5ingles: The Songs We Can't Escape

The Soft Pack

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More About

• Antwan "Big Boi" Patton
• Scott Storch
• Wavves
• Southern Rap
• Hip-Hop and Rap

The Soft Pack
"Answer to Yourself"

This is a classic do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do situation: a punchy, shimmying pep talk from a motivational speaker who lacks belief in his ability to succeed. Ironic!

Big Boi
"Shutterbugg"

A rehabilitated, coke-free Scott Storch proves that there are second acts in American pop life, Big Boi reaffirms that he's still capable of out-rapping pretty much everybody on the planet—those aren't mothballs, sucka, that's bling—and "Shutterbugg" remains as bewildering and brilliant on the seventeenth listen as it was on the fourth.

Male Bonding
"All Things This Way"

Fist-pumping surf-punk that doesn't disdain progress but knows better than to expect it anytime soon. Like Wavves, minus the stormy-mood feedback deluge, only with genuine United Kingdom-in-Yankee-disguise pedigree.

STS
"Sole Music"

How's this for a novel courtship? "For our first date, we went and bought kicks." Fear not, ambitious Foot Locker associate managers: Wafting from your chintzy PA speakers like the intoxicating stink of Jordans from a Nike box, this mixtape cut will undoubtedly move all that New Balance cross trainer overstock for you.

Total System Failure/Audiocum
"Untitled track 3 from Sonic Kung-Fu"

Wigged-out sax space-psych braves algorithmic, fractal-noise sput-sput from both channels, improbably lives to tell about it. New Jersey and France, caterwauling in perfect anti-harmony.