The Beastie Boys

Nice one today!

Yautja, “for naught”

Kind of math-rock, kind of death metal, this kind of hybrid makes me happy. Which it probably shouldn’t! This comes from the EP Songs of Lament, the followup to their excellent Songs of Descent. Both are worth looking into.

Bathory, “Shores in Flames”

Bathory were black metal pioneers, with the singer Quorthon’s strangled croak setting the template for black metal vocalists that persists today. The primitive recording and washes of guitar noise also formed one of the pillars of the genre. But, not content to provide some of the building blocks for one type of metal, Bathory re-invented themselves. The album prior to this one started experimenting with breaking out of the template, but Hammerheart showed that the template was gone. This song is the opener of that album, featuring Quorthon actually singing, and the songwriting now was focused on the epic rather than the squalid. And, indeed, Bathory had now invented the subgenre of Viking metal which, yes, is a thing. Bottom line: there aren’t very many bands that have ever been as metal as Bathory, and there aren’t very many bands more influential on the genre.

Spastic noise punk, power pop, third wave ska, rap, bombastic post-rock: this is just about the full gamut for Five Songs!

UFO Or Die, “0 Or 1ers”

Uh, yeah. UFO Or Die isn’t exactly random noise, but it’s not THAT far from it, either.

The New Pornographers, “Centre For Holy Wars”

We’ve heard from A.C. Newman before with Zumpano, but here he is with the band he’s best known for, the New Pornographers. Started as something of a supergroup with Newman, Dan Bejar (Destroyer), and Neko Case (all of whom we’ll hear from with their other acts), the New Pornographers took a while to turn from a lark into a real band. But, they finally put out their debut album, Mass Romantic, and it’s a corker. Fully embracing power pop, it’s one of the catchiest and most fun albums in my collection. And, sorry, if you don’t love “Letter From An Occupant”, you’re dead inside.

Another fun set today.

Plaid, “New Bass Hippo”

As I mentioned last time, Plaid was around for a long time, but I only picked up a couple of albums. I feel like you can really only deeply know a few genres, and electronic stuff has gotten squeezed out of my brain for no good reason. I’m sure I’ll go on a binge at some point.

The Beastie Boys, “Pow”

I’ve always loved Mike D’s drum break in this song. I should try and play it. That’ll probably bug Megan proper!

Today’s music. And, I recognize that people bitching about redesigns is the worst, but can I just say I hate the YouTube redesign? There, that’s out of the ol’ system.

The Sunshine Fix, “Everything is Waking”

The Olivia Tremor Control was a legendary indie pop band, producing Beatles-esque psychedelia that was beloved of basically every music critic. Will Hart retired from music to focus on art, and Bill Doss started The Sunshine Fix to continue in the same vein. And yeah, it’s very, very Beatles-y.

Just to be clear, when I joke about a lack of readers or whatever, it’s just poking fun at myself. I’m doing this project as a fun exercise in going through my own music. The presence or absence (mostly absence) of reader/listeners doesn’t change my desire to do it.

There, that should clear things up for both of you! Let’s listen to some tunes!

Beastie Boys, “Ricky’s Theme”

This song seems like a long, long ways from the snotty party rap of their first record. Always slow to make music, the mere two years between Check Your Head and Ill Communication turned out to be the shortest gap between records in their entire career. And, perhaps not surprisingly, the two records are probably the most similar of any two in their discography. I prefer the former record, both for being more groundbreaking but also more fun, but both are very strong.

The intro to this series has been pushed off the page, so a brief mention might be in order. I’m writing about five random songs from my collection on a daily-ish basis, and giving everybody a link to listen along. Here’s the intro to the series, and here’s the link to today’s songs.

Prefuse 73, “Tel Aviv’s Gravel Toothbrush”

Prefuse 73 is one of the names that Scott Herren records under, mixing up hip-hop influences with electronic music. He’s at his best when you’ve got stuttering bits and pieces of recognizable hip-hop running through, but broken up in strange ways. When he wanders too far from that into pure electronic stuff, he gets less interesting to me. This is a short piece from Extinguished, which is outtakes from his excellent One Word Extinguisher album. On the whole, you can see why he left this material off the main album, so this record is for completists only. Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives and One Word Extinguisher remain the pick of the litter for him.