Superchunk, "Precision Auto"
Superchunk's No Pocky For Kitty is one of the records that really busted up my listening habits and helped broaden my tastes. That sounds stupid for someone that listened to a fair bit of punk prior to this, but it was pretty much all California punk. At any rate, I adored that record, and had high hopes for the followup. This is how it started, and my head was blown clean off.
Company Flow, "Blind"
It's kind of impressive that you can hear so many elements of the style that El-P would bring to Run The Jewels even this early in his career. The dense rhymes, the futuristic, menacing beats, the willingness to be abrasive, those same patterns still happen to this day.
The Ergs, "Pray For Rain"
Yeah, I listened to stuff like this! Only these guys are from New Jersey, and this album is from 2004 so way after I was listening to Superchunk.
...
I forgot the point I was making. Punk is fun!
Noisem, "Voices In the Morgue"
Boy, the first part of this song is straight out of Slayer's playbook, isn't it? At any rate, Noisem's thrash metal has always left me a little bit cold. It's fine, but I'm never really excited by it. Not even when they add a little hardcore.
Luscious Jackson, "Citysong"
The first full track on Natural Ingredients, it certainly got me excited about the entire record. It didn't quite live up to this song, though.