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.
2013’s …Like Clockwork never really grabbed me (despite extensive critical acclaim), so I was pretty delighted that 2017’s Villains got me pretty fired up. Mark Ronson helped to sharpen things up, and the whole thing feels pretty glam-y and fired up. This song, for instance, is just razor sharp, from Homme’s guitar tone to the vamp of his lyrics.
[Read More]This is from the Let It Be…Naked reissue that was put out in 2003, where they (I assume mostly Paul) revisited the songs and stripped away most of the Phil Spector stuff. It’s most noticable on the songs that originally had all those strings, but overall, it’s a superior version of the album, as it lets the songs shine through more and just has less farting around on it.
[Read More]Mastodon released Cold Dark Place in 2017, an EP of miscellaneous songs that were recorded during the sessions for Emperor of Sand and Once More ‘Round The Sun. Like most leftovers EPs, it’s a bit of a mixed bag, but basically fits in well with those albums. If you really want more latter day Mastodon, you can do worse than this record. For instance, you could buy an album from a totally unrelated band. That would be a bad move!
[Read More]Mo’ Mega features a bunch of tracks produced by El-P, so you know I’m down with this record. This, of course, is one of them, which you could probably guess by listening to it. It has all of the sci-fi feel you expect from his beats. As Mr. Lif is also always good, this album is worth checking out.
(NB: this song starts at 28:19)
[Read More]At first, I thought this was one of those random tracks that got sucked up into my music collection by an overly aggressive upload process in my past. But no, I appear to have this entire album. And, uh, I have no recollection of this record. Zero. It kind of sounds like somebody was trying to write an album to try and smuggle it into the rotation of a classic rock station. Also, Creeper Lagoon? Like, a reboot of Gilligan’s Island, only the tour was just Reddit users?
[Read More]On 2013’s The Terror, The Flaming Lips were using their psychedelia to explore not shiny wonder but the depths of despair. With Wayne Coyne’s romantic life falling apart and Steven Drozd again struggling with substance abuse, the Lips were not in a good place in their personal lives, and it comes through in the stark bleakness of their music. Piercing and melancholy, The Terror is one of their best records, although it’s not always a whole lot of fun.
[Read More]You know what? I remember this band being very, very Pavement-ish. Like, if you had asked me what they sounded like, I would have said something like “imagine Pavement, but shittier” or something equally facile. But, let’s face it, this isn’t Pavement-y at all! I mean, this is giving off some Robert Palmer kinda vibes here. Maybe I should listen to this album again? Maybe I should stop being a dipshit?
[Read More]I’ll have you know that I tried to insert a big ASCII barphic here saying “Josh is not qualified to talk about jazz”, but this stupid editor kept mangling it, and I’ll only go so far for a throwaway joke.
Is this the first Black Keys we’ve had? Brothers is the last Black Keys album I’ll have anything to do with. It’s a little strange - I like it quite a bit, there’s a lot of fun stuff on it, and I nevertheless didn’t even glance at the follow up to it. I’m not really sure why, exactly, but from reading reviews, it doesn’t seem like I’m missing much.
[Read More]So, uh, sometimes the sexual politics of Brown’s music wasn’t great. You know, it happens. I’ll just observe that Brown had a co-writer for this song, Betty Jean Newsome, which is kind of interesting.
(NB: on Star Time, this track has the above name, not “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World”))
I don’t want to take too much away from the majesty of this pure slab of punk, so just enjoy.
[Read More]Have I talked about Springsteen before? I’m not gonna look. And nobody is going to tell me!
Uh, I don’t listen to a lot of his stuff. I only own this album. I dunno, you can’t keep up with everything! Don’t tell me about him!
Hell yes, look at that insight.
After the second wave of ska fired up, led by Two-Tone Records, interest in the first wave bands increased. The Skatalites, the greatest of those first wave bands, got back together in 1983 and recorded an amazing live set, featuring their entire original lineup, minus the sadly deceased Don Drummond. While I think the outstanding compiliation Foundation Ska is probably slightly better on balance due to its historical value, the release of that live set (Stretching Out) is more coherent and is their best album that was recorded as an album.
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