Short Music for Short People

I know how it is. You probably don't have time to listen to a lot of music, especially with each artist wanting to make 10-minute dubsteb remixes of their pop singles. So, if that's the case, why not just listen to some extraordinarily short songs? You can finish 10 tracks in about 5 minutes - and if you have yourself a full hour to listen to things, well, you might get through most of the album!

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Army of Lovers - Massive Luxury Overdose

I'm just going to post this here, while nobody's reading the blog.

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GWAR - This Toilet Earth

We're fast approaching the end of the world, and GWAR knew that ages ago. Let's travel back in time to see how close we've come to destruction in the past, so that we can be ready for this mudball's end in the future.

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The 5, 6, 7, 8's - Bomb the Twist

Probably most famous in the US for their appearance in Kill Bill, the 5, 6, 7, 8's are a fun surf rock band with some fairly obvious punk-rock influenced vocals. Highly suggested.

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The Beards - Beards, Beards, Beards

I miss my beard.

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Wreckx-N-Effect - Hard or Smooth

All I wanna do is a zoom-zoom-zoom and a boom-boom.

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James Brown - Funky Christmas

On the lighter side of things, let's get some funk in here for the holidays.

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Christmas on Death Row

'Tis the season for gansta music.

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Busdriver - Temporary Forever

I was sold on this album years ago for two key reasons - one, the breakneck, stream-of-consciousness lyrics and two, "Kids, if you want to piss off your parents, show interest in the arts".

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CocoRosie - Grey Oceans

A sister duo, who started their career in their Parisian bathroom, the singing is the same sort of weird, beautiful warbling that you would expect out of Bjork or Joanna Newsom, lilting to some, boggling to others, with stream-of-consciousness lyrics to go along with it. They also have some of the deliberately worst album art I've seen.

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Soul Coughing - El Oso

The unmistakable voice of Mike Doughty puts a huge watermark on this album full of funky, catchy album; this was a staple of my teenage years.

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Why? - Apolpecia

Why? is a hip-hop group of sorts, but, as many of these groups, the term "hip-hop" is widely and wildly defined. It's the lyrics that make up the songs, and the eccentric voice of the lead singer and the music that accompanies it that really makes the album what it is. Unusual, unsure of themselves at some points, wildly bitter at moments they could have had. Do we sense a theme here?

"and now these few president / frowning in my pocket / can persuade no god / to let me let you talk, oh

these few presidents / drowning in my pocket / can persuade no god / to let me let you off---

"even though i haven't seen you in years / yours is a funeral i'd fly to from anywhere"

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Man Man - Rabbit Habits

You're getting by on your gigs at the circus side-show, playing jangly tunes for all the gawkers. Night falls, and it's time to play some music for yourself - forget the stares and start with the drinks. We've got a full week ahead of us.

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Drive-By Truckers - The Big To-Do

I don't consider myself a big fan of country, but with a nice suffusion of rock that the Drive-By Truckers bring to it, as well as wonderful lyrics, I can't help myself. There's an underlying bitterness that, in my opinion, is what country should be ability. Songs about drinking binges, and songs about your idiot friend who's cheating on his psychotic, trigger-happy girlfriend.

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Caddywhompus - Caddywhompus EP

Too many sedatives during a car-chase. You're the passenger, struggling to stay awake while the driver takes violent turns and over hazardous jumps, only to slow to a calm as they enter a quiet rural route once they lose the cops. Then, just as you're beginning to doze again, you're spotted, and the bad analogy begins again.

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Takeshi Terauchi and Bunnys - Seichô Takeuchi-Bushi

Japanese surf-rock. Listen to it, nerds.

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Tobacco - Fucked Up Friends

I can't stop listening to this - then again, the album sounds a great deal as to what I might imagine alien mind control might sound like. Lots of electronic, psychedelic sounds, with what may be a plastic recorder sounding off in the background occasionally. They even got their mitts on Aesop Rock at one point, to convince you that the pod-people were your friends.

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Pomplamoose - Tribute to Famous People

You've likely seen this pair bopping along to "deck the halls" in some car commercial for the holidays, but that doesn't diminish the fact that these two are fun to listen to. In a collection of cover songs, done entirely in their own particular brand of "videosong" - a process where they record each little thing they do to make the sounds for the song, and remix it for the purpoes of the video - were brought together in this Tribute to Famous People.

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Cheech Marin - My Name is Cheech the School Bus Driver

We can't forget the kids, now, can we, when it comes to music. So, here I present to you Cheech Marin's fantastic kid's album, where he sings songs to the various students off to school about everything from standing up to the idiot bully to trading lunches if you're sick of the crap your parents give you ("No, no, no, last time dad made me lunch he gave me three cookies and a cigarette!")

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Doctor Octoroc - 8-Bit Jesus

It's still "the season", by all measures of time, so it's fair that Christmas albums still be fair game. This time, let's conjure up some half-remembered videogame chiptunes, and infuse them with all-too familiar carols. Yes, let's!

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P.O.S. - Never Better

P.O.S. is a hip-hop artist influenced heavily by bands like Black Flag and Fugazi, and his lyrics often incorporate that same kind of sarcasm and anger that punk would normally bring. He seems to be able to avoid the whole, almost obligatory, self-aggrandizing elements that rapping seems to call for, instead sticking to fast, intelligent lyrics.

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Torch - Torch

In the 80's, frost-giants descended from the mountains, and demanded that a heavy metal album be created in their honor. Only a small group of Swedes took the challenge, stepping forward with their self-titled debut. The giants took Torch to their mountain homes, never to be seen again, satisfied with their gift.

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Butthole Surfers - Electriclarryland

With almost an over-passionate croon, asking, "What do they know about love?', "Gibby" Haynes seems to have an almost preternatural means to subject the listener to things they may not want to hear, if it weren't for the music ability that served as his backbone. Electriclarryland seems to run the gamut with pop-rock sounds such as "Pepper" and "Jingle of a Dog's Collar" then suddenly changing gears into some southern-rock drawl on "TV Show"only to see them move into a sort of industrial/experimental song with "My Brother's Wife".

I can't do justice to all the ups and downs of Electiclarryland. Perhaps you can.

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Black Moth Super Rainbow - Dandelion Gum

"Deep in the woods of western Pennsylvania vocoders hum amongst the flowers and synths bubble under the leaf-strewn ground while flutes whistle in the wind and beats bounce to the soft drizzle of a warm acid rain. As the sun peeks out from between the clouds, the organic aural concoction of Black Moth Super Rainbow starts to glisten above the trees."

Dandelion Gum is something that would be fantastically interesting to listen to if you happened to have sound -> sight synthenesia, but, for those of use without that remarkably rare neurological condition, it's still beautiful to hear. Analog electronic instruments, psychedelic elements with a dash of folk - this album is something like what we may imagine beings from another planet would produce in an attempt to emulate us. It's strange and otherworldly, with a few earthly tethers that tell us what it's trying to do, but, still making a great many uncomfortable with how perverse it seems make things.

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Electric Six - I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me from Being the Master

Dick Valentine seems to ooze rock attitude - the classic crooning, screaming and howling that should be associated with everything that rock SHOULD be. Electric Six manages to take any subject matter, from the plights of questionable women to the risks that come with taking the closing shift at a fast-food restaurant... and make your ass dance to it. Let's take a closer listen, shall we?

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Harry Nilsson - The Point

"I was on acid and I looked at the trees and I realized that they all came to points, and the little branches came to points, and the houses came to point. I thought, 'Oh! Everything has a point, and if it doesn't, then there's a point to it.'" – Harry Nilsson

This quote pretty much sums up the concept of the album, The Point, which was turned into an animated film, and then subjected to me, as a child, forever warping me from that point forward. Instead of adorable mice in overalls, I got nude, asexual children running around with deformed skulls. Also, THIS GUY:

I hope you're not fond of sleeping at nights, kiddo! Teehee!

So, the music is, indeed, excellent, calming Harry Nilsson fare, but, the movie will torture you for the rest of your days, if you're to take me as a case-study. So enjoy it while you can, and be sure to sit your kids down to watch this nightmare inducer if they've been uppity about what they want for Christmas.

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Ween - The Mollusk

An lo, they fell upon me with gnashing teeth, those feasting fangs; I fell to the ocean, then, where I was taken to become a clawed and carapaced creature. All things good and beautiful were there, awaiting me. This was my heaven...

Or so I thought.

This is Ween. This is The Mollusk. The above passage was merely inspired by this album. This is the least of all inspirations that it has given. Listen, damn you.

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Ogre You Asshole - Ogre You Asshole

From last.fm:

Ogre You Asshole is a Japanese post-punk band. Ogre You Asshole is Manabu Deto (guitar, vocal), Kei Mabuchi (guitar), Norihito Hiraide (bass), and Takashi Katsuura (drums). They take their influences from Modest Mouse, Built To Spill, Fugazi, Gang Of Four, Talking Heads, Pinback and Television.

Basically, a Japanese post-punk revival band with fantastic fucking taste. Even if you can't understand a single iota of Japanese, it doesn't matter. This is fantastic. 

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Girlschool - Hit and Run

Do you want a proper leather-clad all-girl rock band? Of course you do. What's wrong with you?

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Tito Puente - Dance Mania!

This is my challenge to you - remain perfectly still, tap nary a foot whilst this album plays. If you can complete this task, then your transformation into a soulless machine has been complete. Congratulations. You are a steely monster, ready for the coming End Wars.

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Subtle - For Hero: For Fool

Suppose you are driving down the road, into a vast alien expanse of what was once a city-scape. The otherworldly invaders have already taken root. They see you as no threat as you make your approach across the broken pavement, but they are no means friendly, either. You lean back into your seat, a devious smile splitting your skull. You've come to cause chaos to their chitinous hive-ships, and this album plays in the background as you approach.

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DODDODO - Donomichi DODDODO

From last.fm:

DODDODO (born Namin Haku) is a Japanese electronic artist. Using only a sampler, a Casio keyboard and whatever else is available (such as children’s toys or the occasional banjo), she combines everything such as Irish folk music with ’80s breakdance and hip hop records. 

This has been a go-to album for me when I don't know what I'm in the mood for. It ranges wildly from hypnotic to hyperactive, beautiful to bizarre.  Eat it up, puppies.

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Michael Viner's Incredible Bongo Band - Bongo Rock

Fools! You cannot conquer the bongos! They summon forth a pair of disembodied hands that know only pain! Pain, and incredible rhythm!

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Afroman - A Colt 45 Christmas

It's impossible to escape it. Give up. There is no denying the power of Christmas. Everywhere you go, it shall follow. Even in the deepest dens of the most solitary of recluses, there still looms the threat of holiday cheer, be they from some cavalcade of carol singers who have traveled through time to sing at their doorstep, or some conspiracy kook trying to elaborate on his theories that our crude consumerism is a vast plot put into play by Soviet mind-control devices.

I'm already indoctrinated. It's too late for me. I think what did it was Afroman's warbling phrase "You better not pout, you better not shout, I'll slap your grandmama's denture's out". And while this album has all the mature subtlety of a wet fart, it, also much like a wet fart, is fun, especially in the right company.

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