Five Songs, 12/8/2021

Black Eyed Peas, “Bringing It Back”

I’ve already talked about how different pre-Fergie BEP are from the band people know, and I’m not sure I have a second thing to observe about this record. So read that. Or don’t! Doesn’t matter to me!

Jurassic 5, “What’s Golden”

Best tune off their second record, this is just a total banger. If I can recommend it, just listen to this twice and skip the BEP track. Why not?

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Five Songs, 10/7/2021

Dis, “I’m Not Sagan”

The Historically Troubled Third Album is a really fantastic album name.

Aretha Franklin, “Save Me”

I’m often at a loss for words when we have some of the all-time greats come up on here, particularly folks like the great soul artists. There’s nothing I can really say that’s going to add anything here. Of course Aretha Franklin was great. We should all listen to more of her!

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Five Songs, 1/13/2020

Parliament, “(You’re A Fish And I’m A) Water Sign”

While I always prefer the more upbeat stuff from Parliament, their ballads were also often great, certainly during their peak period. This comes from the last great Parliament record (Motor Booty Affair), but not the last great record from the Parliament/Funkadelic collective.

Black Eyed Peas, “BEP Empire”

Before the Black Eyed Peas became massive pop music successes, before they were cranking out deeply irritating hits, before they entered the collective consciousness as THE BLACK EYED PEAS, they were an underground hip-hop act that put out a couple of decent albums. There’s a little Black Star here, which is of course welcome. So, what happened? Well, one major thing you’ll notice about those first two records is that one familiar member of the band isn’t there. Fergie joined on the third record, and, well, only the first two albums are worth anything.

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