NoFX, "Please Play This Song on the Radio"
I did, in fact, play this song on the radio, which is the sort of thing you can do when you're holding down the 3 AM-7 AM slot on a Tuesday for a grand total of, like, four listeners. Safe harbor, baby! Anyway, 17yo Josh thought this was a hilarious bit, and absolutely worthy of inflicting on the poor bastards cramming for their thermodynamics final and were just hoping for something to keep themselves awake. I hope hearing the word "shithead" on the radio gave them just a little bit of a jolt.
The Body & Full of Hell, "Didn't the Night End"
Those bass hits underlaying the ragged sawtooth of noise are menacing in a way that most music cannot even approach. There's something inherently mean about electronic noise that is hard to really get to with an analog instrument. And then the way they seamlessly give way to the equally jagged vocals is an ugly moment that you really have to admire. I mean, if you're the sort of person who used to play profane NoFX nonsense on the radio and has now aged into the sort of dork who writes a music blog for, like, four people.
Huh.
Trigger Cut, "Solid State"
Noise rock, baby! I've always kind of wondered if their name comes from the Pavement song, which would be a bit of an odd choice for a band that so clearly is walking in Big Black's footsteps. Well, whatever, it's hard to argue with a song that is in and out in 2:14 with plenty of those good ol' noise rock markers. This is just comfort food.
Pigs, "At Least It's an Ethos, Part 1"
Noise rock, baby! I've alw...hang on.
Important! Singular pig: theatre-kid industrial. Plural pigs: Birthday Party lovin' noise rockers. Please update your notes.
The Wedding Present, "Getting Nowhere Fast"
While I do like some other Wedding Present records more (Seamonsters and Watusi, for sure), the Wedding Present were never more elemental than they were on George Best. Just pure, uncut frustration.