I wrote this little accompaniment to my playlist. You wrote up one for me for one of the ones you sent me a while back, which obviously was a really good idea, so now I'm shamelessly ripping it off. Plus, it keeps all my opinions in one place and makes them easier to save, if for whatever reason you want them to be saved.
I will definitely make more of these more frequently. One every almost 2 years is certainly not healthy. So, to make up for lost time, here's like 120 songs. So hot, they're sizzling. That should tie you over. Some are good, some are bad, some are great, some are wonderful, some you may like, and some are straight up just fucking weird. The attitude going into this was to grab as much shit as I could find from anywhere and throw it all at the wall - being your ears - to see what sticks. That's usually how I do things and I think it's an honest way to compose of a playlist. You see a little bit everything I like and look into. Hopefully you enjoy some of it. There's a handful I know you will.
Listen to it in any order you like. Usually I adhere to an album-like discipline to composing playlists - being, for example, the first song on it should grab your attention and the rest should carry it in one specific way or another - but that ethic was really only useful with mixtapes. Streaming has made that shit more or less obsolete with the ability to listen to whatever song at whatever time. But the first and last song on the playlist are very intentional, as you'll soon learn. Anyway, like i said before, feel free to go crazy with it.
I'll give you some background for each song:
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1. Timmyondabeat - Intro Rap
Inzane Johnny, AKA John Olson, puts out these Spotify playlists every Sunday called "SUNDAZE OLZONE". They're an absolute masterclass on playlist-making. Everything he puts on them are so out there and llaced perfectly. I loved them in high school. At the beginning of each one, he'd put a intro skit from a rap record, which I thought was brilliant.
2. The Dismemberment Plan - Survey Says
A Thirty-Three and a Third book argued this band and this record in particular, 1995's !, informed the dance-punk of early 2000s New York City (which I will talk about ad nauseam in this post) even though they were from D.C. I don't know how I feel about that, but I guess I can't argue with the science. The sound of this song feels like myself. I identify with its loud-quiet-loudness in my bones. I am this song, in my opinion.
3. The Frogs - I Don't Care If U Disrespect Me (Just so You Love Me)
The record this comes from, It's Only Right And Natural (1989), is one of Harmony Korine's favourites. The opening of the song was sampled in Beck - Where It's At. It's two straight Wisconsin brothers with a four-track singing as obnoxious gay stereotypes. It was originally intended as a joke that only their friends would see, but somehow got a relatively wide release and was cemented as a cult classic. All the grunge people, like Billy Corgan and Kelley Deal, loved it. Pat Robertson even took it completely seriously and denouced it as proof of Satan's influence at the ass-end of the Satanic Panic. Very cool stuff.
4. Karate - There Are Ghosts
This is one of those records where the members wrote the bulk of their discography in college, they toured a little, and broke up and went to grad school, never to record again. But, unlike so many college projects, magic happened with this one. The songwriting on this record is brilliant and the playing is surprisingly technical and jazzy. It's kind of sad and but rock-and-roll in a coy way, like a smirk with a cig wedged between its leather lips. This is the perfect introduction to this band. They're incredibly underrated.
5. Helvetia - Hybrid Moments
Helvetia is/was members of Duster but then based in Seattle. This was their cover of the Misfits song, made sweet and lo-fi, which in my opinion is how God intended it to be performed. Given the tape fuzz and the guitar tones, I could not believe this was recorded in the late 90s-early aughts being how it sounds like some new shit that would have blown up on Tik-Tok. It has some relation to me once expressing my desire to get drunk with you and Lucas in the first months we started talking again. I assume that was the imagery the song invoked in me.
