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It’s Thanksgiving! I wrote this way ahead of time! Happy turkey day! I hope everybody gets stuffed and your families do not fight!

Fugees, “Fu-Gee-La (Sly & Robbie Mix)”

The Score is a masterpiece, one of the great records in rap history, but I do find the remixes of “Fu-Gee-La” at the end of the album largely unnecessary. I’d rather just listen to the original of it instead.

Snoop Dogg, “Imagine”

More or less every Snoop album after Doggystyle has been kind of, uh, shaggy. He often sounds like he’s mailing it in at least a little bit (and sometimes more than a litte), and Tha Blue Carpet Treatment is no exception. That said, it’s still one of the better albums he’s put together. It would probably be even better cut down to half its length, but Snoop is still very charismatic, so it’s a pleasant listen.

The Decemberists, “When The War Came”

There’s a lot to really like on The Crane Wife, especially the epic songs on it, but this song isn’t really one of the highlights. It’s fine, I don’t mind it, but it’s not one of the songs I would seek out.

J Church, “I Can’t Be Nice To You”

Meanwhile, here’s a song that I can easily belt out all the lyrics to without even half thinking about it. Prophylaxis is one of the albums I love the most that nobody has really heard of. Is it available on Spotify? Friends, it is not.

The Mighty Mocambos, “In The Dark”

Funk group out of Hamburg, German, the Mighty Mocambos have excellent taste in guest artists, and consistently delightful percussion. Hell, they have a side line as a steel drum band. This song comes from Showdown, which is an excellent collection of tunes.

Zeal and Ardor, “Waste”

We just had a post-black metal band, and here’s another. As you can hear, Zeal and Ardor certainly make use of plenty of the markers of black metal, but marry it to African American spirituals, to create something new from the genre. This kind of blending is super interesting, and I’d like to see it more often.

Shenandoah Davis, “Seventeen”

Kind of remember the last time Davis came up saying that I didn’t know anything about her. Still don’t! We don’t do any research around here! That would be against the Five Songs ethos, where we put the “ass” in “half-assed”.

Dis, “Whiteness”

Does it get more early 90s than this? The guitar tone, the sung and spoken parts, the vocals buried in the mix, all that shit. I was big into this stuff, and it still sounds great. Beacuse I’m old and fossilized.

Jay Farrar, “Different Eyes”

If you’re wondering what the difference is between a Son Volt record and a Jay Farrar record, the answer is “not much”. This album (Sebastopol) was recorded after the very good Wide Swing Tremelo, and honestly, you could scramble up the track listings between the two and not really think anything was off. That makes this album also very good, just so I’m clear.

Deerhoof, “Son of Sorn”

You can see where Deerhoof earns the name “noise pop” on a song like this. It’s about a third aimless noise, a third pounding rhythm, and a third sweet but fractured pop song. They don’t always explore all three of those in the same song, but this is a compact little package of what Deerhoof is about.

Fugazi, “Intro”

There’s not a ton to say here, other than The Argument is a tremendous swan song for the band, and I really wish that there were more records after it.

The Jam, “That’s Entertainment”

One of the crowning achievements of mod, Sound Affects is chock full of great songs, and this one is one of the sweetest of the bunch. It’s straightforward, but it sounds fantastic, and certainly still sounds totally fresh.

Led Zeppelin, “D’yer Mak’er”

Little known band out of the UK, Zeppelin presaged…uh, sorry, I can’t do this.

Grandaddy, “Jed’s Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)”

I really only have a couple things to say about most bands, and I’m legitimately terrified of just repeating them. Individual bands mostly don’t come up often enough for me to really remember what I’ve said before, and goodness knows I don’t go back and read previous entries before writing something. I’m not going anywhere here with this. I’m mostly just positing that I’m just a bag of random associations doing a stimulus/response over here, and I’m constantly concerned that I’m going to be revealed to be the worthless hack that I am at any moment.

John Oswald, “x24”

I’d say that most of Oswald’s work doesn’t make sense out of context of the rest of the album, but let’s be clear, it doesn’t really make sense in context either. But, hell, enjoy Oswald jacking “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” here. Why not?

Propagandhi, “Government Cartoons (Live)”

Where Quantity Is Job #1 is a fantastic name for an album, even if the album itself is kinda dodgy. This was also the last album with the original lineup, as John (bassist/vocalist) left after this record, which was a loss for the band.

Violent Femmes, “Out the Window”

Everybody knows the Femmes for their sublime self-titled debut, and with good reason, as it’s legitimately one of the all-time great records. But, they didn’t actually stop there! I know! This song was on the solid compilation Add It Up, but originally appeared on Why Do Birds Sing?, which is a little all over the place, but does have its moments.

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, “Lovin’ Machine (Automator)”

One of the delights of my new approach here on Five Songs is that I don’t have to search around YouTube for whatever remix or whatever popped up. Luxury!

Dām-Funk, “Floating On Air”

One-man band Dām-Funk does a nice job of collaborating with a wide range of interesting folks, often to fine results. This cut is the first peak on Floating on Air, featuring Flea and somebody called Computer Jay. It wanders around a little bit, but I’m totally fine with that in my electro-funk.

Calexico, “Victor Jara’s Hands”

2008’s Carried To Dust was a return back to the sounds of their best album, Feast of Wire. (As an aside, it was super gratifying when the band themselves agreed with my opinion, proving that Five Songs is never wrong.) It’s actually super admirable that Calexico will try out different styles on their records, but I’m also not sorry to get a second helping of that super lush, dusty beauty either. As always, Calexico kind of sounds like they’re making a soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist.