I’m still transitioning out of the long stretch at the end of each year where I listen to holiday music, I put the finishing touches on my Favorite Songs of the Year list, and I’m generally too busy to listen to new music. So this week’s list begins with a few new(ish) tracks then pick up some other things I’ve read about/listened to. As I look at it, it’s kind of a bummer playlist. I apologize for that, but it is bound to happen on cold, dark mornings in January.

“End Transmission” – Home Front
This would probably fit a little better on the last playlist of the year instead of the first. Regardless, another post-punk gem by these kids.

“For Anyone And You” – Mo Dotti
Stereogum said this is My Bloody Valentine’s “Only Shallow” if it were a Sundays song. That’s a great description.

“Freak Accident” – Al Menne
A truly beautiful song about realizing much of the world thinks you are ugly because of how you identify.

“Winter Depression” – Ondara
And here’s a pretty song about being bummed out by the worst part of the year.

“New Year’s Reprieve” – Bad Moves
Bad Moves wrote this song with the idea of making a New Year’s song that is not optimistic. They explore how the lows in life seem a little lower when we flip the calendar to January.

“Sour Times” – Portishead
I listened to the Portishead “Glory Box” edition of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s earlier this week. This was the first Portishead track I – like most Americans – heard. It is one of those handful of songs in my life that genuinely thrilled me because I had never heard anything like it before. I had yet to hear any Massive Attack, so knew nothing of the British Trip Hop movement. The combination of down-tempo, jazzy orchestration with hip hop beats was a shocking contrast to everything else on alternative radio at the time. And Beth Gibbons’ unearthly vocals could not have been more different than the standard alt-rock leads. A brilliant song.

“Cuts You Up” – Peter Murphy
We close with two songs that have appeared in The Alternative Number Ones in recent weeks. Tom Breihan wrote about this classic three weeks ago. It topped the chart for seven weeks in early 1990. I remember hearing it often on KLZR in Lawrence, which was strange because The Lazer had not transitioned into an alt-rock station yet and still aired an eclectic mix from a national, satellite network. This near-perfect track stood out from the other rock-pop they played. I’m still not sure how it ended up in that playlist but am thankful I heard it in its moment, as it laid an important seed for my own transition to alt-rock a couple years later.

“The Unguarded Moment” – The Church
This week’s Alt Number Ones entry was The Church’s “Metropolis,” the 1990 follow-up to their massive, majestic, unassailable classic “Under The Milky Way.” As he always does, Breihan traced the band’s entire history and picked this out as one of the better tracks in their early catalog. I was pretty familiar with The Church’s music from, say, ’87 to ’93. But this track, originally from 1981, was brand new to me and is terrific.

“I Am A Patriot” – Pearl Jam covering Little Steven

(Piss. I forgot PJ videos are limited to being viewed on YouTube. Please follow the link to watch.)

Well, here we are in 2024, which promises to be a truly awful year. Seriously, if you think 2020/21 was bad, wait until you see what the right wing lunatic fringe has in store for us over the next twelve months! My nights are already getting ruined by the ads filled with conservative boogeymen the candidates for governor here in Indiana are flooding TV with. China! Immigrants! Trans people! If only an “outsider” – who went to an exclusive, private university then an Ivy League business school and has spent a decade in Washington – would save us!

I first heard Pearl Jam’s fast version of this track in that 2018 Seattle show I watched last week. I think I prefer it to their slower version. This video cuts off the beginning but you don’t miss much. Hopefully truth, democracy, and true patriotism will prevail this year, although I wouldn’t bet my lifetime savings on it.