Fall Out Boy, "Saturday"
Pop punk is one of those genres that never really changes or evolves, and just relies on sappy emotion and snappy songs. You really need to nail the catchy songs and the energy or it's going to come across as limp or manufactured. When done right, though, it's delightful. That said, the first couple Fall Out Boy records totally nail it, so happy for this to come up.
Booker T. & the MGs, "Green Onions"
One of the iconic instrumental soul tunes of all time, this song has appeared in a whole bunch of contexts through the years. And it's easy to understand why, it's a serious jam.
Cloud Nothings, "Thanksgiving Miracle"
The Cloud Nothings are doing an interesting experiment right now. They've created a subscription service on Bandcamp, where you sign up and each month you get an EP of new songs from them. Amazingly, they're keeping up with it, and a lot of it is really good stuff! It's going to be something like 50 songs a year, in addition to having released a full-length record earlier this year. Pretty amazing! Anyway, this is from February's release. I have no idea how long they can keep it up, but they're 11 EPs deep so far.
The Du-Rites, "Monster"
In addition to banging out an album frequently, the Du-Rites spice it up by dropping periodic singles which all smoke. Seriously, they can do no wrong. This is the b-side of "Zodiac", and it's savage.
Hammers of Misfortune, "Troll's March"
The Hammers of Misfortune are John Cobbett's side project? Main project? One of his post-Ludicra bands, anyway, this one focused on pretty nuts-and-bolts heavy metal riffing and over-the-top fantasy iconography. It's corny, but they're just owning it, so it's pretty fun.