12. Radiohead “Man of War”
From OKNOTOK 1997 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXP1KdZX4io
11. Ovlov "Small Voices"
Originally from 2012's Not The Same Without You.
10. Good Morning "Warned You"
Originally from 2014's Shawcross.
9. Alice Coltrane “Rama Guru”
Originally from 1987's Divine Songs.
8. Midnight “In League With Satan”
Originally from 2015's Summoning the Hounds of Hell: A Tribute to Venom.
7. Helium “Hole in The Ground”
Originally from the A-Side of a 1993 Matador 7-inch. First available on CD in 1997 on the All Over Me soundtrack. Released on Ends With And in 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhDOeyMbrHU
6. Prince “We Can Fuck”
Previously available on bootlegs. Released on Purple Rain Deluxe (Expanded Edition) in 2017.
Unavailable for free streaming.
5. Sheer Mag “What You Want”
Originally from a 2014 self-titled EP.
4. Autumn “Kill My World”
Originally from 1971's Comes Autumn.
3. Hüsker Dü “Do You Remember?”
From Savage Young Dü.
2. Can “Turtles Have Short Legs”
Originally from the A-Side of a German 7-inch from 1971. First available on CD in 1992 on Cannibalism 2 (Germany only). Sampled in the Playstation game Parappa The Rapper in 1997. Released outside of Europe for the first time on The Singles comp in 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxGaC4wzt50
1. Isaac Hayes “Stormy Monday (Live)”
From The Spirit of Memphis (1962-1976).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY0emmwytB8
"Back in the days / When I was young / I'm not a kid anymore / But somedays, you know / I wish I was a kid again." - Ahmad, 1994
Corporal punishment disciplinarian stares down every kid making sure their spinal cords are uncurved and uncomfortable. No one is allowed to utilize this time wisely. The detention hall is sealed. No exiting. No one can use the bathroom. Just shut the fuck up and sit up in your shitty wooden $6 desk/chair combination. A clock above the door ticks very fucking loudly. TICK!! TICK!! After an eternal 45 minutes of pressure, one poor kid in the back finally loses his shit and starts screaming bloody murder. "BLOODY MURDER!" This kid screams out the actual words. Disciplinary man approaches the station slowly as everyone else holds their breath in anticipation. This dreadful, slow approach is the crunchy part about 3 minutes into the song "Meet Where We Are," the largest departure from Big Ups' earlier capital-P "Punk" albums. Perhaps now they are "Post-Ups."
The song's title comes from the release year of Loverboy's signature song, "A pig and an elephant DNA just won't splice." Kvelertak cares not for the laws of science, unnaturally crossing the protons and electrons of classic deathmetal with AOR riffage. The vortex should collapse onto itself, yet they're probably the most oddly seamless metal-fusion since the days of Andrew WK and The Darkness.
Young Thug's 2015 album title was changed after Lil Wayne's lawyers threatened him, but Barter 6 is actually a way better title. A year later, YG indulged the Bool, Balm and Bollective on "Still Brazy." YG knows as well as anyone else that privileged suburban kids love Urban Dictionary and Rap Genius, so there's no point in hiding the "switching C's to B's" thing. As a whole, the album and most of its beats feel largely influenced by late-era 2Pac jams like "Me Against The World," "All Eyez On Me" or "Death Around The Corner." Still Brazy's sequencing seems to tell a story with the title track acting as a "before and after" moment of sorts. The songs that follow (including "FDT" and "Police Get Away With Murder") could have been from an entirely different album as the prior 2/3's.
"I want two oceans. Give me two oceans tonight." It's not like they're asking for all four oceans, and they did a favor by not asking for any of the seven continents. Just any two oceans will nicely suffice, although it would be cool if either the Pacific or Atlantic could be included. But if you can't make that happen, it's all good. They'll gladly accept the Arctic and Indian, because that's still two entire oceans; however, this does raise a problem because those are the two oceans that don't share a border. It would just be a lot more convenient if you could include either the Pacific or Atlantic. If this task seems "impossible" for whatever reason, they would also accept Frank Ocean and Billy Ocean as a consolation so that the two might collaborate on a 2017 remix of "Get Outta My Dreams (And Into My Car)." Hit me back when this happens. Thanks.
Out of the current ubiquitous pop superstars whose discographies appear largely market-tested, Ariana is arguably the most widely beloved. No one hates her, and anyone who does is probably an especially sad shitsack of a human. God, TMZ is so pathetic: They tried to trash her good name by digging up a donut licking video that no one cared about. And that was the worst they could find. We really have nothing interesting to say here. We forgot where we were going with this.
During a lonely sweltering evening in Hell, The Dark Lord (Bill Zebub) starts getting immersed in math-rock and decides he wants to learn how to get super mathy in a way that's still totally Satanic. He becomes especially impressed with They Mean Us - the standalone 2006 LP from The Ladies - and spontaneously appears later that night in San Diego at the doorstep of Rob Crow, whom Satan has deduced as the world's finest purveyor of math-rock. Rob answers the door, and Satan's all like "dude, I wanna get way into math." Rob says, "that's cool, but I don't really have time right now. I have like kids n stuff." Satan is like "but dude, I'm Satan. I'll make it worth your while." Eventually Rob gives in half-way and says he'll do another Goblin Cock album just for Satan, who responds, "Well that's mighty kind of you my good sir." True story.
Sumerlands is an "Unchain The Night" type of band. They understand a hugely essential and frequently misunderstood aspect of '80s hair metal, more musically fulfilling moments of sadness that didn't necessarily reveal themselves in sappy monster ballads. It's the '80s metal that plays loudly at night while en route (always in a car, sometimes driving, sometimes as a passenger, bonus points if you're stuffed in the backseat with 1 or 2 others) to a destination and late weekend evening that might change your entire life. It also might not (and probably won't) but you never know until the journey's over and done with. Dokken's "Unchain The Night" fits, as well as Ozzy's "Shot In The Dark," Sabbath's "Children Of The Sea," Def Leppard's "Armageddon It."
So what's the deal with Stealy, the interdimensional cable character from Rick & Morty? Does he have any relation to "Steely Dan III from Yokohama," the dildo from Naked Lunch whose name was borrowed by a multiplatinum jazz-rock collective? And most importantly, is he a fan of the song "Stealing" by Ty Dolla $ign? We would like to think he is, since the song is about the activity that Stealy loves the most (which would be stealing). 
It's tough to remember what the hotties of Instagram did with their lives before Instagram. But "Do U Like Me?" could still exist outside of that context. It could refer to a straight up dude like Special Agent Dale Cooper, a friendly open-minded eccentric who does everything within his power to ignore his pant fulla bone when Audrey gets all up in his shit. But this isn't a simple story of lust and temptation. The iPhone notifications sounded gratuitously absurd until realizing they're pulling the context into present day: A loss of oneself down a sexting rabbit hole; the emotional extremes as social media feeds into FOMO-induced anxiety; the race to be the first creepy "like" or vapid compliment on a hot pic; addicting endorphin rushes and ensuing jolts of self-worth; the CEOs and upper management of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat who rely on this cycle to keep their businesses hotter than everyone else's. The song's 2nd half reflects the dark underbelly of social media in a frustratingly confusing dreamy haze of thick muck. Very Mulholland Drive. Very Twin Peaks.
Are we remembering wrong, or was Grandaddy's "The Crystal Lake" included as one of two free mp3s that came with every copy of MS-Windows 2000? Google reveals no answers. Grandaddy called it quits in 2006 - six years after Bill Gates awarded them their break into the big time - but reformed in 2012. In between, a Pixar movie called WALL-E felt like an unofficial void filler: Vast, barron, post-apocalyptic, lonely, artificial intelligence, cleaning up the messes of the past, remarkably low-key for its scope, minimal. WALL-E was also around the time Jason Lytle released solo jams like "It's The Weekend" - arguably the most depressingly pensive mid-tempo major key song about the weekend of all time - and the brilliant "Your Final Setting Sun," which felt like it deserved a full band arrangement. "Way We Won't" is undeniably Grandaddy, bringing us full circle back to the enormously grand anticlimax that surrounded "The Crystal Lake" in Y2K-America.
It's an event anytime Andre 3000 contributes guest vocals to anything. His last album was in 2006, and he appears on this list at least four times. Maybe more. We lost count. The '90s was a decade when hiphop might have been viewed like a local sports team; if their home base was closer to where you live, the music meant that much more. And so to oblige with their local pride, NYC rappers rarely collaborated elsewhere. Just the same, ATL collaborated with other ATL rappers. Houston stuck with Houston. Chicago stuck with Chicago. Even Bay Area rappers rarely mixed with LA rappers. So it felt like a historical revelation hearing Andre 3000 and Q-Tip playfully trading bars on "Kids..." like they had been rehearsing for this moment for years.
If you're anything like us and you loved Chutes Too Narrow but haven't enjoyed much else from The Shins ever since, you may have been in luck upon discovering "Dead Alive" last October. It's ironic (or maybe on purpose) that the song is named after a zombie movie since it sounds like they applied electro-shocks to a long dead songwriting method. It follows the same classic formula as 14 years ago, but their more modern (post-Wincing) recording style was applied too heavily. It still rules (especially the subtle free-jazz piano in the song's outro) but something about it feels like a dead Shins song that got buried in the pet sematary. What come out ain't what ya put in. Don't bury your boy in that graveyard. It's still their coolest song in years though. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the new album dropped earlier in 2017 with no other songs that were nearly as interesting as "Dead Alive." Congrats to Sub Pop (or The Shins or whoever it was) on choosing the dopest possible album preview tracks for grabbing the attention of basic jerks like us.
Kanye usually gets enough star power crammed into his albums to satisfy at least one-and-a-half of those embarrassingly shitty charity singles: "Hands Across America," "Voices That Care," "Stars," "Do They Know It's Christmas," "What's Going On." There haven't been as many in the past decade, (although at least one of them - "We Are The World 25" - was crowned our worst song of 2010).
Mitski and Angel Olsen (more Mitski tho) have brought the mid-2010s its eagerly anticipated Tori resurgence. Mitski's recent output sounds like the shit that would have been on Lilith Fair had the festival existed in 1992. In that sense, this sounds way more specifically '90s-retro than any of the vaguely '90s sounding Big Muff guitar bands of the past 5 years. 
We never realized Chance is essentially idolized all throughout Chicago, probably more now than any other current rapper. Kanye is global; even back when he felt the most localized, his global ubiquity made true localization seem impossible. Chief Keef always felt localized when profiled in Vice docs and the like, but 2013 was a while ago, and he hasn't truly regained momentum since then. Like many current rappers, Chance is still unsigned and reps locally more than not. Plus, his "Best New Artist" Grammy has brought him one step closer to "beloved" territory - a very exclusive club of extremely famous rappers that include Lauryn Hill, Outkast and a few others. (Kanye is not a beloved rapper. His eligibility disappeared a while ago.) 2017 is Chance's moment, and "All Night" - despite its anti-club anti-label anti-blog subject matter - has been one of Chicago's hottest club bangers of the past year. We've only heard it on NYC's Hot 97 once, but it's a megahit in Chicago, perhaps a sign that a new era of regional hits may be on its way.
This one refreshes. We know it was intended as a throwaway one-off (featuring members of Jackal Onasis, Ian Sweet and Stove messing around with pro-tools), but "Cowboy" felt like it accidentally captured something very specific about last summer. The band name Skatebored suggests a slacker/stoner approach, and the e-drums give it a uniquely hazy, rave quality, but with way more happy strands of weed than ecstasy pills.
Quietly appearing smack in the center of a comp release, this stray track may have gone unnoticed even for Pinback superfans. It's probably a new song and not a throwaway from 2012 or earlier, yet sounding more quintessentially Pinback than almost anything they've released since Autumn Of The Seraphs. When Mom asks "What does Pinback sound like?" you can feel okay playing her this song. Welcome back Rob Crow.
After nearly 25 years of existence, SoCal's finest Spanish-language grindcore band was finally mentioned on prominent music blogs in 2016 thanks to a single they released with the word "Trump" in the title. Go figure. Before instant fact checking was a normal thing, we were skeptical of the kids on the playground who told us that Faith No More's Billy Gould was the bass player for Brujeria throughout the '90s. (To be fair, these were the same kids who started the rumor that Kurt Cobain consumed 4000 calorie breakfasts every day.) However, Wikipedia now confirms it: Billy Gould is responsible for the deeply heavy ass-kicking bass line in the intro of "Mantando Gueros '97" from the Gummo soundtrack CD. '90s grindcore and deathmetal are the true '90s nostalgia bands.
It's time for another exciting edition of "Riffin' on Weezer." *canned applause* (No joke. We're extremely qualified for a weekly talk show where we only discuss Weezer things. Podcast CEOs: Our starting pay rates are very reasonable.) Weezer's 2011-2016 era wasn't so bad compared to the devastatingly grating 2004-2010 era. "King Of The World" could have been a decent Maladroit follow-up single. (A lot of people really love "Beverly Hills" for some reason even though it's just kinda okay. "King Of The World" is objectively better.) // Not sure what else to discuss, but we do enjoy this picture of Weezer (minus Rivers and Pat Wilson) accepting an award for "Buddy Holly" at the VMAs in 1995. (
In 1970, John Lennon wrote, recorded, mixed and mastered "Instant Karma!" with Phil Spector over the course of a single day (January 27th). Its 7-inch was released on vinyl 10 days later, February 6th. It reached #3 on the US charts, went platinum by the year's end, has appeared in Nike commercials and is considered among his most revered hit songs. 
There are fewer charting hits now than at any point since the '60s. Placing blame on playlisting is slowly making more and more sense, as Billboard's own "Hot 100" Spotify playlist contains streams that count toward their own chart results. (How is this not a problem again?) And with so few of those charting hits resembling anything that could be described as "fun," it's incredible that wedding bands and bar bands can still add current charting songs that feel reasonably multi-generational to their repertoires. A few weeks ago at a town fair, we heard a cover band begin their set with "24k Magic" and "Cake By The Ocean" (followed by "Rude," "Locked Out Of Heaven," "Uptown Funk" and 3 hours of '70s/'80s covers). Even Mr. Garrison was feeling DNCE this year. Keep the party alive.
Is this the first time Elton John and Busta Rhymes were on the same song? We should Google this, but we'd rather leave the question open for now.
What's the significance of the recorder?
The most important Twitter moment of 2016 was obviously 
The word "Wormed" keeps reminding us of the word "Marooned," which is also the title of what we thought at the time (age 12) was the most disturbing season 1 episode of Ren & Stimpy or any of the more warped Commander Höek and Cadet Stimpy adventures, like the one when their molecules began to dissipate throughout the atmosphere. We want to believe that John K. is a Wormed fan. We really do.