#365songs (96 / 365)

Probably the song that woke me up to the possibility of hip hop / indie-rock crossovers, featuring John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats, with whom I was absolutely obsessed at the time. Aesop Rock has since become one of my favorites, and a rapper whose projects I'll check out more often than not, but this was absolutely my gateway drug and still one of my favorite songs of his.

Despite that I deeply appreciate Aes on his own considerable merits now, I admit I still think Darnielle steals the show here. Great melody, his voice has rarely sounded better, he's belting it out with the kind of paranoid misanthropy he does really well when he leans into it. What a cool feature. I wonder how many other Mountain Goats fans became Aesop Rock fans when they found out about this track.

There's an edited version on Bandcamp that omits the bonus track "Pigs," but that's part of it for me since I'm used to the album version, and I do think the bonus track is a lot of fun too.