Today!

Thou, “Find the Cost of Freedom”

Metal has links to folk in a bunch of ways, ranging from the atavistic impulses of black metal, the explicit crossover of various folk metal acts, the lack of fear of being totally uncommercial, or even just the willingness of metal bands to strip things down to provide contrast, like Thou is doing here.

Louis Armstrong, “Ain’t Misbehaving”

We, of course, are well aware that I don’t know shit. About anything, really. But I have to do something to entertain myself while listening, so I read a little potted bio of Armstrong. Why not? And this bio declared that Armstrong is the most influential figure in jazz. Huh.

Finished a big thing at work, so let’s celebrate Five Songs style! (sitting in a basement, drinking, listening to music through one headphone) HIT IT PLEXASAURUS REX!

TV/TV$, “Liberal 4 Me”

One day, I’m gonna put together “Screeching Weasel or Not Screeching Weasel?” as a quiz, and it’s gonna be fuckin’ hard.

Violent Femmes, “Kiss Off [Live]”

Violent Femmes is one of the grand treasures in all of modern rock, the purest distilled essence of teenage frustration, captured and frozen in amber for all time. “Kiss Off” is, of course, one of the highlights of that record (an album composed almost entirely of highlights), with its instantly memorable count-up section that everybody loves singing along to. It sincerely gives me chills.

Here’s today.

Mouse on Mars, “First: Break”

A thing that unifies a lot of my music taste is a certain amount of boundary pushing and unpredictability. It’s why on the electronic side I tend to prefer noisy, hyperactive stuff rather than music from the ambient side of things. This spastic…tune?…is a good example. It doesn’t make any goddamn sense at all, but whatever, it’s fun.

Chance the Rapper, “Summer Friends”

There’s a warmth and humanity in Chance’s work that is lovely to hear. It’s as human as that Mouse on Mars track is cold and mechanical. We here at Five Songs contain multitudes!

Today!

Atmosphere, “Next To You”

On one hand, I think it’s admirable that Atmosphere is willing to experiment with their music and stray very far from the hip-hop that they originally made their names with. On the other, though, when they do too much of this kind of thing, it can get pretty old. This song, from Fishing Blues, is fine, but isn’t really why I listen to Atmosphere.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Apache Rose Peacock”

OK, let’s take a moment to step back and just admire the production job on this. Not because it’s great, or adds a ton to the music, or anything like that. No, just listen to how immaculate it is. It’s squeaky clean! Every sound is perfectly isolated, perfectly recorded. There’s not an iota of accidental noise anywhere in this. You could perform surgery inside this song, as long as you got the boys to, I dunno, put surgical masks on their junk or whatever.

Good one today.

All, “Vida Blue”

Even on their later albums, All could still sometimes summon up some nicely soaring power pop stuff. I mean, this is basically just Cheap Trick, but whatever, Cheap Trick is fun.

Sonic Youth, “Dirty Boots”

Meanwhile, this is basically what it sounds like when Sonic Youth tries to play a pop song. This is the song that opens Goo, and it lets you know that the band has not fallen off at all from Daydream Nation. There are some bands and albums that are unmistakably at their time, and they only really make sense when viewed within their original context. Then there are bands like Sonic Youth, who at their best sound totally outside of time, as fresh now as when they first made this record [checks] almost 29 years ago? Goddammit, I’m old.

SIX SONGS TODAY

Mix Master Mike, “Supa Wyde Laces”

We had a track from Hello Nasty yesterday, today we’ve got a track from the DJ that joined them with that record. Mix Master Mike was a member of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, the most successful DJ collective around. This is from his solo record, which came out the same year as Hello Nasty, and which at the time, I liked more. Probably wouldn’t be true these days.

Music!

Less Than Jake, “Automatic”

Forget the horns, forget the rest of the surrounding scene, this is just a hell of a fine pop-punk song. Chris DeMakes turns in a great vocal performance here, and there’s nothing I’d change about this tune.

Queen, “Soul Brother”

Geez, speaking of vocal performances. This is one of the bonus tracks on the deluxe re-issue of Hot Space, and it’s a fun addition. By and large, bonus tracks don’t add a ton, but frankly, that album was kind of a mess in the first place, so having a fun vamp like this added is an improvement.

Well, the Public Enemy intros were fun for a while. I’m a little disappointed we didn’t summon any PE. Oh well. Here’s today!https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLexe714An2Qj2ckZ0tlku3JJQbEgfzSmQ

Death Cab For Cutie, “Little Fury Bugs”

…

Sorry, dozed off for a second there.

Whores., “I Am Not A Goal-Oriented Person”

Fuck yeah noise rock! If I had started this thing in 2009, I’d probably have a Tumblr called exactly that. But this is not that world, so I just have to resort to blurting it out here for my reader/listeners. Who I suspect would all agree with the sentiment! Also, “I Am Not A Goal-Oriented Person” is an excellent song name.

Next to the bass / turn up the radio!

J Church, “The Heroic Trio”

Cat Food is a quickie album that J Church threw together by recording some songs in a day, adding in a couple compilation tracks, and calling it good. But punk never really suffers from being a little slapdash, and the resulting album is pretty entertaining. Basically, Lance Hahn is good enough that most everything he does is worth listening to. This is how the album opens. It’s good! Listen to that solo!

Uh oh, the roll below the level / ‘cause I’m livin’ low

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, “Intro: A Song Of Fire And Wine”

My goodness, this is so corny. But, this song does set you up for the cheese sculpture that is this record, which is probably good. And I authentically love the album (So Divided), so I’m happy to hear this. I’m just bummed I’m not going to hear the rest of it right now.