2004 : 38 "Giga Dance" by Deerhoof

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I tend to see things in bad sci-fi terminology; so when I say this song would be great theme music for a villain, take it with a grain of salt. Deerhoof is very often loud and noisy, but rarely as HEAVY as this. This music makes me wanna walk around like a tornado, kicking garbage up and down the street, like I should go to a bar and poison the drinks. If I ever get the chance to tie damsels in distress to railroad tracks while twirling my mustache, this will be my exit music as I'm kicking the hero in the throat. Not music for a bad mood per se, but for a mood to act rotten accordingly. —James Specht Listen: Deerhoof >> "Giga Dance"

2001 : 34 "Forcefield" by Lightning Bolt

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By 2001, American punk looked, at least to this observer, like a pair of rather stagnant pools. On the one hand you had the pop-punk of the mainstream, recombining the increasingly empty signifiers of "Punk" in search of market value. On the other hand you had the underground, but only the most dedicated delvers could find the gems sunk within in its dispiriting glut. Then along came Rhode Island duo Lightning Bolt. Their album Ride the Skies, aside from being excellent, is also snotty, annoying, libidinal, minimalist, spastic, and palpably gleeful. In short, it contains, in a very pure form, nearly every pleasure that punk music ever provided. Depsite this, I balk at calling Lightning Bolt "punk," exactly: they're really too weird and ecstatic for the label to fit. Maybe you could call them "art punk." This is a little more apt, given their affiliation with the Providence / RISD scene of the early Aughts. This scene—infamously centered around the "Fort Thunder" art space—got known for its brilliant, damaged, psychedelic visual aesthetic, to which Lightning Bolt's music is the precise sonic analogue. —Jeremy Bushnell Listen: Lightning Bolt >> "Forcefield"