Well, this is quite a time capsule, isn’t it? This whole early 90s thing of guitar dance music really didn’t age especially well, although at this point, there’s a certain goofy try-hard charm to this, with all the little samples and bits floating in and out.
Silly Swallowed. Black is for bile, not for phlegm! That’s colorless! Metal bands should really know medieval medicine better than this.
[Read More]An outlier on the one and only Germs LP, (GI), this is a live track that is triple the length of anything else on the record. A loose wander of a song, it’s all sneer and skronk, without a whole lot of direction. But the Germs were never really about having a point, so it fits in just fine.
It’s impossible to not nod your head along here. I tried, I’ve done the science.
[Read More]Here’s today, but check out the bonus song I link down below.
The second Goats album seemed like it was chasing the trends of early 90s rap, with plenty of stabs towards rock, jazz, and other types of hybrid styles. It doesn’t hang together particularly well, and it’s mostly forgettable. There are some fun moments on the album, but overall, it’s a miss.
The opener to the second side of Flood, the album that really put the group on the map. And while it has some truly great tunes on that first half, my HOT TAKE here is that the second half is only so-so. It’s that second half that puts this album nowhere near the top of my favorite albums from TMBG.
[Read More]One of the most famous diss tracks in hip-hop history, “No Vaseline”, the closer to Death Certificate, laid bare how rancorous the split between Ice Cube and N.W.A truly was. Those who were paying attention to the press knew, but after the release of this song, everybody knew. And the song was savage - calling N.W.A out in every possible way. While the homophobia makes me cringe now, Cube’s creativity in dragging his former bandmates is still super impressive. N.W.A never really responded to the track. MC Ren says that it’s because they broke up, but honestly, there was no coming back from this.
[Read More]Run The Jewels 2 is just perfect. El-P’s beats have never sounded better, Killer Mike’s rhymes have never soudned better, the guests are fantastic. It’s just such a great album, one of the highlights of music this decade.
It’s a repeat! Still, Hepcat is always welcome around here.
I always feel like categorizing the Minutemen as a hardcore band is such a bad idea. They get lumped in there because they would occasionally take that tempo, and of course they were labelmates with a bunch of hardcore bands. But they’re so much different, so much more open to experimentation. Just listen to this!
[Read More]If I wanted to point to a “lol random!” kind of playlist, today might be the day.
This song, from The Punch Line, really shows off what made the Minutemen so great. Listen to that rhythm section! Listen to D Boon hanging back on guitar until he can come in for maximum effect! And it’s only 1:20! That this is from their debut album makes it all the more impressive.
[Read More]I’m excited to see what comes up today! After yesterday’s contrasts, what twists and turns can we expect?
One of the great bands of the first wave of ska, Toots and the Maytals delivered some of the most memorable songs of that period, including the oft-covered and incredible “Pressure Drop”. Toots Hibbert is also credited with coming up with the term “reggae”. Like a lot of his peers, his discography can be a little confusing to follow, as a lot of his stuff was spread out across a bunch of places and there are innumerable compilations that you can find, with overlapping track lists. The Very Best of Toots & the Maytals is an excellent compilation as a starting point, though.
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