Run the Jewels

Fluf, “RK Wins”

At some point, I stopped being able to keep track of which songs have already appeared in this thing. It’s been five years? 6,000+ songs, anyway, and I’ve just lost the ability to be sure if we’ve heard something. Part of me thinks this was a repeat, but I don’t want to check. So we’ll just enjoy it again. Or for the first time?

Run the Jewels, “Call Ticketron”

One of the things about Run the Jewels 3 is that it sometimes feels a little more distant than some of the other records, 2 and 4 especially. Both of those feel visceral and immediate, and 3 seems a bit more cerebral and chilly. Still a great record, of course, but it’s just not quite at the same level as those two.

Atmosphere, “Lovelife”

A thing that strikes me about listening to early Atmosphere (this is from their second album, 2002’s God Loves Ugly) is how young Slug sounds on these tracks. He still sounds like the same person later, but there’s less weariness in his tone here as opposed to his latest work.

Mastodon, “A Commotion”

Medium Rarities is a compilation that Mastodon put out in 2020 to gather all the miscellany from their career. This track is a good example: it’s from a split with Feist where they each covered each others’ songs. Mastodon are a strong enough band that a comp of their random crap is still worth listening to.

Run The Jewels, “Blockbuster Night, Pt. 1”

El-P and Killer Mike first got together on the latter’s R.A.P. Music, which is an amazing album. When they announced a full collab, the first Run the Jewels record, I was pumped. And it was excellent, some of El-P’s best production ever (to that point), and it was just a great time all around. And they stuck with it, and somehow Run the Jewels 2 found another level. It’s pissed off, righteously so, and funnels all that rage into focused, punishing tracks. One of the best hip hop records ever.

Swans, “Half Life”

It’s stuff like this, from the early Swans career, that really drives home how appropriate the “no wave” label was for this. It just oozes nihilism.

Mos Def, “Mr. Nigga”

From Mos Def’s great first solo record, part of one of rap’s highest peaks, albeit a short one. This track is bolstered by Q-Tip appearing on it, driving home the song as a spiritual successor to A Tribe Called Quest’s “Sucka Nigga”.

Run the Jewels, “Early (feat. BOOTS)”

I still think Run The Jewels 2 is the best album from them. In fact, let’s do this!

Run The Jewels 2 RTJ4 R.A.P. Music (aka RTJ 0) Run the Jewels 3 Run the Jewels Meow the Jewels

Broham, “Nothing In Common”

Oh man, that is sweet. Listen to that bass! The horns!

Baby Elephant, “Turn My Teeth Up!”

Baby Elephant is eccentric genius Prince Paul teaming up with funk legend Bernie Worrell for an album of off-kilter funk. Worrell is incapable of not sounding like a million bucks, and Prince Paul is, as mentioned a sentence ago, a genius. So, this album rules.

Great one today!

Run The Jewels, “Early”

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.

Hepcat, “The Secret”

It’s a repeat! Still, Hepcat is always welcome around here.

Minutemen, “Martin’s Story”

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!

Pretty uninspiring today.

Hurl, “Faceman”

Another fine song from old Pittsburgh band Hurl. There’s an expansiveness, a warmth here that’s really pleasant to listen to.

Negativland, “In The Beginning, So Many Different Kinds Of Gods…”

Yeah, I’m kind of mad at some of the choices that Past Josh made. This is, of all damn things, a live album of a recreation of a radio show.

And, look, I couldn’t get this “song” uploaded. My conversion things keep crashing. So, screw it, we’re going to do an extra today.

A hazard of this project is that I won’t always have much to say. Sorry about that! At least I have music for you.

Claw Hammer, “Caravan”

Claw Hammer was a bit of a strange band in the underground of the 90s. For starters, their first album wasn’t really their album. It was just a cover of the entirety of Devo’s first album. Jon Wahl sang in some kind of demented John Fogerty meets Joe Strummer kind of howl. They sounded like a blues band crashed into a punk band and decided they liked it that way. Through it all, they clearly were just doing their own thing. They were often exasperating, but sometimes brilliant.

Excellent set today.

Recloose, “Permutations”

There’s something called “Detroit techno” that I only kind of vaguely understand, beyond knowing that Detroit is a city, and techno is a type of electronic music. I mean, there’s a Wikipedia page for it and all, but what does that tell you? Not much. Anyway, Recloose supposedly fits into this genre, for whatever that’s worth. To my ears, this combination of relatively minimalist beat, video game bloops, and slowly building melody is great fun.

I’ve been rumbled! If you look at my YouTube profile, you can often see the playlists for upcoming days, because I’ll write some of these ahead of time. It’s the only way to make sure I reliably have stuff on the weekend, for instance. I figure, hey, it’s not like these things are timely. WHAT ABOUT THAT CURRENT EVENT I TOTALLY KNOW ABOUT, HUH?

Oh, right, music.

Run the Jewels, “MEOWRLY (BOOTS Remix)”

Run the Jewels are, after Kendrick Lamar, my favorite rap artists working today. All three of their proper albums (and, in fact, Killer Mike’s R.A.P. Music which was more or less Run the Jewels 0) are amazing. Meow the Jewels is not, however, on that list of proper albums.