They Might Be Giants, "What Is A Shooting Star?"
You know, now that I'm doing this on a platform with a functional tagging system, I could have just tagged each of these entries with each band, and then I wouldn't need the index. But we wouldn't have the "previouslys" either, and I kind of like them? But this is also a hassle to maintain this. And, well, I don't know if I want to convert everything over.
This has been Inside Five Songs. Thank you to all of our (checks stats) zero readers.
Television, "Marquee Moon"
One of the giants of the original punk scene in New York, Television released one of the greatest albums to come out of that scene with Marquee Moon. Which, somehow, isn't really a punk album. I mean, this is a ten minute song! It has guitar solos! Multiple! But that little guitar figure during the main part of the song is unforgettable, so all is forgiven. Bottom line: Television somehow made the first post-punk album while punk was still barely getting off the ground. Incidentally, supposedly the band tossed off this ten minute song in the studio on one take. As far as I'm concerned, this album is on the short list of albums you should listen to in order to understand how rock got from here to there. The link between progressive, punk, post-punk, it's an album that's inspired countless followers. And it all revolves around this song.
Sharon Jones, "Make It Good To Me"
Holy hell, listen to that organ. That bass! THOSE HORNS! And, of course, Miss Sharon Jones absolutely nailing it. We here at Four Songs obviously go in big for soul. That's a combination of a lot of factors. It's memories of what we listened to as kids. It's chasing down the influences of hip-hop to the origins. But mostly, it's because of how life affirming this stuff is. This song comes on, and it's just so perfect. Thank you, Miss Sharon Jones.
Seaweed, "Antilyrical"
I think, evaluating Sub Pop's now 31+ years of releasing records, that the most impressive thing about the label is their wililngness to sign great bands of whatever stripe. They're best known for the grunge explosion of the 90s, of course, but they've signed bands playing a wide variety of rock, not to mention reaching out to entire other genres like hip-hop. It's not the case that you know what a Sub Pop band is going to sound like, which is great. On top of that, they have few duds in their catalog. Anyway, Seaweed didn't sound like the other bands on the label at the time, but they were excellent.
Yo La Tengo, "For You Too"
Timely! This comes from Yo La Tengo's latest, released just a couple months ago. It's nice! Yo La Tengo is nice! This playlist is nice! Nice.