Category: 366 Songs

We’re close enough to the end of the year that I might as well finish up the 2024 playlist that I’ve shared once or twice during the year (okay, three times; it’s because I shared them in bunches of 50 songs at a time; there’s a formula!). As the year came to a close, I added less things to the playlist (intended to be new songs to me, or things I was becoming newly obsessed with after not listening to for awhile) because my attention was on things I’d already added, but nonetheless:

The actual playlist is here. If, by some strange circumstance, I add more songs between writing this post and the end of the year, you’ll find them here.

At this time of year, thoughts turn to holiday playlists, and the essential songs that have to make it on to every single one. (I shared mine earlier this week.) I had a thought the other day bemoaning the lack of good new Christmas songs, before I realized two things simultaneously:

1. I am old, and therefore almost destined to find so much of “new” music to be boring, dull, or just simply not my bag, daddio.
2. More than arguably any other music genre, the appeal of Christmas music is that it’s nostalgic and pulls you back to simpler, earlier times in your life. So finding “new” Christmas songs that appeal to you as much as songs you grew up with it… difficult, to say the least. (Which is to say, sorry Sabrina Carpenter and your Nonsense Christmas Song.)

That last one is something I should have realized sooner, because it’s a lesson I learned when I was a kid myself. There were many Christmas traditions in my house growing up, which is almost certainly why I’m such a holiday fiend to this day. One of the major ones, though, was that when we did the decorations for the living room and the rest of the house, we would listen to Christmas music, and if at all possible, that would start with the music my mother grew up listening to at that time of year — which is to say, Nat King Cole’s Christmas album.

I say, “if at all possible,” because there was a period where the album was gone for some reason. Maybe it was destroyed, or misplaced? I don’t remember what happened to it, but I do remember that a replacement was eventually purchased after a couple of years, and it was clear the difference it made in her experience just hearing him sing “The Christmas Song” again. It was what completed the whole thing for her; without that song, it wasn’t really Christmas.

I’m the same. Not just with “The Christmas Song” (I learned from the best, and was taught at a young age), but with “Merry Xmas Everybody” and “I Wish It Could be Christmas Everyday” and at least half of the Phil Spector Christmas album. That’s not to say that new songs can’t be added to that must-listen list, because they can — things like Low’s “Just Like Christmas,” The Blind Boys of Alabama’s “Last Month of the Year” and The Executor’s “Christmas is a Joyful Day” have all achieved that goal since I was a kid — but the core songs, those ones that get played the most and induce the strongest festive feelings… all of them come from way back, and remind me of the wonder that you feel most strongly when things were simpler, happier, and I didn’t have to worry about taking time off work in order to celebrate everything appropriately.

Sure, my thoughts might have turned to the festive musical season a little later than usual this year — or, rather, I was surprised how quickly December arrived, when my brain apparently had a lot more November to deal with — but I rallied and built myself a holiday playlist to play while getting in a holiday mood. Unusually for me, this one is all killer and no filler, with the arguable exception of its opening track (I love it, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if other people disagree); it felt like a year to bring things into sharp focus with the classics, maybe. Anyway, for those who want two hours of holiday music, it’s right here for your Spotify ears. And what’s on it? Why, check out the screenshots below.

It strikes me that I should share that my 2024 playlist — which I’ve previously shared tracks from here and here — is now passed 150 songs. For those who’ve forgotten or never knew in the first place, it’s a playlist of songs that I’ve either discovered and become obsessed with, or simply recently remembered and become obsessed with, throughout the year. I update here everytime it tops another 50 entries, so here’s songs #s 101-150. (Yes, we’re above that already.)

You can find the actual playlist on Spotify here.

I feel that I am letting myself, and everyone else around me, down by not having more of a response to the news last week that Oasis is getting back together after… what, a decade or so…? Given the reaction that has been seen from the British media, and seemingly a fanbase that is shockingly devoted considering it’s been so long since the band were last together — and even longer since they were a meaningful force in pop culture in any real sense, let’s be honest — this is clearly A Pop Culture Moment, and yet, the most that I can honestly muster is, “Well, it was probably going to happen at some point, so sure.”

It really was an inevitability, after all; their Britpop contemporaries have all reunited at some point or another for varying degrees of lucrative nostalgia and/or creative impulses needing fulfilled. (Blur have done so twice, and had accompanying documentaries both times — as well as brand new albums, both of which were worthwhile endeavors and enjoyable, to boot.) Even the Stone Roses, that strange Mancunian north star that shone high above Oasis’s collective head for so much of their career, got back together for an ill-fated attempt a decade or so back. The idea that Oasis were really never going to do it always felt unrealistic. How could they not, when both Liam and Noel are so devoted to re-enacting rock history?

Maybe this is what the world needs to re-examine Oasis as a band, as opposed to… I don’t know: a cultural icon, or a bunch of sometimes funny, constantly mouthy dicks that occasionally put out some records. The common wisdom is that they were spectacular before burning out similarly spectacularly around their third album, and never recovering, but… that’s not really true on either end. There’s a story to be told where they were an okay band with some great songs, perpetually uneven, even when familiarity felt like a sign of quality… although whether or not that’ll be one told when a bunch of old men are on-stage failing to live up to everyone’s memory is anyone’s guess.

I was a fan, back in the day, and to some degree or another, I stayed one — or, at least, an interested bystander — all the way up until their split. They were never my band, but I was close enough to their epicenter to care all the way through the end. And now, maybe I’m the one missing out by not caring anymore. We’ll see what happens when (if?) the reunion gigs actually take place; perhaps I just need to spend some time in the soon-shee-iiiiiine again.

Man, it’s been awhile since I shared updates to the 2024 playlist. A reminder, because it has been awhile: these are songs that for the most part are new discoveries (but in some cases, are things I haven’t thought about in awhile, but recently resurfaced for whatever reason; see PJ Harvey’s “Wang Dang Doodle,” which I first heard something like 30 years ago) that I’ve become obsessed with in the last few months. I share updates every 50 entries, and you can listen to the playlist if you have Spotify right here.

I wrote about my 2023 playlist three separate times last year, and I’m doing it again this year. (That’s no surprise; even last year was the second time I did it.) The thinking behind it is simple: it’s songs that I’ve been obsessed with that I add to the playlist in real time. (Originally, it was primarily songs I’d discovered for the first time, but that’s slipped a little this time around with old favorites I’d forgotten and rediscovered entering the mix.) As I did last year, I’m sharing the playlist as it hits multiples of 50 entries, so here’s the first lot, and if you want to listen to it for yourself (Hi, Alex), you can do so right here.

I should have done this earlier in the month, but… I didn’t. Such is life. Anyway: here’s the tail end of my 2023 playlist, which I’ve earlier shared in a couple of posts last year in 50-song increments. The final 32 songs are here, added towards the end of the year. (The screenshots were taken in the closing days of the year, so the “1 week ago” added date for the last couple songs is really the end of December.)

The rule for the playlist was basically either that it was a new song that I’d just discovered, or one I already knew that I’d recently become obsessed with for some reason. The other rule was simple enough: one song per act. (I fudged that at least once, but shhh we won’t talk about that.) Two songs ended up being deleted off earlier posts: one of them because I got bored of it, another because I added an entirely different song by the same musician. Spot the difference!

You can find the actual playlist on Spotify here if the link works. And, yes, I’m already doing the same thing for 2024, because of course I am.

Little makes me feel that I’m in my 50th year on this planet as surveying the music scene and thinking to myself that I have almost no idea what the fuck is going on anymore.

This is, let’s be honest, the natural order of things: I’m 49 years old and therefore intended to be someone who should complain about whatever the kids are listening to these days and how it’s all just noise. That’s surely my role in pop culture at this point. But, as I look down the listings for upcoming concerts here in Portland, I’m struck by how uninspired and boring it all seems.

I don’t mean that in the sense of, who are all these whippersnappers with their newfangled sounds — if only that was the case! Instead, there are countless tours by bands that were around during, or worse, before “my time.” And those few new acts playing are described in ways that reference their predecessors in such reverent, glowing terms that they feel, if anything, even older.

I’m reminded of asking people what they were listening to during my UK trip in an attempt to find something new and unexpected. One friend excitedly told me about “the hottest act in the country right now” and how groundbreaking her music was, but upon exploration, it was banal pop sounds with someone’s confessional overlaid over, as if Olivia Rodrigo’s “bad idea right?” had been taken as a signpost by people who frown in photos because they think it makes them seem interesting. Worse yet, asking my teenage nephew — himself a musician — offered up a list of bands I’d listened to myself at his age.

(I’m referencing Olivia Rodrigo; does that make me contemporary? Am I secretly hip after all?)

My ears are restless, still, and seemingly more restless than other people’s. I scroll through apps and music reviews online, looking for things I’ve never heard before. It’s not novelty I’m looking for as such, but just something different. Maybe this is how it’s meant to be at this age, as well, but I kind of doubt it.