The Return of the Friday Random Ten

Courtesy of iTunes again. Let's get straight to business.

1. The Clash – Spanish Bombs (London Calling, 1979) – A true classic, despite Joe's horrendous Spanish. That guitar part is great, even if it's not all that amazing technically. 9/10.
2. Hüsker Dü – Don't Know Yet (Flip Your Wig, 1985) – Scintillating, spacey instrumentals from Minneapolis' finest. Good drums, interesting guitar, but nothing really compelling. A dull 5/10.
3. The Skatalites – Split Personality (Hi-Bop Ska, 1997) – Relatively recent Skatalites, with the usual jazzy feel, rock-solid rhythm section, and a great sax hook, plus very good production on this recent release. A rare song with full lyrical content, but the lyrics are sort of repetitive and irrelevant, though the singer's voice is nice enough. The horns carry this to a 7/10.
4. X – White Girl (Wild Gift, 1981) - One of the best hooks X ever wrote. Billy Zoom is truly exceptional, and Exene and John's questionable vocal harmony plays its part well. DJ Bonebrake speaks for himself. Not X's best, but an easy 8/10.
5. Stiff Little Fingers – Hits and Misses (Go For It, 1981) – The title covers SLF's output pretty well, and this is on the weaker side. Fairly inoffensive poppy stuff, though the rhythm on the chorus is quite strong. The sliding guitar midway doesn't pan out well, and this is only a 6/10.
6. Meat Puppets – Hot Pink (Up On The Sun, 1985) – Spacey alt-country escaping its punk origins here, but still an enjoyable listen, with great guitar and bass interplays. The ranting about hot pink stuff is goofy but endearing, earning it a 7/10.
7. Melt-Banana – Shield Your Eyes, A Beast in the Well of Your Hand (Cell-Scape, 2003) – Oh god, that song title... that's an automatic point off, I think. That guitar part, though... it's incredible, and the bass and drums are no slouch either. But it's Melt-Banana, so the damned vocals kick in soon enough. There's endearingly ridiculous, and then there's fucking Melt-Banana – perhaps the worst vocals around, and totally unintelligible too. In my eternal Melt-Banana debate, the amazing instrumentals beat out the awful titles and vocals, but just barely. A compromise at 7/10.
8. Mission of Burma – Peking Spring (Peking Spring, recorded 1979) – Burma at their best. Intricate guitar, incredible bass, thunderous drums, and clever lyrics. The mix isn't great, but that's the only fault here – this could be a perfect track if recorded well, even with the oooh-ee-ooohs. The bass is the real story here, but the transition into the slower end of the song is one of my favourite Burma moments. This would be a 10/10 with better production, but it's only a 9/10.
9. Pavement – Brinx Job (Wowee Zowee, 1995) - Sometimes Pavement songs are great, sometimes they're inane guitar noodling and random wails without much to recommend them. This is in the latter camp, and deserves no better than a 4/10.
10. Iggy Pop – The Passenger (Lust For Life, 1977) - Somehow, the Pop stopped being sarcastic here, but I can't fault Iggy for it. The la-la-las are funny, but the song coheres rater well, the guitar part is really catchy and Iggy's voice is at its best here. Needs a better bassline, though. Still gets an 8/10.

Overall: An even 7 average, which isn't too ridiculous. I managed to avoid over-high scores, but didn't get any awful songs either. Pretty representative, too.