The Staple Singers

The Staple Singers, “I’ll Take You There”

This is such a majestic tune, absolutely irresistable.

De La Soul, “Thru Ya City”

I mostly think of the two AOI albums (this is from Art Official Intelligence: Mosaic Thump) as kind of lost albums for De La, but that’s not really a fair characterization. They’re uneven to be sure, soft spots in their catalog, but even a soft spot for them is going to have plenty of pleasures. This is a fun track, with the rubbery bass synth and bouncy rhyming from the boys.

The Clash, “I Fought The Law”

The US release of The Clash had a different track listing than the original release, swapping in some songs from UK singles onto the album in place of some of the weaker tunes. Overall, it’s probably a better version of the record, with “I Fought The Law” being one of the additions to the record.

Gas Huffer, “The Rest of Us”

Gas Huffer spent three albums in the majors…well, the high minors, with albums out on Epitaph. But then they went back to their roots: Estrus Records, Jack Endino on the boards, and back to wall-to-wall garage rock. The return to their basics suited them well, it’s a strong record, although I suppose nobody really listened to it. I guess it’s relative: their last Epitaph record has 25 ratings on Rate Your Music, compared to 7 for this album. So, nobody really listened to either of them. It’s a shame, Gas Huffer was good!

Tricky, “Brand New You’re Retro”

Maxinquaye is one of the three pillars of trip-hop, along with Blue Lines and Dummy. What’s striking about all three records, besides them all being great, is kind of how dissimilar they all end up feeling. There’s a murky darkness at the core of them all, but they take different paths to get there. Tricky is probably the most hip-hop of the three, although the swirling noise is still pretty distinctly foreign to the hip-hop of the time.

Elvis Costello, “New Amsterdam”

This song is actually a demo that Costello recorded, and then included directly on the record instead of re-recording it. The result is one of the more distinctive songs on the album, a minimal arrangement that ends up letting the clarity of the melody shine through.

Girl Talk, “Still Here”

It’s always a little strange to hear one of the Girl Talk songs out of the context of the albums. It shouldn’t be, because they’re such chameleons, but the progression of songs is burned into my brain so it throws me off. In other news, I love the bit from The Band on this track.

Eggs, “The Government Administrator”

Eggs was one of the Teenbeat bands, making indie pop at a time when that was pretty uncommon, running straight against the current of grunge and heavy rock that was dominating taste at the time. A lot of these bands also valued being very clever in their tunes, sometimes a bit too much. At any rate, this comes from the singles comp, ‘How Do You Like Lobster?’ A Collection of Crustaceans and Flotsam, the title of which kind of makes the point. For all that, they could really write some solid tunes, and I actually like this comp the most out of their records.

NoFX, “Dinosaurs Will Die”

By the time they reached 2000’s Pump Up The Valuum, it was clear that NoFX were dedicated to never evolving for any reason. Which just makes them writing a song about the impending destruction of the music industry for, uh, not evolving just that much funnier. At any rate, this is where I got off the train with NoFX, I figured I had more than enough music from them.

fIREHOSE, “Sophisticated Bitch”

We’ve had this Public Enemy cover before, so bonus song today!

The Hidden Cameras, “Music Is My Boyfriend”

You know, I have this band squirreled away in my brain as “extremely twee, not my favorite”, and so I haven’t listened to this album much. I pulled up a little writeup to get a little bit of background, and apparently I needed to pay more attention to the lyrics on these songs. But I do not, I pay very little attention to lyrics, so I missed that apparently some of these twee songs are really filthy. Oh well, they’re staying in that twee bucket.