Good one today! Well, if you ignore that we have a rap skit.
De La Soul, "Skit 5"
The closer for De La Soul Is Dead, the final skit that imagines some bullies discovering stealing the album and deciding it blows. De La Soul was clearly reflecting on a break they were attempting from the first album, of trying to shed their image as rap's flower children. While De La Soul Is Dead contains plenty of shimmery, bouncy, light tunes, it also features darker material like "My Brother's a Basehead" and (especially) "Millie Pulled A Pistol On Santa", a tragic tale we'll talk about when it comes up.
None of this comes across from this track, of course, which is just a skit.
Jean Knight, "You Think You're Hot Stuff"
Jean Knight is best known for her hit "Mr. Big Stuff", but here she revisits the theme of dudes who think they're stuff that they're not. Frankly, I could listen to Jean Knight take shots at the stuff present in dudes all day long.
Fugazi, "Floating Boy"
After their furious peak of In On The Kill Taker, Fugazi dialed back the rage for their last three studio albums. End Hits at times even sounds contemplative, experimental. "Floating Boy" is a great example of that - meandering, abstract, and with disjoint sections that suggest more of a collage than a single coherent song. I nevertheless love it. Even when they're in this experimental mode, there's still an essential warmth to this that makes me really happy.
Descendents, "Human Being"
The Descendents put out a final studio album in 1987, called ALL, before Milo Aukerman left the band and the remaining members went on to become, well, All. But, that wasn't the end! They got back together in 1996, putting together a surprisingly good album, Everything Sucks. And then stopped...until they reformed in 2004 for another surprisingly solid record, Cool To Be You. And then another hiatus, and ANOTHER reunion album in 2016, Hypercaffium Spazzinate. So, breaks of 9, 8, and then 12 years between records. And somehow, all these records are pretty good! It's a very strange career path that doesn't match any other band I can think of. Anyway, this is from the last of those records, and it still sounds like the Descendents.
The Pyramids, "The Earth Melts Into Red Gashes Like The Mouths Of Whales"
Don't look at me, I didn't make this up.