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Yay for year end roundups! First one I’m looking at is The AV Club’s roundup and their ballots. So far, I’ve already picked up two records, Infinite Wave by Vagabon and The Incessant by Meat Wave. Fun! Today’s music!

Isaac Hayes, “Walk On By”

Oh my. With the untimely passing of Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes became probably the most important artist at Stax, writing and contributing to innumerable hits. He was also, of course, a tremendous performer in his own right, with songs like this being a great example. This appeared on the album Hot Buttered Soul, which is just tremendous.

Another fun set today.

Plaid, “New Bass Hippo”

As I mentioned last time, Plaid was around for a long time, but I only picked up a couple of albums. I feel like you can really only deeply know a few genres, and electronic stuff has gotten squeezed out of my brain for no good reason. I’m sure I’ll go on a binge at some point.

The Beastie Boys, “Pow”

I’ve always loved Mike D’s drum break in this song. I should try and play it. That’ll probably bug Megan proper!

Today’s set is a real barn burner.

Art Brut, “People In Love”

This song, from It’s a Bit Complicated, is a solid encapsulation of Art Brut’s unique brilliance. Art Brut only makes sense to someone that has consumed a ton of pop and rock, and internalized all the cliches from them. If you’re that person, Art Brut’s send ups of all that stuff will just hit squarely.

Blackalicious, “The Fabulous Ones”

We’ve had Gift of Gab as a solo artist, but here he is on the breakthrough Blackalicious LP, Nia. From the lush, jazzy beats to the incredible rhymes, Blackalicious immediately became one of the highlights of hip-hop. This record still sounds fresh, 18 years later (OH GOD I’M OLD), and it and the follow-up Blazing Arrow are one of the strongest one-two punches of any rap act ever.

Hey, the AV Club’s “The Year In Band Names” is out! Oh, and we have music for today.

Two Fingers, “High Life”

Side project of Five Songs favorite Amon Tobin, Two Fingers is a collaboration with another producer named Doubleclick, along with some assorted MCs. In particular, Sway appears on most of the tracks here, including this one. And, damn, but it all works great. Stuttery and spastic in all the right ways, with some fun vocal work, this is a very entertaining album.

Five Songs today features the most skippable song we’ve had yet! Enjoy!

PDQ Bach, “Classical Rap (S. 1-2-3)”

Oh god, I’m sorry. This is from Oedipus Tex and Other Choral Calamities, the best (?) of the PDQ Bach releases, I think. Oh, this is credited to “Grandmaster Flab and the Hoople Funkharmonic”. He won a Grammy for this thing.

(NB: The video I’ve included here includes the introduction to the piece, which provides some important “context”.)

Very metal today.

Zu, “Rudra Dances over Burning Rome”

Hell yes. Do Zu play heavily rock-inflected jazz? Is it instead jazzy avant-garde metal? Who cares, is it fun? (It is.) I wandered into Zu after learning that Mombu was a side-project of parts of Zu, and I’m glad I did. I love this kind of genre-hopping mishmash of stuff.

Blut Aus Nord, “Paien”

Black metal band out of France, Blut Aus Nord has been making an unholy racket for twenty something years now, cranking out a ton of albums including multiple trilogies. If that sounds overwrought, that’s probably because it is, overwrought theatrics being part of the classic black metal playbook, along with strangled vocals, blast beats, and furious tremelo picking. This comes from Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry which, yeah - overwrought. This song would probably tell you if you want to listen to more Blut Aus Nord or not.

This set was going pretty well for a while! Oh well.

Meat Beat Manifesto, “I Got The Fear, Pt. 3”

Meat Beat Manifesto had a bit of a strange start to their career. Their first album was destroyed in a studio fire prior to release, a story that the band has stuck to but their label denied happened. Their debut album then instead became Storm the Studio, which was really just four songs, but they put out multiple parts and variations of everything. That was then followed by Armed Audio Warfare, which was their attempt to re-create their actual debut record, so they kind of released their first couple albums out of order.

I really like this set a lot.

Live Human, “Quick Eleven”

We just had DJ Logic a few days ago, and Live Human is a similar premise: a trio of a bassist, drummer, and DJ. There’s the same kind of loose, jazzy, improvisational feel to the proceedings. DJ Logic tends to be more towards the jazz end than the hip-hop end compared to Live Human, but they’re really very similar bands.

Shudder To Think, “Rag”

Goddamn, listen to that song. Shudder to Think, where have you gone? (looks) Apparently Craig Wedren did some soundtracks, cool.

December! Fear not, there will be no Christmas themed Five Songs to contend with here, unless shuffle pulls something up randomly (and there’s very little Christmas music in my collection). Maybe I’ll do some obnoxious metal-themed special on the 25th though. Here’s today’s tunes.

Mantar, “Cult Witness”

One of the things I like doing is going through “Best of the Year” roundups from various music blogs that do good work and just trying a bunch of stuff I’ve never heard of. Mostly, I do pretty well through this process, and even if they’re not all favorites, it gives me a chance to break out of my established loops and try and find some new bands. It can be easy, especially as I get older, to just rely on the same stuff I’ve always listened to, and this sort of explicit process helps shield against that.

Rap heavy today.

Common, “The 6th Sense”

First appearance for Common here, this coming from his masterpiece, Like Water For Chocolate. With production from a bunch of underground greats, Common put everything together and made a landmark of underground rap that brought back the feel of the Native Tongues bands. While it might run on a bit too long, it’s still a huge pleasure to listen to, so smooth and assured.