Motown

Just a quick one today, Five Songs is on the road!

Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet, “You Spin Me Round ‘86”

Surf-ish instrumental band Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet are probably best known as the band who did the theme song for Kids In The Hall. That’s a bit of a shame, as they put together three very strong albums. Strong enough that at one time, underground luminary Steve Albini called them the best band recording. Anyway, thoroughly charming and full of personality, their albums are all worth giving a try, with Dim The Lights, Chill The Ham being my favorite.

Shuffle is trying to make me look dumb today. It probably succeeded.

Channels, “Mercury”

Channels is basically impossible to search YouTube for. Well, it was only a few days ago we first encountered them, so hopefully you all remember them well. This song is about as ballad-y as J. Robbins gets.

New York Ska-Jazz Ensemble, “Naima”

A side project of a bunch of folks in the New York third-wave ska scene, this is basically what it sounds like: a bunch of ska artists getting together to play a bunch of jazz standards. It’s a pretty enjoyable listen. This, of course, is the John Coltrane song. I’d say more, but, well, you know the score.

Make! The most! Of my! Toe toast! Hey, while we’re giggling over this first Descendents track, a Five Songs correspondent pointed out the existence of this masterpiece, which is really breathtaking.

Descendents, “Enjoy”

A couple albums into the Descendents’ snotty punk career, the casual observer might have wondered if they were ever ACTUALLY going to grow up, despite an album title declaring otherwise. With the opening track of Enjoy, the band gave a definitive answer. An ode to bodily smells of all types, “Enjoy” was defiantly sophomoric in a way that exceeded even the low maturity standards of their first few releases. I will say this, the little descending baseline is very memorable.

Kind of distant and/or futuristic there for a while, until we hit the last song.

Sigur Rós, “Untitled 8”

Icelandic post-rock group Sigur Rós make long, abstract songs that pretty much all sound like the soundtrack to something. Despite this theoretically being something I should be very into, this album (( )) did nothing for me, and I haven’t picked up any of the rest of their stuff. I’m not sure why.

Today’s tunes.

The Nation of Ulysses, “Maniac Dragstrip”

There’s a search for authenticity in rock music that goes back decades, where bands are judged to be real or poseurs based on a variety of markers, many of which make no sense at all. And in this view of music, artifice is usually heavily discouraged. A band that is self-consciously trying to be different, to make art as opposed to just blasting raw emotion is seen as inauthentic. I get it, the drive for the visceral, particularly in rock. But clinging to this structure leaves out so much interesting experimentation, and ultimately can be so limiting, that you just want to sometimes embrace artiness.

Here’s today’s music.

The Four Tops, “If You Don’t Want My Love”

We’re visiting 1967 with this song from the legendary Four Tops, one of the breakout stars of Motown’s roster, becoming staples of radio. I’m not a Four Tops expert or anything though, so we’ll just enjoy this song.

Le Grand Miercoles, “Commin’ Home Baby”

A Bandcamp find via a gaming friend, Le Grand Miercoles play some kind of weirdo combination of surf, ska, and, like Ennio Morricone. So, of course, I love it to death. I know nothing else about the band.

Some authentically old music, and some music that wishes it was older than it is.

Craw, “Eidolons”

I really cannot emphasize how happy it makes me that there are folks that are going back into our past and bringing bands to our attention. Craw’s revival via Kickstarter is one great example, but also labels like Light in the Attic and Numero Group are doing great work. There are so many amazing bands who might have not gotten a fair shake the first time around, and finding them is fantastic. Anyway, Craw is really good!

Totally forgot to post yesterday. I’m super flaky this week. Sorry about that! Here’s some music for today, at least.

Less Than Jake, “The Troubles”

A few things distinguish Less Than Jake from the many other ska-punk bands that all started up at roughly the same time. The first is that they were more punk than ska, refusing to be tied down to the gimmick. The second is that the quality of their songs was, in general, much stronger than most of their peers. The third is probably the most important, which is that they lasted for forever. I’ve got eight albums from them, and I don’t think I have their entire discography. I think their sweet spot is from Losing Streak through Anthem, personally. This song comes from their most recent album, though.

I wonder at what point I start hitting diminishing returns on this thing. 200 articles? 300? 500? I suppose I’ll find out. Let’s fire up the music!

Yo La Tengo, “The Summer”

Well, personally, I remain resolutely un-fired up. This is from Fakebook, a quiet covers album that is the least noisy thing they ever made by a long ways. Yo La Tengo have always had two sides, and this album really only emphasizes the folk-ish side of the band.

Really happy to get more Neubauten in here, that’s some good working music.

Foetus, “Mighty Whity”

This song, from 1995’s Gash, makes me wonder exactly how you get Sony to distribute a song about killing whity, all set to a grinding slice of noise and a jaunty trumpet line. But thank goodness somebody figured it out! The whole album is very good, by the way.

Freestyle Fellowship, “Dedications”

Just a little interstitial track in the middle of To Whom It May Concern…, over a Delfonics sample. Good record, though.