Pitchblende

Public Enemy, “LSD”

Flavor Flav belting out “cancer!” in the first verse always kills me. Also, I always appreciate it when rappers Remember A Guy, with Nick Van Exel getting name checked here.

The Grifters, “Spaced Out”

I’m pretty sure that I’ve lamented this before, but it’s a real shame that the Grifters managed to get to Sub Pop, the relative big time, and only released one record there before breaking up. I suppose they didn’t exactly fit into the general grunge aesthetic (grunty guitars and gruntier singers), but they at least fit pretty well alongside both Pond and the Afghan Whigs, both of whom made the majors. Well, anyway, all five of the Grifters records are worthwhile, with this one being the most polished of the bunch.

Pitchblende, “Flax”

Now, that’s a tune! Kinda wish they had left the vocals off, they’re pretty unnecessary here.

Pardoner, “My Sorry Ass”

A end-of-year list discovery from 2017, I didn’t know anything about this band before getting this record. But listen to that Pitchblende song (from 1993) and then this, and there’s just a straight line connecting them. This album rocks, in case it wasn’t clear.

Wick-it The Instigator, “Everlasting Shine Blockaz”

Here’s a fun one! Wick-it took Big Boi’s magnificent Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son Of Chico Dusty and combined it the the Black Keys’ Brothers, resulting in a very fun mash-up. Listen to this track and then you can immediately decide if it’s your thing or not.

Bob Marley and the Wailers, “Midnight Ravers”

By and large, I tend to prefer the early material from Marley, where there’s some more ska rhythms as opposed to reggae. Of course, that doesn’t mean that his later material isn’t brilliant. At any rate, Catch a Fire is pretty early, his first album for Island Records, and it’s the one that really put him on the map for most folks. It’s a tremendous record, and probably where I’d recommend folks start with to move beyond Legend.

Elvis Costello, “Just a Memory”

The deluxe reissues of Costello’s albums are mostly not worth it. There are some highlights from the bonus material, but you’re just better off listening to the actual album again.

Matthew Sweet, “Looking at the Sun”

This entire album is just so charming. It’s really hard to think about how it might possibly be improved, this is just power pop perfection.

Dead Kennedys, “Kill The Poor”

Now we’re talkin’! Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables is a singular achievement: deeply political, savagely sarcastic, fantastically well-written, and simultaneously both alien and incredibly familiar. It’s one of the albums that really kicked off hardcore, and judging by the kids walking around in Kennedys gear, it still resonates today.

Well, it’s not as good as yesterday.

Pitchblende, “Ambient Noise”

Pretty much what it says on the tin. I knew today wasn’t going to be as good as yesterday, but this is not a great beginning.

Mr. Review, “One Way Ticket”

This comes from an album called One Way Ticket To Skaville. Say what you want about Skaville, but it’s very clean. Basically no litter. After all, everybody there is just so willing to pick it up, pick it up, pick it up.

Today’s music.

Algiers, “untitled”

The last track from their self-titled debut album from a few years ago, Algiers combined furious post-punk with a whole host of other influences, fusing into a wholly original album. It was one of the very best albums of 2015, and proof that there were still surprises left in rock (of course, I’ve always thought that). They followed it up with another great album a couple years later, and are one of the bands that I really hope keeps going for a while. Hopefully we’ll hear plenty from them around here as well.

Hey! There’s an index to these things, meticulously maintained. I’m going to periodically mention it here, because these intros are dumb and why am I still typing I could just say here’s the music and you’d all be happier if any of you existed that is…

By the way, shout out to the song “!!!!!!!” by the Roots for being one of my most listened songs, simply by being virtue of the first song in my entire list. I hear it whenever I forget to switch on shuffle.