Gorilla Biscuits, "High Hopes"
Gorilla Biscuits were one of the most influential hardcore bands, and their self-titled record set the stage for Start Today, which inspired tons of followers. This song, from that self-titled record, is a good example of how they were still pretty raw, but you could really hear the potential. Because this is still pretty straight-forward, it's aged pretty well.
Prefuse 73, "Expressing Views is Obviously Illegal"
The third Prefuse 73 record, Surrounded by Silence, found Scott Herren starting to really branch out from the micro-samples and glitchy stuff that really made his name. He had a bunch of guest rappers on the record and generally tried to broaden his sonic palette. That said, there were still plenty of tracks that sounded like his classic sound, like this one.
Superchunk, "Slack Motherfucker"
This song, the a-side of a single released in 1990, is what first got Superchunk on the map. A perfect slice of punk attitude and songwriting, everybody who heard it became a fan. The song would make its way onto their debut record that year, and off they would go. In 1991, I made an effort to transcibe the lyrics to this thing, a doomed effort that nevertheless got me some praise on Usenet. I mostly got it right! These days, you can just ask google, but figuring that out back then took a village (mostly of bored college students).
Latitudes, "Amnio"
We got ourselves some doom metal out of the UK here, with this cut from Old Sunlight. In general, I think doom kind of has the narrowest range of the types of metal that I try out. It's much like post-rock - I usually like it pretty well, I like listening to it, but it often doesn't quite inspire me to be amazed. High floor, low ceiling.
Bob Marley & the Wailers, "Rocking Steady"
Another cut from the Complete Wailers: 1967-1972 Part 1, this is early Wailers material here. And it's just a blast of sunlight.