Nas

Freddie Gibbs, “Careless”

Freddie Gibbs came off the triumphant Piñata, an album-length collaboration with Madlib, riding high. For his follow-up, Shadow of a Doubt, he worked with a variety of producers, and while the production is solid, it’s really all about Gibbs and his rhymes. I’m not the first to say it, but Gibbs comes across kind of like 2Pac, only with much more variation in his flow. I think this album really kind of demonstrate it, as there is so much focus on his delivery. While I think his work with Madlib is his best work, this is a very good record.

Front 242, “Quite Unusual”

I’ve mentioned before on here, but I think Front 242 might have aged the best of the various industrial dance acts that I listened to in the late 80s/early 90s. I guess Nine Inch Nails aged better, but Reznor only really made one record of industrial dance before moving on. But this sounds pretty good! The synths here are very *wave, but that’s a good thing. And the vocal delivery avoids the histrionics that others used that sounds a little silly today.

December! Fear not, there will be no Christmas themed Five Songs to contend with here, unless shuffle pulls something up randomly (and there’s very little Christmas music in my collection). Maybe I’ll do some obnoxious metal-themed special on the 25th though. Here’s today’s tunes.

Mantar, “Cult Witness”

One of the things I like doing is going through “Best of the Year” roundups from various music blogs that do good work and just trying a bunch of stuff I’ve never heard of. Mostly, I do pretty well through this process, and even if they’re not all favorites, it gives me a chance to break out of my established loops and try and find some new bands. It can be easy, especially as I get older, to just rely on the same stuff I’ve always listened to, and this sort of explicit process helps shield against that.

Yesterday, I actually briefly had six songs in the post. I only discovered it when I was going to put the entries in the index. I have one job! I only need one hand to count! Anywhere, here’s today’s random count of songs (hopefully five!).

Preston School of Industry, “History of the River”

When Pavement broke up, Stephen Malkmus went solo (later adding a backing band called The Jicks), and Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg founded Preston School of Industry. He put out two records under that name, neither reaching anywhere near the heights of Pavement (but, to be fair, neither has Malkmus). They’re both decent records, but they’re missing the spark that really elevated Pavement.