That's month four of hitting every day! Woooo!
Mr. T Experience, "I Just Wanna Do It With You"
Too late, Mr. T Experience! Valentine's Day was two weeks ago! What are you even doing!
Don Caballero, "Our Caballero"
Singles Breaking Up is, indeed, a singles comp. Pittburgh's instrumental maestros put everything into their singles, so the comp is a solid album, if maybe not quite as coherent as their records due to not being recorded at once. You can do a lot worse than this record!
John Linnell, "South Carolina"
In the late 90s, I was really concerned that TMBG were breaking up. Elektra dropped them after (the magnificent) Factory Showroom, studio albums kind of dried up, Flansburgh released two albums with his side project Mono Puff, and then Linnell put out his own solo record. As you'd expect, Linnell is a distinctive enough songwriter and performer that his solo record is instantly recognizable as his work, but without Flansburgh, it's not his best material. If you've gone through, what, fifteen other TMBG records, this isn't a bad pickup.
At any rate, it was a false alarm, and they're still out there recording new shit to this day.
Steel Pole Bath Tub, "Train to Miami"
Every now and again, a band just rises up and knocks a release out of the park. I like a lot of Steel Pole Bath Tub's stuff (Tulip is very good, Some Cocktail Suggestions is very good also), but The Miracle of Sound in Motion is just far above their other stuff. It manages to be cool in a way that so many releases from so many bands miss. Take this song - the drama of the verses leading up to the noise after each chorus, the texture from the train samples, the distant vocals, the gradual crescendos, it's just all so good.
Less Than Jake, "Look What Happened"
Less Than Jake have a habit of periodically re-recording songs on subsequent albums, without really changing them a ton. Just kind of a slightly different rendition. At any rate, this version is from Anthem, as opposed to the similar take from Borders & Boundaries.