Post-rock, rap, stoner rock, whatever the hell the Flaming Lips are...this is a good cross-section of the kind of music I listen to. Check it out!
M83, "Let Men Burn Stars"
Fitting alongside bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor in the "post-rock" bucket, M83 plays mostly instrumental music that always sounds like the soundtrack to something. In some ways, this stuff is kind of shameless emotional manipulation, but if you just ignore that and let yourself be manipulated, it can be fun. This is a bit of a throwaway track, though.
Devin the Dude, "Would Ya?"
Devin the Dude has mostly flown under the radar for most folks, but more people should know about him. His delivery and flow are so unique that you sometimes forget that basically every one of his songs is about women and weed. This song, from my favorite album of his (Just Tryin' Ta Live), is a reasonably representative sample of what you might expect from his discography.
Queens of the Stone Age, "First It Giveth"
Here's a track from the Queens' best album, Songs for the Deaf, as fine a slab of stoner rock as anybody has come up with since Sabbath's heyday. Album ranking time!
- Songs for the Deaf
- Era Vulgaris
- Rated R
- Lullibies To Paralyze
- ...Like Clockwork
- Queens of the Stone Age
Note that all of these are good albums, so they're all worth getting if you're a fan.
Flaming Lips, "Do You Realize?? (Scott Hardkiss Floating In Space Mix)"
I saw the Flaming Lips just this past Tuesday! It was a very fun show, with the usual gonzo stage show making up for slightly dodgy sound and Wayne's particularly ragged voice. They mostly played stuff from The Soft Bulletin, with a fair number of songs from Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and At War With the Mystics. They only played one song from before The Soft Bulletin ("She Don't Use Jelly"), and only a couple songs off the most recent records. And a cover of "Space Oddity".
As for this song, "Do You Realize??" is one of their bigger hits, so of course I ended up with a remix. This is from the "Fight Test" EP, and mostly succeeds in stretching a good song far too long.
New Order, "Shame of the Nation"
New Order was the synth pop group that was formed by Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook of Joy Division after Ian Curtis took his own life. New Order started out in similar territory to Joy Division, but gradually evolved into a much more synth oriented group, with songs like "Bizarre Love Triangle" being pretty far from their first band. This song is from Substance, a singles/remix collection that is a decent cross-section of the band's work.