El-P

Neko Case & Her Boyfriends, “Whip the Blankets”

Fuck yeah, Neko Case doing a convincing June Carter impression here, great stuff.

One Eye Open, “Blue Gene Blues”

This is from a split LP with Janitors Against Apartheid, the final track, and it’s…look, it’s not good. I mean, even if you skip all the silence from the CD fuckery, this is still just fuckin’ around. This record also got Dill Records flattened in a lawsuit over the cover art, so it’s just a bad scene all around.

Cave In, “Come Into Your Own”

If I told you that there was a band called Cave In, and that they were showing up on this blog, you’d probably have some picture of what they sound like that would involve one or more things howling. I doubt you’d picture something that sounds like this. Kinda feel like it’s false advertising.

El-P, “The Overly Dramatic Truth”

A thing you can’t often say about El-P’s compositions is that they’re pretty. It’s just not a goal he often shoots for, although he’s capable of it if he chooses. This beat, though, sometimes could be described as such. There’s a certain poppiness to it that doesn’t often show up in his work.

NoFX, “I Wanna Be Your Baby”

A misfire from this record, I just really don’t want to hear Fat Mike singing this, you know?

Unsteady, “Breaking Up”

A real treat! Unsteady put up a handful of unreleased tracks onto the web in 2001 or so, and I managed to grab them and hang onto them for forever. They never released a followup to their masterful Double or Nothing, so these four tracks are the only things we have. More than I think anybody else in the third wave, they’re the band that I wanted to hear more from. Alas.

Tilt, “Dental Wreck”

There are certainly things that can be bad about punk. But there’s a floor on how bad it gets - if you keep things energetic and the songs short, it’s always going to hit at least reasonably well.

They Might Be Giants, “Lost My Mind”

Nanobots had a decent number of these kind of big, dramatic songs from TMBG. It’s a bit of a theatrical album, and a solid one from them.

That’s 11 month of perfect attendance. NOT BAD AT ALL. On the 29th, we’ll celebrate a full year of Five Songs every day unless I totally biff it. Which I might! And we’re getting pretty close to one thousand entries on this blog, so I guess I’ll have another little celebration when we hit that. Or I’ll forget.

Vulfpeck, “3 on E”

You know what? I wanted to hear this song, and I wrote this entry back-to-back with the previous one. Screw it! This place is random enough! Please write to the Five Songs ombudsman if you have a problem with our editorial decision here.

Mad Caddies, “Nobody Wins at the Laundromat”

When ska-punk just kind of turns into punk with horns, I start some losing interest. Sure, it can still be good, but there are a lot of great straight-up punk bands that they’re going to be competing with. I’m not that desperate for horns.

Calexico, “Cumbia de Donde”

OK I LIED GIVE ME ALL THE HORNS I NEED THEM RIGHT NOW

Edge of the Sun is one of the more, uh, sunny albums from Calexico’s later career. This bouncy tune is the most sunniest of the lot, but it’s by no means alone being charming. If you’re a big fan of Feast of Wire (which you should be), this is a pretty good one to go to next.

Built to Spill, “The Plan”

Built to Spill’s three album run culminating in Keep It Like A Secret is one my very favorite peaks of any band, ever. Doug Martsch’s songs were all incredible, there was heart, catchiness, tons of surprises, it’s just incredible stuff. Not only that, but they were able to pull off tight pop songs and epic tunes with equal aplomb. My favorite is actually the middle record, Perfect From Now On, which is…uh, perfect. But they’re all tremendous records.

DJ Shadow, “This Time (I’m Gonna Try It My Way)”

DJ Shadow’s third album, The Outsider, is kind of a mess. It was four years after The Private Press and ten after Endtroducing, and all that time apparently created a lot of ideas that all tried to burst out at the same time. That doesn’t let the whole thing hang together as an album, but it does have plenty of fun songs. It’s also an album that I have learned to appreciate more as time has gone on. It turns out that he didn’t need to make another Endtroducing!

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.