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Pretty much a mess today.

The Gabriel Construct, “Arrival In A Distant Land”

At what point does a prog rock album cross the border from rock into something else? How far can you stretch rock before it breaks? These aren’t questions being asked directly by Gabriel Riccio, who is the force behind this album, but those questions are certainly present. This is a concept album about…something, I dunno. It’s all very high concept. Let’s put it this way: this is the opening track to the album. This is how it kicks off. So clearly, he’s not going for accessible here.

I dunno, feels like we’ve had a good mix recently. Today is no different.

Sebadoh, “New Worship”

Sebadoh’s Sub Pop debut, Smash Your Head On The Punk Rock, would prove to be a transitional album. Taking the sprawling, brilliant mess of III and at least partially taming it, the focus and professionalism that Sebadoh started exhibiting here would eventually result in much more coherent albums. This period is my favorite one of the band, as I like a little chaos in my music, so when they mostly worked that stuff out of their sound, I stopped paying as much attention. So, the three album stretch from III through Bubble and Scrape is where I mostly listen.

Here’s today’s tunes.

Action Bronson & Statik Selektah, “Cocoa Butter”

Action Bronson bubbled up from the underground after making the transition from chef to rapper. After breaking his leg, he decided to try making his hobby into his main career, putting together his debut Dr. Lecter, a fun album full of energy, food metaphors, and tons of rhyming. It’s an entertaining listen, but it remained to be seen if Bronson would move past the Ghostface worship. His next album, Well-Done, a collaboration with Statik Selektah, answered that question: no. No, he would not.

Today!

Clem Snide, “Donna”

Long time reader/listeners (both of you!) know that I’m a huge Uncle Tupelo stan, but my favorite alt-country album isn’t one of theirs. It’s probably Your Favorite Music, Clem Snide’s second album. Thanks to their willingness to stretch out and leave space for Eef Barzelay’s intimate delivery and elliptical lyrics, the entire album manages to create a mood of melancholy without really giving you a specific reason for it. It’s a little disorienting that way, but then you get to the end, and you want to give it another spin.

We here at Five Songs often find ourselves apologizing for our content around here. With the random nature of what shuffle coughs up, sometimes it’s not great.

Uh, in other news, here’s today.

clipping., “Taking Off”

The lesson of clipping., beyond any other, is how much space there still remains for rap to continue to stretch out across other types of music and how much there remains to experiment with. We’ve seen noise marry with rap with tremendous success, and that should indicate that there still remains so many frontiers left to conquer.

SIX SONGS WOOOO

The Temptations, “Hey Girl”

Goddamn, listen to those strings! With Cloud Nine, the Temptations laid down some of the building blocks of funk, as they departed from the traditional Motown sound and pointed the way to the 70s.

The xx, “Heart Skipped A Beat”

Indie pop band The xx kind of exploded out the door and were critical darlings right away with their electronic take on the genre, especially with the dual vocalists. And it’s here where I admit that a) I can never keep straight who The xx are and b) I clearly bought this at some point and I’m not entirely sure I’ve listened to it before. But I know I’ve read about them at various times! I totally didn’t have to look up stuff about them!

Two songs that I had to upload today! That’s when you know you’re getting the good stuff. And by good stuff, I mean “probably forgotten underground rock or C-list third-wave ska.”

Eric B. & Rakim, “I Know You Got Soul (Acapella)”

Paid In Full, one of the foundational albums of rap, was later reissued in a deluxe edition called the Platinum Edition. It featured a second disc of various rarities, including this tune. And all that is fine, but what made it awesome is that they went and photoshopped the gold jewelry on the original cover to be platnium. It’s that attention to detail that can really make a reissue. Anyway, the bonus junk is totally inessential.

Today!

The Exceptions, “Mean Ole Malley”

I come to you today with an important piece of information: buying records from a band based entirely on a particular comic artist doing the cover art has a pretty shaky track record. NEWS YOU CAN USE. Blah blah books and covers or something. Anyway, Evan Dorkin is really good!

Son Volt, “Windfall”

An underrated aspect of country, whatever the variety, is that it’s often a lot of fun to sing along with. Jay Farrar further has the advantage of being pretty reasonable to keep up with across his bands. I really only know Trace well enough among Son Volt’s work to sing along with, but it’s fun.

Good one today!

Queen, “The Prophet’s Song”

I’ve made the comparison before, but I don’t know if I’ve made it here or not: power metal is just Queen played fast. All the over-the-top theatrics and corn are there in spades. Sure, there are usually fewer elves in your average Queen song, and there are more wheedly-weedly solos in power metal, but nevertheless, they’re basically the same.

Sharon Jones, “Pick It Up, Lay It In The Cut”

The first Sharon Jones record was rawer than what would follow, which is A-OK by me. Not to say that all of her records aren’t great, but there’s something about the filthy sound of those drums that gets me going.

Just missed a Vince Staples song that I’m enjoying very much as I type this intro. But, sorry, rules are rules. Today is solid, though.

The Isley Brothers, “This Old Heart Of Mine (Is Weak For You) (Alternate Mix)”

Sort of low-key wondering exactly what the longest parenthetical is in a Motown song title. At any rate, we find ourselves in 1966 with this Isley Brothers track. At this point, the Isleys were already veterans, four albums in. And it turns out that their career was really just getting going, with many stylistic changes and lineup changes to come, not to mention just a bunch of great records.