Finally free of a contentious contract with Curb records, the grandson of Hank Williams celebrates by releasing three records bubbling over with surly, scuzzy bootstompers; the results sound like line Dance Night at Thunderdome. Cattle Callin' pastes recordings of motormouthed livestock auctioneers over hammering grindcore, and Attention Deficit Domination is a pitch-perfect pass at 1970s stoner-metal; both are brutal to listen to, but it's hard not to admire the nasty chutzpah. Of the lot, the best is Ghost to a Ghost/Gutter Town, an unruly ragbag containing everything from mean-eyed industrial hoedowns to ambient drones to a bleary gypsy waltz featuring Tom Waits. Hank's wry, snarling delivery suits the album's schizophrenic styles, and when he deadpans, "We've got our own style of living nowadays," over a tornado of banjo, it's clear he means this trio of albums as proof.

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“Jimbrowski”

Jungle Brothers sampled, among other things, jazz, James Brown and house music. The New York crew's lyrics were equally diverse but never short on clever wordplay or a playful sense of humor, as exemplified by this song from 1988's Straight Out the Jungle. "The idea for that came at the end of a studio session, with Mike, me, Red Alert and a woman Red was dating at the time," says the group’s Afrika Baby Bam. "Red was flirting with her and kept saying 'Jimbrowski' the whole night. Mike and I wrote the rhymes on the way back from the subway."