Wilco

Spawn of Possession, “Bodiless Sleeper”

Every time Spawn of Possession has come up here I’ve mostly just complained about it. It’s all just from the same record, and you know what? Let’s move on.

Nicole Willis & the Soul Investigators, “No One’s Gonna Love You”

A little harsh there, don’t you think? No one is going to love me? My dog thinks I’m pretty neat.

Jackintosh Plus, “Desert Rider”

Hey, it’s my buddy Jack Grimes! He did the logo for this joint, hire him for your graphics needs!

Gob, “Beauville”

I have regrets when it comes to the tagging system I use around here. Yes, it’s nice to have all the bands tagged, that’s useful. But I wish I had also tagged genres, and subgenres, and some of the common threads in these posts. Like “Canadian Punk” would have been a fun tag. Why did I listen to so many Canadian punk bands in the 90s? I dunno. I have no way of knowing if my punk consumption was disproportionately Canadian or not. How would you measure that? Count up the number of punk albums I own that came out in the 90s, weigh by population, see if they match the expected distribution? I suppose that would work, would likely be possible with some data scraping using the Discogs API, and is absolutely not going to happen unless someone were to pay me. Or if I get super bored.

Wilco, “Kicking Television”

“Kicking Television” appeared on a tour EP for the A Ghost Is Born tour, and later lent its name to their live record. Here, the track is collected onto Alpha Mike Foxtrot: Rare Tracks 1994-2014, and it’s nice to have a rocker like this be widely available again. Wilco was never really just an alt-country band, but it’s always fun to hear their style wander around a bit from their assumed baseline.

ALL, “Honey Peeps”

You know, I never really gave this album a real shot. The previous album seemed so sour and included some really bad lyrics, so after buying this one due to inertia, I never really engaged with it. This is a decent tune, though. I wonder what I’d think if I went back and gave it a whirl at this point. It doesn’t make the lyrics go away, though.

Bricks, “History of Lies”

I think this might be a repeat, but I’m gonna be honest - it’s a little hard to tell with Bricks songs. Let’s check.

OH MY GOD, this is the fourth time this song has come up! And we’ve never had another Bricks song from this record. This is the first tune, so that feeds into my pet theory that the Plex randomizer prefers the first track of albums.

Chuck D, “Mistachuck”

Chuck D put out one solo album, Autobiography of Mistachuck, which really very much fits in alongside the mid-90s Public Enemy stuff, neither notably better or worse than the main band’s stuff from that time. It has the same issue as those records, which is that it’s kind of let down by not enough editing, but there’s plenty of hard hitting stuff on here, such as this track.

Wilco, “Bright Leaves”

Wilco returned from hiatus for 2019’s Ode to Joy, although their hiatus only lasted three years, which is like a normal inter-album pause for many bands. Anyway, the album kind of feels like it’s looped back to The Whole Love in terms of the song construction - setting aside the (relative) noise of Star Wars and the sort of confessional feel of Schmilco (this track notwithstanding). Is it good? Well, I think it’s good, but maybe not great. It’s not an essential Wilco record, but I like it just fine.

Oneohtrix Point Never, “Lost but Never Alone”

Magic Oneohtrix Point Never is probably my favorite record from him since Replica. In a lot of ways, it evokes that record, giving a rare treat of throwback sounds from an artist who is always restlessly exploring. There’s a metaphor of flipping around a radio that ties the record together, which also feeds into my love of plunderphonics.

Madness, “One Step Beyond”

The second wave of ska, the two-tone bands from the UK, did not last very long, and didn’t really encompass that many bands. Part of the problem is that by the time this stuff got noticed outside of the UK, the key bands had pretty much all broken up or stopped playing ska. But the highlights of the second wave are great, and Madness’ first album is one of those highlights. It’s a fine example of the melding of ska with punk energy, and it’s hard not to smile through this.

Gift of Gab, “Rat Race”

You know a song is banging when I’m nodding this hard along with it, even just listening to it on one shitty earbud.

Wilco, “Either Way”

The opener of Sky Blue Sky, and it’s one of my very favorite Wilco songs. There’s that breezy organ in the background, the little chord change going into the chorus, there’s kind of a fakeout after the second chorus where he drags it out and it seems like it’s going to crescendo to a huge bit but turns into just a pleasant solo. It’s a bright, optimistic sounding song, but there’s so much subtlety to it, it rewards a close listen.

Steady Earnest, “Swim”

At this point in Five Songs’ evolution, we’ve had more than 1500 bands on here, and I honestly cannot recall which ones I’ve introduced properly and which ones I have not. The tags help some - if I haven’t tagged a band, I haven’t introduced them! - but are not perfect. Because sometimes I write random shit instead of talking about the band. This is where a more professional approach here would help. I could go back and look at entries for bands and figure out if I’ve said anything real about them. But let’s be honest: that’s not going to happen.