Merle Haggard

Shudder to Think, “Baby Drop”

Your Choice Records was a DIY label that mostly (entirely?) released live records by established bands. I’ve got several of them, and they’re all very good records. Here, Shudder to Think is in fine form, and this album almost functions like a greatest hits record.

Colossus, “Tsunami”

Colossus is a collaboration betweeen Ayatollah and Widowmaker, with an instrumental hip-hop record coming out of the partnership, which was created using Kickstarter. The compositions are pretty big, and they feel more like full songs, not just beat demos. It’s a nice one to check out if you like this track.

The Mighty Mocambos, “Calling the Shots”

The immediacy of the drums here, both in their entry into the song as well as the production, really drives things here. That insistent bell, the grit and echo, it’s fantastic. On top of that, those punchy horns, goddamn, I could just listen to this all day. And bari sax! Love it.

L’Orange & Mr. Lif, “Strange Technology”

I wonder what it is about hip-hop that pairs with sci-fi so successfully in a way that, say, rock music can struggle with. A lot of the time when rock tries to go sci-fi, it comes across as corny or ridiculous. But hip-hop can go futuristic without any real struggle, and there have been some awesome sci-fi hip-hop records. I suppose the beats can get kind of inorganic without stretching the genre too much, and that can help things.

John Oswald, “Btls (Marco Integer)”

Chopping up the Beatles is really playing with fire, copyright-wise. It’s powerful source material, of course, so I’m glad he went for it. But you know, there’s a reason this stuff was so hard to find for a while.

The Minders, “Now I Can Smile”

An Elephant Six band, the Minders were very much, uh, an Elephant Six band. I mean, you can hear them. They were pretty good at it, but it’s kind of…I guess I’d rather just listen to the Kinks instead?

Two two twenty two. Neat date!

Guided by Voices, “Hot Freaks”

Bee Thousand, the Guided By Voices breakthrough record, isn’t really notably different from their previous records. It’s as ramshackle and distracted as their previous albums, with the same penchant for memorable melodies floating in as frequently as they stagger out. Just as soon as a tune gets going properly, it’s on to the next. The hit rate on this album is higher than the previous records, so it’s probably the apotheosis of their early approach. After this, they’d slowly start getting more professional, so if you want the raw shit, this is your starting point, and then you can work backwards as far as you can stand.

The Busters, “Candy”

The Busters are from Germany, which was a little bit of a hotbed of two-tone-styled ska in the late 80s/early 90s before the third wave really got rolling. The Busters were never serious about anything, and sometimes the goofiness could get grating. It’s well-done for what it is, but it doesn’t really quite connect with me.

Wire, “Start To Move”

I go through phases where I listen to lots of certain bands, like I suspect lots of people do. There are also some bands that never really fall out of rotation, and Wire is definitely on that list. I’m never sorry to spin this stuff.

Merle Haggard, “Are The Good Times Really Over (I Wish A Buck Was Still Silver)”

Personally, I look to my country music artists for trenchant commentary on monetary policy.

They Might Be Giants, “Bangs”

The opening of Mink Car, the last record TMBG released for Warner Bros. I suppose being released on 9/11 was probably an ill omen for the sales of the record. It contains some really good stuff (“Man, It’s So Loud In Here” is one of my favorites of all-time from them), but overall is kind of treading water a little bit. It was after this album that TMBG began making kids’ records, and after a few of those, I think they really kind of started progressing again.

De La Soul, “Rap De Rap Show”

There’s a concept of a “difficult second album”, which is mostly just a farm for confirmation bias, but hell, let’s talk about De La Soul’s difficult second album. Their first album was a huge smash, a groundbreaking album, and an artistic statement that truly came from left field. But the flower power personas that De La Soul wore during that record began to feel stifling pretty quickly. They set out to break that mold on the next album, starting with the name of the album, and proceeding with rejecting the hippie approach throughout. The results are rough in spots, a little overly laden with filler and skits, but there are also some legitimately amazing tracks on the record. This, alas, is not one of them.

King Crimson, “21st Century Schizoid Man Including Mirrors”

The early pinnacle of prog rock, In The Court of the Crimson King set a standard that a bunch of other bands would strive uselessly to surpass, including King Crimson themselves for a while. Now, prog is inherently ridiculous, but it’s also hard not to enjoy the unbounded artistic ambition here. I’m not a huge King Crimson guy, because I think a little of this can go a long way, but this is very easy to just sit back and listen to.

Still on that train!

Merle Haggard, “Go Home”

Well, I certainly like to kick things off with a story about how a guy’s racist friends broke up his relationship. Just some real cheerful shit here!

The Coup, “Me And Jesus the Pimp In a ‘79 Grenada Last Night”

Oh, it’s gonna be like that? Let’s follow up that song with a kid whose relationships were totally warped by his mentorship from a pimp, who later beats his mother to death. Heartwarming!

Today!

Apathy, “The Grass Ain’t Greener”

I know that this is dumb of me, but I still find the idea of a rap album exploring the darker side of Connecticut kind of hilarious. And, you know, there’s plenty of material there! The album itself is very good, and Apathy did a bunch of the production himself, which is always fun. This song wasn’t one of the ones he did himself, though.