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I don’t have a ton to say about these tracks, although there are a couple of truly great songs on the list. I figure, if I don’t have a ton to say, better to keep these things simple.

Kendrick Lamar, “The Blacker The Berry”

To Pimp a Butterfly was my favorite album of 2015, and this track is one of the hardest hitting songs on it.

Boss Hog, “Gerard”

Another scuzz rock track from Cold Hands, full of the same kind of distorted churn that that record is populated with.

Kind of distant and/or futuristic there for a while, until we hit the last song.

Sigur Rós, “Untitled 8”

Icelandic post-rock group Sigur Rós make long, abstract songs that pretty much all sound like the soundtrack to something. Despite this theoretically being something I should be very into, this album (( )) did nothing for me, and I haven’t picked up any of the rest of their stuff. I’m not sure why.

Pretty cool stuff today.

Amon Tobin, “Proper Hoodidge”

It feels like we’ve had Tobin before, but the mighty and infallible Five Songs Index says no, so here we are. Tobin is probably my second favorite electronic artist after Squarepusher, with Supermodified being my favorite album of his. It’s sometimes difficult to say what he does differently from others. I suppose, fundamentally, that there’s more of a sense of narrative with his songs. He seems to be going somewhere with his stuff, and sometimes electronic music can seem a little unfocused or aimless.

Starts slow, but some interesting stuff today.

Coldplay, “Swallowed In The Sea”

Like I said last time, I’ll defend the first couple albums, but this album (X&Y), NOOOOPE. Too boring.

The Flaming Lips, “Okay, I’ll Admit That I Really Don’t Understand”

Well, I’m not sure what to do with this album. This is from Zaireeka, the transitional album between *Clouds Taste Metallic and The Soft Bulletin. So, what’s the problem? Well, at the time, the Flaming Lips were doing a lot of experimenting with how music is played back. They were doing “car stereo orchestras”, where they got a ton of cars together and gave each of them a specific tape, to be played in unison to produce a single piece. They decided, hey, that’s cool, and went for an at-home version of that with Zaireeka.

A couple of very influential releases today.

Eric B. & Rakim, “My Melody”

This is a track from Paid in Full, a groundbreaking record where Rakim raised the bar for MCs far beyond where it was before. It’s a record where his rhyming still sounds fresh, a testament to how far he was ahead of the game. The beats haven’t aged quite as well, but the record as a whole is still a great listen, and is one of the crucial records for understanding where hip-hop came from.

Punk, punk, “punk”, ex-punk, “punk”.

Buzzkill, “Soft Insides”

More forgotten hardcore from Buzzkill. The instrumental section after the first verse is just delightful.

Sicko, “Ya Ya”

I don’t think I’ve taken a run at ranking Sicko’s albums, have I? (checks the previouslys) Nope, I haven’t! Here we go:

…this is really hard. Fundamentally, all their albums are very good, but here goes:

• You’re Not The Boss Of Me
• You Can Feel The Love In This Room
• Chef Boy R U Dum
• Laugh While You Can Monkey Boy

Green Day, “Church on Sunday”

This is from Warning, which seems to get pretty overlooked in their discography. Everybody knows about Dookie, and it seems like American Idiot gets talked about a lot, but I actually like Warning the best out of their post-Dookie albums.

I do love it when something random to even me pops up. Listen along, won’t you?

Bob Marley & The Wailers, “Feel Alright”

This song is part of those “Complete Wailers” compilations, this coming from the period from 1967-1972. That makes it an early track, possibly pre-dating any of their full albums. As always with many Jamaican artists, their discography can be very confusing to try and get on top of after the fact.

Pretty rugged set today. Starts off soft, but doesn’t stay there.

Big Ass Truck, “Return to Thermopolis”

I encountered Big Ass Truck when their first record showed up at WRCT while I was working there. How was I not going to play a band called Big Ass Truck? Turned out to be a funk record, and I somehow ended up with not only that record but the followup, Kent. I’ll be honest, I haven’t thought about these guys in a long, long time. Maybe I should listen to one of the records again, see how it’s aged?

Sheesh, this one is all over the map.

Here Lies Man, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”

Like some kind of fuzzed out combination of stoner rock and Afro beat, Here Lies Man is another one of those Bandcamp discoveries that come from checking out their daily blog. It’s pretty fun stuff!

De La Soul, “Pain”

From one end of De La Soul’s career to the other, this comes from their most recent album, And the Anonymous Nobody. As I mentioned in the first entry on them, this album was produced using Kickstarter, and all the samples came from their own recording sessions. I’m curious to see what their followup will be like. Will they use the same methods to make their next record?

Where else can you get a TMBG kids’ song and a wordless Negativland piece?

De La Soul, “De La Orgee”

So, uh, 14-year-old Josh was PRETTY BIG into this song. I actually greatly preferred the second half of 3 Feet High and Rising, and would usually play it over and over again. Not just because this was on it, of course, but the second half also started with my favorite song from them (“Say No Go”), had “Plug Tunin’” and “My Myself and I”, and, um, “Buddy”. I’m just saying, I was 14.