The Theories

Black Flag, “Loose Nut”

When I finally got around to listening to Black Flag, I didn’t really know much about the band other than they were a legendary hardcore band, and that was kind of it. I wandered into a record store and just bought one of the records, this one, kind of at random. Little did I know that outside of the classic Damaged, their discography is kind of a mess. Loose Nut doesn’t seem to be anybody’s favorite Black Flag record, coming as it did during an extremely productive time for the band, with all the records in this period suffer a bit from kind of stretching things out. At this remove, I’m still of that opinion. Damaged and My War are the ones breaking new ground, and the rest of them are pretty hit-or-miss.

You know what I should do in these intros? I should probably just mention new music I’ve picked up recently. christian fitness has a new record that I just picked up, and it’s good so far. And I bought the new album from Nightbringer, a black metal album that I’m looking forward to diving into.

As always, we have today’s songs!

Cypress Hill, “Valley of Chrome”

When they first started out, Cypress Hill was something really strange, with super squeaky beats based around dusty jazz samples and the odd nasal flows of B Real. The first two Cypress Hill records are unique and a lot of fun, although, um, fairly limited lyrical content. By the time we hit this, their fifth album, they were really kind of on fumes. This was a double album, with one rap record, and the other being a rock crossover. It didn’t exactly go well. Rap/rock crossovers seldom do. The rap disc is better, but still won’t make you forget the first two albums. This song, needless to say, is from the rock one.