The Friday Five: June 28, 2013

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:

“Bye” by Elliot Smith (from Figure 8, 2000)

The final tune on Smith’s last record before ending his life in 2003. Bummer way to start off a Friday Five, eh? Let’s hope we get a little lighter than this. (I’m not being glib, this track is quiet, lovely, and horribly sad.)

“King Nothing” by Metallica (from Load, 1996)

I did say lighter, right?

I may lose a bit of my metalhead cred for this, but I generally enjoyed Load when it came out. In retrospect, the record hasn’t aged all that well. The production is extremely indicative of the mid-’90s mid-notched sound that Pantera introduced earlier in the decade. The tunes, however, still kick a good bit of arse.

“Isolation” by Crowded House (from Intriguer, 2010)

A perfectly understated little pop song.

A quick aside, I happened to pull up the Wikipedia page for Intriguer and who do I spy with my little eye in the “Professional Ratings” box but our little collection of rag-tag pop culture junkies!

“Hammer Falls” by Foetus (from Gash, 1995)

In the wake of the breakout success of Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine the record labels were scrambling all over themselves to sign the next poor tortured soul who called himself a band; enter Aussie industrialist, J. G. Thirlwell. Gash is awash with nearly every stereotypical industrial clichÁ©, yet it is completely engaging.

“The Willing Well I: Fuel for the Feeding End” by Coheed and Cambria (from Neverender: Children of the Fence Edition (disc 3), 2009)

Yeah, this is a hell of a way to go out. I’m just going to let this one play out and riff into the weekend. Happy Friday, everyone!

What’s on your shuffle today?