food. It’s not exactly ambitious, but there’s space in my world for well-crafted music like this.

Voodoo Glow Skulls, “[Hidden Track]”

There are some things I miss from physical media. Browsing through music stores, looking at cover art, reading through booklets for liner notes and credits, all that stuff was fun. But it’s nice not having to shuffle around CDs, it’s nice not to have to lug stuff around when I want to listen to something different, and it’s really, really nice not to have to deal with stupid hidden tracks.

Announcement time! I suspect everybody reading this is aware, but just in case, my friend Grant and I have started a new blog over at Game and Tonic. We’ll be chatting about games, booze, music, all kinds of stuff. Just a warning: it’s entirely possible that I’ll end up posting here less, as I only have so much time to spend writing. Anyway, on to the music!

The Karl Hendricks Trio, “You’re The Man”

There aren’t that many people that were as good as Karl Hendricks at the quietLOUDquiet thing. It’s a combination of his aggressive guitar tone during the loud parts, his ability to project emotion in both sections, as well as a fine sense of buildup and release. He also recognizes that sometimes you turn up the guitars and stay even on the vocals.

Lily Allen, “Not Big”

Huh, there are two Lily Allen albums that I’ve never heard. I should fix that.

Kanye West, “Slow Jamz”

Always really enjoyed the chorus on this song.

I guess I’m full of insight today!

Ugly Duckling, “Einstein Buys a Monkey”

The guitar loop immediately makes this recognizable as an Ugly Duckling song. I’m not sure I really needed a 6:24 DJ track from them, though.

Napalm Death, “M.A.D.”

OK, now I’m really not going to say much. Wouldn’t be right with this.

The Aquabats, “SHOWTIME!”

When the Aquabats got rolling, they always had this kind of corny, cracked Saturday morning cartoon vibe. Like they were making songs for a show-within-a-show on some arch adult animation cartoon. And, of course, given the world we’re in, the show eventually showed up. Now, I haven’t actually seen the show, but I have the soundtrack, and…well, just listen to this. This is Very Aquabats.

clipping., “Back Up”

I’m kind of sitting here thinking about how great it would be to hear somebody rhyming over Kollaps-era Neubauten.

Versus, “Mermaid Legs”

This song comes from Hurrah, which was the last album from Versus in their first run. They would later come back ten years later for another album, and apparently another new one just came out last year, which I didn’t know about. At any rate, Versus were largely out of steam with this album. It’s pretty enough, especially the vocal harmonies, but not terribly exciting.

Ron Sexsmith, “Never Been Done”

I read a really good review of this record way back in the day, and popped for it. At the time, it didn’t stick with me at all. I thought it was perfectly nice to listen to, but not particularly memorable. I’m really enjoying this tonight, though!

Nots, “Cold Line”

Another surprise record! Feels like we’ve had a lot of those recently. I wonder what the actual count of surprise records is in the ol’ collection. I’m not sure I want to know.

The Dillinger Escape Plan, “The Running Board”

I know what this is!

The parts of songs where the Dillinger Escape Plan drops into something like the post-hardcore in the middle of this song were always effective. It can be easy for that kind of thing to just sound like a lame gimmick, but they always pull it off with aplomb.

Khruangbin, “Maria También”

What the hell is this? This is really good! I feel like past Josh sent me a present. I almost certainly picked this up from an appearance in a year-end roundup, and it got lost in the shuffle last year. I do that with a few albums every year. I’m excited!

High On Fire, “Downing Dog”

Don’t drown dogs! That’s not nice! And not especially metal!

Kanye West, “Hey Mana”

The artist who made Late Registration seems so distant from the Kanye West of today. This is a really beautiful beat, though.

Sharon Jones, “Make It Good To Me”

Fuck me, listen to that organ. I try and play a decent amount of soul around the kids, because it’s just such amazing music, and with luck, they’ll get the same appreciation of it. I try not to make a big deal about it, but my dad used to do the same thing, and it just kind of seeped into my brain. I’m trying the same approach, as it worked on me!

Parliament, “(You’re A Fish And I’m A) Water Sign”

While I always prefer the more upbeat stuff from Parliament, their ballads were also often great, certainly during their peak period. This comes from the last great Parliament record (Motor Booty Affair), but not the last great record from the Parliament/Funkadelic collective.

Black Eyed Peas, “BEP Empire”

Before the Black Eyed Peas became massive pop music successes, before they were cranking out deeply irritating hits, before they entered the collective consciousness as THE BLACK EYED PEAS, they were an underground hip-hop act that put out a couple of decent albums. There’s a little Black Star here, which is of course welcome. So, what happened? Well, one major thing you’ll notice about those first two records is that one familiar member of the band isn’t there. Fergie joined on the third record, and, well, only the first two albums are worth anything.