Negativland, "I Am God"
It's always kind of a difficult thing to categorize Negativland as music. Usually, they're more performance art who happens to use audio as their medium. There are exceptions in their catalog, though. Escape From Noise has plenty of things on it that you can characterize as songs, fractured as most of them are. Free, their full album that followed up the whole U2 imbroglio, is maybe the most musical thing they've ever put together. Which isn't to say it's full of toe-tapping tunes. But hey, this song has a beat, and you can dance to it! Not bad for an album which is mostly a meditation on free will and freedom in general.
Bob Marley, "There She Goes"
There's a pattern among Very Online people where you make up a dude just to get angry at them. I'm sitting here trying to picture the dude who hates this song, and I just can't do it. Not even for purposes of getting angry. I'm a failure!
Cheap Trick, "He's A Whore"
This is really disorienting to me. I've listened to the Big Black cover of this song so much that hearing the original power pop version of it, sans Roland drum machine and icy Albini vocals, sounds just totally off. And I've heard this version plenty! This album is fucking great, though.
The English Beat, "Save It For Later"
You can really hear what the second wave of ska really did differently here. Yes, they pulled some ska into their sound. But the English Beat also had plenty of pop and new wave going in their sound, resulting in this pleasant mix of sounds that is largely absent today. You can see why I mentioned the English Beat when talking about the New York Citizens the other day, though.
The Skoidats, "Night of the Droogs"
Aaaaand, we can kind of hear some of the cliches of the third wave here. That kind of fake tough-guy lyrical content, the super thin snare sound, the horn arrangement, the switch to the distorted guitar, everything here is kind of off-the-shelf.