They Might Be Giants

Seems like we’ve had a lot of new bands recently. That’s cool! Here’s the music for today.

Girls Against Boys, “In Like Flynn”

Early 90s underground rock act Girls Against Boys stood out from the pack for a couple reasons. First, the sound wasn’t just all grim pounding or punk gallop. Instead, Girls Against Boys always sounded like a rock band you could dance to, which was kind of a rarity. The second distinguishing feature probably drove the first, which is that the band had two bassists, a good idea that far too few bands take advantage of. This album, Venus Luxure No. 1 Baby, is probably their best.

Here’s today.

Temprees, “Dedicated To The One I Love”

Old Stax track here, from the mid-point of their Atlantic years.

Atmosphere, “She Don’t Know Why She Love It”

This is a bonus track from the deluxe version of Southsiders, which is probably my second favorite Atmosphere album (after Seven’s Travels). There are some missteps in Atmosphere’s discography, with the records between those two being pretty uneven, but those are excellent.

Solid set today.

Two Fingers, “Not Perfect”

Another track from the self-titled Two Fingers album, featuring another collaboration with Sway. As before, this is just delightful.

Modest Mouse, “Tundra/Desert”

I wonder what Isaac Brock sounded like as a kid. Did he sound like, well, himself? Did he warble when he yelled at his siblings? Does he have siblings? I wonder if his parents thought “damn, listen to this kid, he’s gonna be a rock star, just listen to that!”

Well, not our best list from recent days.

They Might Be Giants, “They Got Lost”

Another cut from Long Tall Weekend, this is kind of a fun song, although I like the live version on Severe Tire Damage a lot more. You know you listen to a band too much when you have favorite renditions of songs.

Ozomatli, “Balloon Fest”

Ozomatli made a kids’ album. I bought it, because I was curious. Um, that’s about all I have to say.

Another good one, as Five Songs continues its roll.

matt pond PA, “It Becomes Night”

A charming little pop song from matt pond PA.

Presidents of the United States of America, “Volcano”

Here’s a delightful song off that second album that the Presidents made that nobody really paid attention to. The loose charm is still present, the hooks are solid, and the wordplay is fun. Basically, this album is a goofball winner.

Here are today’s tunes.

Richie Hawtin, “Call of the Wild”

Last time this album came up, in one of the cutting bits of analysis that Five Songs is known for, I mostly bitched about the ID3 tags on this album. TRENCHANT! Anyway, I managed to say nothing about the album or the artist last time. I see no reason to change that today.

Wilco, “Ashes of American Flags”

In the first entry on Wilco, I ranked their albums, which remains the INDUSPUTABLE and DEFINITIVE rankings of their records. I am here to point out that despite the definitive nature of those rankings, the first three albums are very, very close. If you argued for a re-ordering of those three, you’d be wrong, but only barely. You’d also agree with various versions of Josh. That three album peak, from Being There to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, is just an incredible stretch of songs. If Being There established that Wilco was going to be far more than an alt-country band, and Summerteeth established that the band was going to be a tremendous pop act, YHF showed that their palette would even expand to include some sonic experimentation around said pop songs.

Merry Christmas! Five Songs got you a playlist. Today, I searched for “holiday” in my collection, and then randomized those songs. And thank you all for reading and listening this year! There’s a few dozen of you checking in here, on and off, and I appreciate that there are even that many of you willing to put up with a self-indulgent project like this. Please stick around with The Worst Music Blog on the Web, we’ve got more planned for next year!

Hooray, music!

VHOL, “The Tomb”

The new band of guitar genius John Cobbett (Hammers of Misfortune and Ludicra, who we haven’t hit yet), and featuring various other veterans of the underground metal scene, Vhol came storming out of the gates with their self-titled release in 2013, which might have been my favorite record that year (except whatever I’m forgetting about). Their follow-up, Deeper than Sky, came out a couple years later and didn’t skip a beat. Usually sounding like something close to thrash, but with drums that sound a lot like hardcore punk, there’s something really elemental about this music that just makes me want to break stuff. Anyway, both records are amazing, and it just now occurred to me that we’re about due for a new one.

I really like this set a lot.

Live Human, “Quick Eleven”

We just had DJ Logic a few days ago, and Live Human is a similar premise: a trio of a bassist, drummer, and DJ. There’s the same kind of loose, jazzy, improvisational feel to the proceedings. DJ Logic tends to be more towards the jazz end than the hip-hop end compared to Live Human, but they’re really very similar bands.

Shudder To Think, “Rag”

Goddamn, listen to that song. Shudder to Think, where have you gone? (looks) Apparently Craig Wedren did some soundtracks, cool.

Today’s set is, frankly, a mess. The hazards of the random number generator.

Andrew Bird, “The Water Jet Cilice”

210 songs in my collection from Andrew Bird, and this stupid thing picked a repeat song. Sure, we get Six Songs today, but come on. I do feel like the number of repeats I’ve seen is higher than I would expect. I also know that humans are TERRIBLE at estimating the randomness of a system and related probabilities. I should work it out for real.