Day 1

Song 1: The Coral - "Spanish Main"
Perfect! The first song of 5,000 is a track by a band that I rarely, if ever, listen to. "Spanish Main" is off of The Coral's self-titled 2002 disc and I only know that thanks to trusty details built into iTunes. I'm very excited that this is how this project will begin! The song even functions as a nice intro song, bursting through some static while a steady guitar repetition make it seem like the track might actually be instrumental. It's not, but at just under two minutes, it was over almost as quick as it began.

Song 2: Bright Eyes - "Oh You Are The Roots That Sleep Beneath My Feet And Hold The Earth In Place"
I'm not sure what the general consensus is, but give me whiny, self-absorbed Connor Oberst any day over the boring political, psuedo-country artist. This is one of my favorite Bright Eyes songs from the former category. It is certainly whiny with lyrics like "So when I'm suffering through some awful drive, / you occasionally cross my mind." but I was 16 when this came out, which is the perfect age to hear a sweet sentiment like the titular chorus and apply it to every fantastic romance you've yet to have.

Song 3: Jon-Rae & The River - "Eastern Migration"
My good friend Luke turned me onto this band, and I remember for the longest time I couldn't get into it at all. I can't even remember why now, just that I was not having it in the least. Time certainly provided me some perspective here, because I'm enjoying listening to "Eastern Migration," as I blog on it. I know that a few lines earlier I just shit on Bright Eyes country-posing, but I really enjoy the modern country-fried blues of this song. It builds really well, too, from the somber Johnny Cash paint-by-numbers first half until it kicks into a full-on duet.

Song 4: !!! - "Must Be The Moon"
I was getting a little worried that the first five songs would all be pretty straightforward tracks. so this is a good change of pace. I've been a big fan of !!! since Louden Up Now but this might be one of my favorite songs from the follow-up. It's not too often you hear a song about how a guy was awful in bed. The beat is fun as it is, but I always found the speak-rapped story way more engaging than I should've. Even the chorus, You could blame it on the music
but it wouldn't be right / cause I've gotten lucky to some pretty bad tunes," makes me smile.

Song 5: Tool - "Forty Six & 2"
Ahaha oh wow. I guess now is as good a time as any to bring up this caveat. I have over 16,000 songs in my library. I can therefore skip a good portion of them and still get to 5,000 easily. I'll probably invoke the skip a lot if I've covered a lot of a band's tracks (I'm swimming in Modest Mouse and Pavement over here...) or if I have absolutely nothing to say about a song. I'll also make a note of what I skipped just to play fair. I'm not skipping this though, if only so I can better explain the rules of my game. Having said all that, I never understood Tool. I have Aenima, probably copied from a friend back in the day, and this song doesn't make me want to revisit it at all. The instrumentation on the verse of this song makes it feel like nothing is even happening until the chorus, where a guitar kicks up a little bit. Even turned up, the drums sound hollow. I remember Tool having a few songs I thought were fine, but I guess this isn't one of them.