The Friday Five: June 12, 2015

Friday Five : |ˈfrÄ«dā – fÄ«v| : On the sixth day of every week, I hit the shuffle button in iTunes and share the first five tracks and thought for each track. Sometimes there is a playlist involved, occasionally we’ll have a guest, but most of the time it’s just me. The rest is up to you, our friends and readers! Fire up the media player of your choice and share the first five random track of your shuffle in the comments.

The Five:

“The Willing Well III: Apollo II: The Telling Truth” by Coheed and Cambria (from Good Apollo I’m Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness, 2005)

I was just reading this popmatters piece on the tenth anniversary of Good Apollo. While I don’t entirely agree with the writer’s point of view—I’ll concede that Good Apollo is the band’s first opus, but I’d argue that the one-two punch of the Afterman records eventually surpassed it—it is a good reminder of just how excellent this record is.

“Too Close” by Next (from Essential R&B: 90’s Anthems (disc 1), 2010)

*record scratching*

Damn, that’s a harsh transition.

The summer of 1997 is home to some truly top notch club jams. Man, there’s a playlist to be made!

“Cheers Darlin'” by Damien Rice (from O, 2003)

Okay, iTunes, you need to go home, you are drunk.

“Yuh Nuh Ready Fi Dis Yet” by Tayna Stephens (from Reggae Gold 1997, 1997)

This is just horrible. No, seriously, this song is terrible with a capital “T.” You are probably asking yourself, “self, why does Michael Parr have such dreck in his library.” My answer is, “I just don’t know.” Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far, away I would spin records (okay, CDs) for intoxicated college students, and occasionally, I would have to cover the “Ladies Night” shift, which meant I had to be sure to have the dancehall hits du jour. At some point I decided to rip all my CDs (something that I gave up on, long ago) and therefore I have tons of this stuff lurking in the dark corners of my library.

“Don’t Worry, We’ll Be Watching You” by Gotye (from Making Mirrors, 2012)

Could Gotye be this decade’s biggest “one-hit wonder”? I’m still unsure that Lorde will be able to capture the public attention the way she did with “Royals,” but that (seemingly) remains to be seen. Gotye, however, has likely waited well beyond his public expiration date. Hell, even Kimbra has fully capitalized (though, sadly, to diminishing returns) on her part of “Somebody That I Used to Know.”

What’s on your shuffle today?