Friday 5: Songs That No One Knows (But They Should)

Happy Friday, MetalSucks reader! Welcome to MetalSucks Friday 5, our awesome series that appears every Friday (duh) on MetalSucks (duhh) and involves the quantity of five (duhhh).

Here’s how it works: A list of best/worst/weirdest/whatever five somethings is posted by one of your beloved MetalSucks contributors or by one of our buds (like you!). Then you, our cherished reader, checks it out, has a chuckle, then chimes in with a list of the same. No sweat, just whatever springs to mind, k? (Just like that movie about those losers working at a Chicago record store!) After all, it’s Friday — the day dedicated by the gods to mindless, fun time-wasting. 

Here we go!

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THE FIVE

What five great songs are totally unknown to even people who know this type of shit?

THE LISTER

Anso DF, MetalSucks Senior Editor

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https://youtu.be/AyTCJVC5nR8

“Nail” by The Beyond
from Crawl (Continuum)
1992

Even in the internet age, some songs elude your awareness like Wes Scantlin skirting rehab. Maybe it’s a random soundtrack song to a movie (or comic book??). Or a guest spot on an unlikely album that the strictest Google alert wouldn’t unearth. A genre’s most obscure bands that remain unseen by even its devotees. Let’s help each other know about these oddball-but-vital jams. For starters, ’90s avant-metal people, you love Primus, Realm, and Anacrusis, but have you encountered The Beyond? I hardly did and have never met another who has!

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“Shake Your Head” by Was (Not Was) f. Ozzy Osbourne
from Born To Laugh At Tornadoes (Geffen)
1983

Unlikely on many levels: It’s a pairing of soul-dance-pop dorks and blockbuster metal artist, archetypical douchebag producer and stereotypical wasted shock junkie, the future authors of gold-medal ear worm “Walk The Dinosaur” joined by a guy who for his latest video had donned a werewolf costume. Other guests on its album include Mel Tormé, the guy from The Knack, and ace Marshall Crenshaw. Seriously what the fucking fuck. Weirdest of all, this very track was supposed to also use vocals by then-unknown hired hand Madonna! “You can’t bullshit the devil!”

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https://youtu.be/zJW4WRvwWKs

“Go To Sleep” by Kat Bjelland, Peter Steele, et al.
from Songs Of The Witchblade: A Soundtrack To The Comic Books (Dreamworks)
1998

Another collection of unusual suspects is found on a release called Songs Of The Witchblade, a comic book series soundtrack which stars Babes In Toyland singer Kat Bjelland with guests like Rust-era Megadeth, Melvins frontman Buzz Osborne, some NYC hipsters (Marc Ribot, Arto Lindsay, Miho Hatori of Cibo Matto), dudes from the Nine Inch Nails and Pigface scene (Chris Vrenna, Jim Thirlwell, David Ogilvie), and the always valuable Peter Steele of Type O Negative. Even if you encountered a used CD bin in 2016, you’d blow right by this, but I can’t think of a better use of Dreamworks money than to buy drugs for this freak brigade, so.

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“Down This Way” by Aversion
from Fit To By Tied (Restless)
1993

Memories! I was laying across the seats of several folding chairs at a huge metal fest in the ’90s, catching a catnap at a distance of a football field away from the stage. It was the event’s tenth or so hour, and I was sick of music by then. Still, I groggily cracked one eye to see Aversion hammering out an awesome version of a moldy oldie called “It’s My Life” by The Animals. If you think I should feel bad for insulting hard-working performers by snoozing in plain view, I see your point, but actually I was paying the most attention of anybody.

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https://youtu.be/mwNW8lqe1tk

“Wild Thing” by Sam Kinison
from Have You Seen Me Lately? (Warner Bros.)
1988

Speaking of mega-hits from rock music’s infancy (#4 above), that proto-proto-metal jam “Wild Thing” was huge in the late ’80s. Most would chalk that up to 1989 blockbuster movie Major League (in which it figured prominently for the ruffian played by Charlie Sheen), but late comic Sam Kinison first resuscitated it with an off-kilter rewrite just months earlier. He must’ve thought, “Hey, Eddie Murphy ends his comedy albums with an actual song, why not me?” What followed was a hit video featuring Slash, Steven Adler, Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Billy Idol, Tommy Lee, and the non-dorks from Ratt all kinda whacking off on Jessica Hahn. The video was out of key with the song — Kinison is the schmuck in the latter, the oppressor in the former — and anyhow, the whole enterprise wielded the staying power of Murphy’s “Boogie In Your Butt.” Of many awesome lyrics, my favorite is “Why didn’t you tell me you were demon from Hell!!!!!”

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Your turn! Have a great wknd!