Jake One, "Great Sound"
You know, if you're going to do a skit, this is the way to do it.
J Church, "Cosmonaut"
A cut from the final J Church album, The Horror of Life. By this point, Lance Hahn was already battling the kidney problems that would claim his life the same year the record was released, but the record doesn't really show any signs of decline. A genius to the end.
Claw Hammer, "Hollow Legs"
John Wahl's distinctive yelp is not tamed at all by showing up on a major label, and Claw Hammer as a result sounds exactly like themselves on Thank the Holder Uppers. Whether you like Claw Hammer will be driven entirely by whether you find Wahl's voice kind of intriguing or whether you find it a dentist's drill. My college roommate could not stand him, so your mileage may vary. If you get past his voice (or like it), you've got plenty of whacked out blues-y rock surprises awaiting you.
Front 242, "Headhunter v3.0"
We here at Five Songs have reached the conclusion that Front 242 have actually aged pretty well, that this sort of icy synth stuff sounds pretty good these days. But, the tendency of industrial dance acts to remix everything to an inch of its life did not age well at all. As you might guess, this is the third version of this song they did, with two earlier versions showing up on an EP. Not cool, Front 242!
The Range, "Five Four"
The Range has a fun gimmick, which is that the vocals on this record are sampled from YouTube, so there's kind of some found sound fun awaiting. And the music also relies heavily on samples. I would describe this record as a plunderphonic record, but that's because I'm an old fart and nobody uses that term any more. Just because the source of the samples are not famous doesn't mean that it's not constructed similarly. Unlike a lot of other plunderphonic artists, James Hinton isn't trying to make something disorienting, but is instead trying to create compositions that hang together. I dig it, although knowing where it comes from definitely informs my reaction.