Arab Strap, "Flirt"
Folks, the streak of metal is over!
I wonder what proportion of my music library is various genres. I think just plain "rock" probably dominates, but I'd love to know what percentage is metal, rap, soul, ska, or whatever else. I wish I could trust the genre metadata on things.
Superchunk, "100,000 Fireflies"
This b-side comes to us from the "The Question Is How Fast" single. Superchunk took singles seriously from the beginning, all the way down to releasing actual 7" singles at a time when not many bands were doing that. As a result, their b-sides were always pretty good. Happily, they've done a good job of collecting these things together (this one makes it to Incidental Music: 91-95).
Girls Against Boys, "Black Hole"
Given the menacing noise we often end up with here, I'll bet you didn't expect this song to evolve the way it did. I mean, what is that, scratching? I don't remember anybody connecting Girls Against Boys to the Madchester stuff at the time, but there are some real similarities here, I think. This song wouldn't be out of place on a Jesus Jones record.
Panegyrist, "To Quicken Stone"
It is an article of faith (heh) that Christian rock music sucks, and by and large, the corpus of Christian rock really cements that. The history of explicitly Christian metal is even more dire than that. So when a band comes along that manages to not totally suck, they can get a lot of attention.
At least, I'm told this is a Christian band. I haven't looked up any lyrics, so who knows? More to the point, does it rock? I'll have to say, I picked this up after reading a good reivew and I thought "Christian extreme metal? I have to hear that." And folks: it's ok.
They Might Be Giants, "Snail Shell"
I know I've posted my white-hot take about John Henry here before (that it's better than Flood), so...uh, kinda stole my own thunder there.
...
Oh, TMBG posted a show of just the two of them on their shop, and it's free for now.