Kurt Pankau Dot Com

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list.

Artist: Afroman
Title:The Good Times
Released: 2001
Genre: alt hip-hop dirty rap


It's easy to disregard Afroman as a one-hit wonder for his gimmicky slow jam Because I Got High. It might surprise you, then, to know that he's put out thirty-two albums since 1998. These are a mix of live, compilation, and studio records with titles like My Fro-losophy, Waiting To Inhale, Marijuana Music, and One Hit Wonder EP--a self-deprecating joke that's even funnier if you know what a one-hitter is. Pothead stereotypes to the contrary, this man is a workaholic. He started recording and selling mixtapes in eighth grade. He put out four albums in 2004 alone. The Good Times was his major label debut, and is basically a greatest hits album of his prior work, some of which had already been released independently.

This is some grade-A trashy party music. It's fun, it's laid-back, it's hilarious, and…

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list.

Artist: The New Christy Minstrels
Title:Today
Released: 1964
Genre: ensemble folk



This was an album I listened to over and over again on car trips growing up. It was fifteen hours in the van from our house to my grandparents', so we had a lot of time to burn. This was one of a number of records that my dad had on vinyl and had put on tape, and this was on a tape of folk songs alongside the Kingston Trio. The New Christy Minstrels were part of the early 60's folk revival that would be obliterated when Bob Dylan hit the scene. They took their name from Christy's Minstrels, an old literally-a-minstrel act that performed in blackface (that's just Christy's Minstrels--NCM didn't do that, although taking a name from a group that did is a little... icky). The racial undercurrents of the album are interesting. It was released the same year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended segregation,…

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list.

Artist: Failure
Title:Fantastic Planet
Released: 1996
Genre: space rock


In the late 90s rock was being eclipsed by the bubblegum pop explosion. Grunge was fading from radio to make room for nu-metal and power pop acts like Blink-182. But there were a handful of weirder songs that slipped through into mainstream rock radio that felt like harbingers of an experimental direction that grunge might have explored if it only had a little more time. Stuff like Incubus' Make Yourself or Elwood's rap-rock reworking of Gordon Lightfoot's Sundown. Another one of these what-the-hell-did-I-just-hear gems was Failure's Stuck On You, from their sci-fi epic Fantastic Planet. It was nerd-voice crooning angst over guitars that alternately crunched and keened. It was like Weezer, but less polished and less immediately accessible. This was an act that aspired to be Pink Floyd, not Buddy Holly. It sounded li…

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list.

Artist: Redd Kross
Title:Researching The Blues
Released: 2012
Genre: power pop


Redd Kross started out in 1980 as Red Cross, a punk band whose first gig was opening for Black Flag. They remained active for seventeen years, putting five albums and three EPs, swapping out members, and changing the spelling of their name. 2012's Researching The Blues was their reunion record, and they've remained active since, although in a low-key kind of way. I mean... it's not like you knew who they were before this post.

Title notwithstanding, Researching The Blues is not in any obvious way influenced by the blues. It's straight up power-pop. High-tempo, fun, guitar-driven, danceable, and catchy. It's got an English garage rock vibe with some extraneous lead-guitar noodling. The best songs are the title track (embedded above), four-on-the-floor stomper Uglier, New-Wave aping The Nu Temptations, and …

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list.

Artist: The Strokes
Title:Is This It (US Version)
Released: 2001
Genre: lo-fi garage rock


The early aughts were a confused time for rock. Grunge had died out, and while nu-metal was everywhere, it wasn't for everyone. There was a pop-rock-shaped hole in the musical discourse for people who liked rock, missed the fun side of alternative, and felt alienated by thrash-rap. Enter New York City's own The Strokes, the band that ushered in the garage rock revival that brought to prominence a whole host of acts name The [plural noun]. Their debut, Is This It was an immediate hit in the UK on its late summer release. It was scheduled to come out in October in the US with different cover art and a last-minute song swap following the September 11 attacks. The song New York City Cops was dropped and replaced with When It's Started.

Is This It has a raw energy to it. It bounces, grooves, and bops along f…

Kurt is going through his favorite records. Read the explainer or view the master list.

Artist: Evanescence
Title:Fallen
Released: 2003
Genre: nu-metal


Evanescence was a nu-metal band from Arkansas founded by guitarist Ben Moody and singer/pianist Amy Lee that blended abrasive guitars with soft, sweet piano and vocal melodies. It was a pleasant variation on the formula that had been established by Korn and then embellished by Papa Roach and Saliva (and it was absolute catnip to a Nine Inch Nails fan like myself). Their first two singles originally appeared as the most memorable things from a mortifyingly bad Daredevil movie starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. The soundtrack exposure lead to an album and was immediately greeted by some kerfuffle about whether or not Evanescence was a "Christian" band or not. Bring Me To Life, the debut single, had guest vocals from the singer for the Christian metal band 12 Stones. Since the album didn't have any cursing on it and a few…