Friday Playlist

A funny thing happened as I began putting this week’s list together. I noticed a common thread through many of the songs in my working pile of music. So that led me in a slightly different direction than I had planned. See if you can figure out what these songs all share.

“Magic” – The Cars
A song better suited for early summer, but I hadn’t gotten to it yet this year and this seemed like the perfect week to squeeze it in.

“Dreams” – Jade Bird
The slightest hint of country in her voice, also bumping up against Brandie Carlisle territory. Nothing wrong about any of this.

“Dissolve” – Glimmer
At Stereogum, Tom Breihan described this band as having a “fuzzed out take on early Foo Fighters.” You can hear a bit of “Everlong” in this track, for sure.

“Girls” – King Princess
At first listen, this song is sexy as hell. Once you pay attention to the lyrics, though, you realize there is a lot more going on, and none of it very comfortable. Certainly not sexy.

“Drawbacks” – dust
Proper post-punk from Australia.

“Float” – Jay Som & Jim Adkins
On their first new album in six years, Jay Som brought in several collaborators. Here Jimmy Eat World’s Adkins is the guest. The video for “Float” has some callbacks to JEW’s classic “The Middle.”

“Mind” – Golden Apples
Golden Apples are generally thrown into the shoegaze revival camp. This song? It sounds way more like it drew inspiration from Lou Reed and Bob Dylan.

“Beg” – SPRINTS
SPRINTS making SPRINTS music.

“august” – Taylor Swift
T-Swift has been awfully quiet for quite some time. Which is weird for someone who loves the public eye. Maybe she’s decided to let other artists suck up all the attention she used to demand and is living a life of peace and solitude.

I kid, of course.

“Oceans” – Pearl Jam
My little twist on this week’s playlist wasn’t that clever. At some point I noticed I had four or five tracks with single-word titles in the queue, so I decided to stick with that theme for the rest of the list. Which, naturally, made me think of Pearl Jam and how they were famous for doing that across most of their early albums. They made fun of themselves for this by naming a song “Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town.”

This stunning performance kicked off their MTV Unplugged episode. If you weren’t sure about the band’s chops based on the early singles in 1992, this song had to win you over.