For those who have not joined in the Friday Five here is all you need to know; each Friday I hit the shuffle button on my iTunes and share my five and drop a little knowledge and insight for each track. Sometimes there is a playlist involved, sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes we have guest, but most of the time it’s just me.

The rest is up to you, our friends and readers! Fire up your media player of choice and share the first five random track of your shuffle in the comments. The more the merrier!

The Five:

Van Halen – “In a Simple Rhyme” (mp3) (from Women and Children First, 1980)

Earlier this week our friends over at Addicted to Vinyl posted an incendiary Van Halen related article that sent me on a listening spree. In the last week I’ve listened to every record from Van Halen I to 1984 and still disagree with the assertion that “Jump” was in any way a stretch (or sell out) and that it was really a part of the natural progression of the band.

Primus – Tommy the Cat (mp3) (from Sailing the Seas of Cheese, 1991)

It has been a long time since I’ve heard this tune. Les Claypool is easily one of the funkiest bass players ever. Juxtaposed against the brash beats and dueling vocals with Tom Waits the band picked up the torch dropped by Funkadelic, dropped some Metal on it and moved it along.

Madonna – “Borderline” (from The Immaculate Collection, 1990)

I make no bones about it; I absolutely love nearly everything Madge did prior to the turn of the new millennium. These days it’s all one can do to avoid her pathetic clawing at staying relevant, compounded only by her odd public/private life and her preclusion to much younger men.

Rage Against the Machine – Freedom (mp3) (from Rage Against the Machine, 1992)

While I do really like guitarist Tom Morello‘s current project Street Sweeper Social Club, nothing can replace the sound and the fury of the original Rage Against the Machine record. Born of the first Bush presidency, the record captured the angst and social unrest that was brewing just below the surface; that and the hearts and minds of drunken frat boys from coast to coast.

James – “Laid” (from Laid, 1993)

In researching this tune I discovered that this record was produced by the legendary Brian Eno. It does not necessarily surprise me. One of the best parts of doing The Five week after week is spending a little bit of time getting to know the tunes in my collection a little bit better.

So what’s on deck in your shuffle this week?