Prompted by it coming up during an off-blog shuffle, at some point The Beatles are going to come up here. I have all their albums, after all. Can you even find them on YouTube? I don't know, I guess I'll find out. Today is not that day, though.
Agalloch, "...And The Great Cold Death of the Earth"
At some point, black metal experiments with enough other instrumentation and flirts with folk enough that it really stops being metal, doesn't it? Agalloch sort of sets out to answer that question, with this track being a good example. There's really not a whole lot that ties it to black metal, but the band is still considered to be at least adjacent to that community. Part of it is the themes that Agalloch writes about, which are similar to some of the things explored by black metal bands. But if you played this for just somebody random who is knowledgable about music, it would be a while before they came up with black metal as a descriptor.
Bob Marley, "Smile Jamaica (Single Version)"
I was thinking, during the drive to Spokane, about how the pace of this project is faster than I was thinking. Part of me thought, oh, this could last forever. But, at five songs a day, I'm going to actually have a good chance to see duplicates pretty quickly, and what do I do? I'm not sure. I don't really want to write anything about a song a second time, but if this is kind of like The World's Dumbest Radio Station, playing a song a second time isn't a terrible idea. I don't really know which is right.
Oh, Bob Marley rules. This is the closer to Kaya, a strong mid-career album, although this isn't the best song from it.
The McRackins, "Look Who's Laughin' Now"
Did you think I had run out of obscure Canadian pop-punk bands from the 90s? NOT HARDLY. Anyway, here's another. You know this template by now.
R.E.M., "Endgame"
I don't really remember ever consciously buying any R.E.M. records. Maybe one of Megan's? Maybe I got it by accident some time? Anyway, it's R.E.M., you know what they sound like. You'll have to look elsewhere for scorching hot takes on the best R.E.M. album, I have no opinion whatsoever.
UFO Or Die, "Hell Boat"
If you sat down and tried to come up with a band that was the total opposite of R.E.M., UFO Or Die might be pretty close. Japanese noise merchants fronted by Yamantaka Eye (best known for the Boredoms), UFO Or Die are really just trying to make a racket with little regard for niceties such as "melody", "structure", or "songs".