The Baseball Project

Emperor, “A Fine Day to Die”

Among the various albums to emerge from the second wave of black metal, In The Nightside Eclipse seems to me to be the one that really set the template that a lot of black metal followed. While it’s inaccessible, it’s not as inaccessible as many of the other early records from the scene, and the extra elements that Emperor played with are ones that many other black metal bands would end up also playing with. As such, if you were to listen to one old black metal record to kind of understand the music, this is probably a great choice.

The Baseball Project, “¡Hola America!”

Baseball Project, yes, yes, very good, love ’em AS OF THIS WRITING THE MARINERS ARE IN THE LEAD IN THE AL WEST AND WOULD BE THE AL’s #2 SEED IF THE PLAYOFFS STARTED TODAY WOOOOOO

Poster Children, “Evidence”

There was a very good scene in Champaign-Urbana in the late 80s/early 90s, with Hum being probably the best known these days, but at the time the Poster Children probably were a little more famous. It’s hard for me to tell for sure, of course, but I seem to remember more buzz around them. They ended up on Reprise before Hum was on a major label, got some MTV play, and generally were pretty prominent for a little while for an indie rock band. I hardly see any mention of them any more, though, and honestly had kind of forgotten them myself. Probably should remind myself about their records, I’m enjoying this track.

Lungfish, “My Fool Heart”

I’ve kind of run down Lungfish often enough here to make it clear that I’m not a big fan, so I won’t rehash it. I do wonder occasionally (usually whenever they come up here) if I’m missing something by not going for their later albums and seeing if my opinion would change.

And then I realize that I do have a couple later albums, and had just forgotten that they existed. Whoops! I already answered this for myself.

The Baseball Project, “Don’t Call Them Twinkies”

There’s a Venn diagram you can draw, with “Baseball Nerd” as one circle and “Seattle Music Nerd” in the other. In that fantastic overlap sits The Baseball Project and your faithful Five Songs correspondant. Where else can you go for a lovely rock song that name checks Zoilo Versalles? Just the best.

Uniform, “Habit”

And from that piece of charm, we move to the menacing Uniform, sounding like Thaw-era Foetus here. All growling noise and lyrics spit through gritted teeth. The sort of song with a relentless pursuit of “ugly” as an aesthetic.

Six songs today!

Xzibit, “Carry The Weight”

Before he was on MTV, before he became a meme, Xzibit was a hardcore rapper, which sometimes kind of seems like it’s forgotten. His debut album, featuring production by E-Swift and Muggs among others, is a strong piece of work. Xzibit is a solid rapper, and his storytelling is very good here. It’s not essential, but it’s a good album that seems mostly forgotten at this point.