Another week when I’m not terribly prepared to share a playlist of (mostly) new music. I’ve reached the point in the year when I start looking backwards and doing some tentative work on my Favorite Songs of the Year list. While there has been plenty of new music in the middle half of the year, and some of that music quite good, there’s clearly been a drop off from a very good start to the year. Obviously much of this is because of Covid and the lockdown. I wonder if the pace/quality of new music will begin to pickup as we get further away from the initial lockdown and more bands have had time to write/record music together.
Anyway, I put Spotify on shuffle this morning and this is what it spit out.
“Love Steals Us From Loneliness” – Idlewild
What a great band. They had such a good stretch in the early-to-mid ’00s and then kind of faded away.
“Bring The Noise” – Public Enemy
It has been far too long since I’ve listened to all of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. With the current state of our country, the album seems as relevant as ever.
“Sulk” – Radiohead
For all its many accolades, I believe The Bends is the great overlooked album in Radiohead’s catalog. Maybe I just say that because it is my favorite. A phenomenal straight rock album by a band who soon chose a very different path.
“The Boy In the Bubble” – Paul Simon
I love this song. And I know the lyrics. But until this morning I never realized Simon was mapping out territory that Radiohead would explore on OK Computer: that technology was overwhelming humans. The line “Staccato signals of constant information” is the one that really jumps out at me as an influence point for the general themes found on OK Computer.
“See A Little Light” – Bob Mould
Mould has a new album out today. Spotify wanted to make sure we all remembered that.
“Yellow Cotton Dress” – Wussy
“It becomes a motherfucker when you fill it out.” Amen, brother.