Ice Cube, "No Vaseline"
One of the most famous diss tracks in hip-hop history, "No Vaseline", the closer to Death Certificate, laid bare how rancorous the split between Ice Cube and N.W.A truly was. Those who were paying attention to the press knew, but after the release of this song, everybody knew. And the song was savage - calling N.W.A out in every possible way. While the homophobia makes me cringe now, Cube's creativity in dragging his former bandmates is still super impressive. N.W.A never really responded to the track. MC Ren says that it's because they broke up, but honestly, there was no coming back from this.
M.O.P., "Roll Call"
Yeah, let's keep banging those hardcore tracks! The real attraction of this song is that tasty DJ Premier beat. Other than that, the rhyming on this song is very much a time capsule from 2000. Fun to listen to, though.
Grifters, "Get Outta That Spaceship & Fight Like A Man"
This is a great example of the kind of thing that made the Grifters so much fun. You've got that main riff, all bent and bluesy and odd. You've got those psychedelic vocals. You've just got an overall sound that is immediately recognizable, which is precious.
Blonde Redhead, "Equally Damaged"
A throwaway track here.
Minutemen, "History Lesson"
Any other band, when you hit a 38 second track, it's usually just a little interstitial thing. Like, this song is shorter than the previous one! The Minutemen, though, always manage to pack a lot of song into just 38 seconds. You know, the comparison never occurred to me before, but there's a similarity with Guided by Voices in that the Minutemen always seemed to have more ideas than they knew what to do with. However, there's a whole lot less fuckin' around.