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Modest Mouse, “So Much Beauty In Dirt”

This comes from the 2001 EP Everywhere and His Nasty Parlor Tricks, which in turn pulls a few songs from an earlier EP and adds a few new ones. This is from the peak Modest Mouse period, from their three album run from The Lonesome Crowded West through Good News for People Who Love Bad News, so it’s good stuff.

Mudhoney, “Here Comes Sickness”

If there’s one album I’d point to that defines grunge to me, it’s not Nirvana’s Nevermind. Sure, that’s the commercial breakthrough, but I’d instead point at Mudhoney’s first, self-titled record as really being the heart of grunge. It marries the energy of punk and the power of metal, with a certain grime that really sets the genre off. This is basically the sound that so many bands were chasing in their own way before grunge got huge and changed into sour grunting.

Jan Jelinek, “John Cage, I’ve Been Told To Ask You The Following Question: Where Are You Going?”

Jan Jelinek, expiremental sampling wizard, is best known for creating glitchy, minimal electronic work. Loop-Finding-Jazz-Records is a masterpiece, one of my favorite electronic albums. This, however, comes from a much later album, Zwischen, distinguished by being more avant garde, with more vocal samples. Also, the song names are something else. This is not remotely the longest song title.

Czarface & Ghostface Killah, “Back At Ringside”

Czarface is Inspectah Deck, 7L, and Esoteric, making the sort of superhero/villain inspired hip-hop that MF Doom and Ghostface used to make. So, of course, they have teamed up with both Doom and Ghostface, which makes all the sense in the world. Ghostface managed to outshine the other folks on this album, but it’s still kind of a fun romp.

The Olympians, “Sirens of Jupiter”

The Olympians are a Daptone act featuring a remixed set of the same kind of usual suspects, with members of the Dap-Kings and Menahan Street Band, among others. They’ve put out just one album thus far, and it’s a fine slab of instrumental soul, if not at all groundbreaking. If you need more of that Daptone sound, you can certainly do a lot worse.

Queens of the Stone Age, “If I Had A Tail”

There were six years between the majestic, jagged Era Vulgaris and the return album …Like Clockwork, and that time was apparently spent with Homme thinking about bringing things back to the turn of the millenium. To my ears, this album sounds more like Songs for the Deaf than anything else, which is not a bad thing at all. It took a little bit for the album to grow on me, and while I’m still not sure I’d place it at the top of their pile, it’s a fine album from one of the best rock bands around.

The Gotobeds, “Calquer the Hound”

Indie rock out of Pittsburgh, the Gotobeds’ third album, Debt Begins At 30, sounds fanastic. There’s a real kind of Discord-y/post-hardcore thing going on here, which as you all know goes over well here at Five Songs HQ. This is actually the first album I listened to from them, and kind of forgot to go backwards, and I should really fix that.

Nine Inch Nails, “Came Back Haunted”

After his burst of productivity in the mid/late 2000s, with three albums in four years (four if you count Ghosts, which you should not), Trent Reznor did his usual thing and went away for five years between NiN albums. Unlike previous pauses, he was still making music. He was doing film scores and releasing music as How To Destroy Angels. But he came back to NiN and released Hesitation Marks in 2013, featuring a whole bunch of guest artists and a sound that is probably as close to Pretty Hate Machine as any other record he’s done. Much more sophisticated, of course, but fairly upbeat (as these things go) and kind of bouncy. It’s a fun record, which is not something you can say about most NiN records.

The Roots, “Becoming Unwritten”

Rising Down is fantastic. But this song is just an interstitial thing.

Army of Juan, “Chicken”

We’re deep into Moon Ska’s bench here with this band, who released one album in 1997 and then disappeared. It never caught on with me particularly, and I’ve never heard anybody else mention it, so thank you for bringing this one up, shuffle.

MU330, “Ireland”

MU330, meanwhile, might be obscure today but at least put out multiple albums and I have actually seen them brought up by someone who isn’t me. This comes from Crab Rangoon, which was released right in the middle of their career, and is probably their best record.

Nine Inch Nails, “The Beginning Of The End”

Year Zero marked the fastest followup that Trent Reznor had produced to date, with the album appearing a mere two years after With Teeth. At least five years had separated studio albums up to this point. Perhaps as a result of the relatively short gestation of this album, it’s not a lot different musically from the predecessor. It’s a theme album of sorts, examining a dystopian United States in the near future. It was marketed with an augmented reality campaign, which was genuinely new in 2007. The music itself is solid, but isn’t one of NiN’s essential albums.

Hot Chip, “One Pure Thought”

Hot Chip is dance music, basically, with some nice melodies. But while this is perfectly nice, it’s never really clicked with me very much, and I just have the one album from them. I guess the closest thing I listen to regularly is LCD Soundsystem, and it’s not totally clear why I prefer one over the other.

Pond, “Perfect Four”

As always, a quick clarification that this is the rock band from Portland in the mid-90s, not the Australian band in the 2010s. Pond more-or-less arrived fully formed with their first, eponymous album. While their songwriting would get sharper, this album is still chock full of excellent rock. That they should be claimed by the anti-grunge vortex is one of the shames of the 90s.

Mastodon, “Black Tongue”

With Crack The Skye, Mastodon had kind of reached the end of an exploration, into very prog-y songwriting. In a lot of ways, it mirrored where Metallica had reached with …And Justice For All, and with both bands, the next album represented a real break in style. In Metallica’s case, it was driven by tragedy, with Cliff Burton’s tragic death. In Mastodon’s case, it seemed to be driven by just a desire to move in a new direction. The Hunter, the album in question, is not their best work. It’s still very good, but I personally find the epic stuff from their previous albums more engaging. It’s not until Emperor of Sand that I’m not back fully on board.

The Allstonians, “One Day”

The Allstonians produced two fantastic albums in the heart of the third wave, their self-titled record and Allston Beat. Both were fine, tuneful examples of what the third wave did well, horn driven tunes that borrowed liberally from ska history. There were a few moments when the lyrical approach was a little bit on the smug side (a common problem in the third wave), but overall, both are albums I still listen to frequently to this day. After the collapse of Moon Ska records, the Allstonians disappeared for six years, only to come back with a new record. Alas, the shine just isn’t there any more. We don’t get the fun solos, the horn playing is mostly just simple ensemble work, and the songs aren’t especially memorable.