Introduction
Five Songs, 8/19/2017
Five Songs

Five Songs, 8/19/2017

Totally forgot to post yesterday. I'm super flaky this week. Sorry about that! Here's some music for today, at least.

Less Than Jake, "The Troubles"

A few things distinguish Less Than Jake from the many other ska-punk bands that all started up at roughly the same time. The first is that they were more punk than ska, refusing to be tied down to the gimmick. The second is that the quality of their songs was, in general, much stronger than most of their peers. The third is probably the most important, which is that they lasted for forever. I've got eight albums from them, and I don't think I have their entire discography. I think their sweet spot is from Losing Streak through Anthem, personally. This song comes from their most recent album, though.

Gas Huffer, "Matt's Mood"

The return of Seattle's garage/punk Gas Huffer, with a song from what I think is their best album, The Inhuman Ordeal of Secret Agent Gas Huffer. Have I mentioned how great a name Gas Huffer is? It's great.

J-Zone, "Mad Rap (2.0)"

After playing footsie with J-Zone for a while, we have a proper rap song from him. From his most recent rap album, Fish-n-Grits, we find him here decrying the sad state of the rap industry. His post hiatus albums (this one and Peter Pan Syndrome), both featuring his own live drums, are both really fun listens.

Marvin Gaye, "Please Stay (Once You Go Away)"

One of the superstars to come out of Motown, Marvin Gaye is one of the true giants of popular music and one of the most influential artists around. His greatest work is widely considered 1971's What's Going On. It's Gaye's meditation on the Vietnam War, an unabashedly political record that was very controversial for its time. My hot take, though, is that the record, despite having some absolutely tremendous songs (the title track and the breathtaking "Mercy Mercy Me", for instance), it also has stuff like "Save the Children", which is kind of unnecessary. It's still a tremendous album, but personally, I like Let's Get It On better. This probably makes me a bad person. Anyway, this comes from that latter album. We'll talk more about What's Going On when it comes up again.

Young Fresh Fellows, "Lamp Industries"

Here we have the Fellows in a very late album, I Think This Is, which is still a strong album.

Joshua Buergel
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