Happy birthday! These are 15 songs for your 18th year. There initially were 18, but I trimmed the fat for the 3 songs I removed were weak links to the other tracks. It's significantly shorter than So Hot...It Sizzles, but that's because I only chose songs that mean a lot to me (not to imply all the songs on Sizzles meant nothing to me). I chose the best for the best: you, Shutupwow. I hope this is sufficient. I hope at least one of them knocks it out of the park. They all did for me. But no single song could meet with how cool you are.
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1. LCD Soundsystem - All My Friends
This is the second LCD song I really grew to love. I remember laying on my couch when I was 12 before I would go to bed and imagine all the friends I would meet later on because I thought the song was about immediately befriending people. I thought the lyrics went "We are your friends tonight" instead of "Where are your friends tonight". It's really a song about missing your youth and the friends that made it, so if that isn't the song to begin a year like this, then I'm a dumbass. It's a slow burn, but it's so worth it. It's made to be screamed in a car, which I have done before.
2. Bonnie 'Prince' Billie - Coney Island
I think this is a cover song. I just started listening to this guy because he was involved in other stuff I like. This was the first song I listened to and it completely blew me away. I couldn't finish it on my first go because it's simply too much - it's too pretty. So, of course, I have to send it to you. I listened to it teary-eyed after we called the other night, which I feel like it was written for that occasion.
3. Billy Bragg & Wilco - One by One
The whitest band to ever grace the Windy City and some English folk-punker do a cover of an unreleased Woody Guthrie song. It's my favourite from their record full of them. I'd listen to it walking through the snow-dumped parks of Red Deer when quarantine began and I'd think of you with Jeff Tweedy singing about letters and longing. I've definitely shown you this before, but in case you haven't listened to it - which I think is the case - I implore you to check it out.
4. John Maus - Hey Moon
My favourite guy's biggest song. I used to wander empty cruise ship decks at 15 listening to this, staring at the giant moon above the Gulf of Mexico, missing my friends as they moved across the province. I now see the song as a great analogy for our calls.
5. Alex G - Break
An Alex Giannascoli-penned love song. I listened to it a lot during that week K--- went semi-missing for that one weekend in early July. It's earnest and grungey like being lovesick in flannel.
6. Galaxie 500 - Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste
This was the first slowcore outfit I ever truly loved. I would listen to them whenever I did shitty on PATs and just wanted to float away with their sound. It's a song for staring out the window of cars. It's a song for last-summer road trips. It's a song to want to.
7. Jeff Rosenstock - Ohio Tpke
This song can end a summer. It has always reminded me of you. There's a part toward the end that I "lip-sing" while smirking with my eyes closed in bed. I've quoted it before, but if you haven't got into it yet, here's your chance.
8. The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Fingertips
I listened to this for the first time while sick and painkiller-ed up. It's like if a kiss could serve as an Alcubierre drive. Listen to while happy and while the sky is bright and clear.
9. Swirlies - Sleepytime
I got really into Swirlies while I was sad and 16 in the thick of winter, feeling void in the back of minivans driving through evening-lit suburbs in December, dreaming of dream women. The scent of that time has ingrained itself in their songs. They are the sounds of longing, particularly teenaged longing, which I know is precisely your speed.
10. Skating Polly - Pretective Boy
I love this video and this song. It's the feeling of the playfulness of meeting someone strangely, of wandering outside wherever with them to find something greater, white boy-dancing dorkily in beats in between along the way. It's totally your thing. This whole band is.
11. Talking Heads - Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)
The first track on one of my favourite records ever. It feels like walking into the most surreal stage musical after you've just been diagnosed with cancer, which is like the kind of feelings I bring to it whenever I happen to listen to it. It's for truly breathing for the first time in a while.
12. Bomb The Music Industry! - Felt Just Like Vacation
I will play this song when we go home after we've completed the NAWT.
13. New Order - Age of Consent
I listened to this song in between watching Eric Andre the night I turned 16. It sounds like when someone reassures you more than they expect to, like how "Of course it's going to be okay" sounds when you don't tell that someone how much it's needed.
14. John Maus - Keep Pushing On
When I possibly felt the saddest I ever felt, this song got stuck in my head and got me back above water. It's kind of campy, but its low-fidelity makes it angelic like someone is singing to you while you're dissociating. Best listened to when you need a little bit of hope.
15. Sonic Youth - The Diamond Sea
This is possibly my favourite SY song ever, even more so than Teenage Riot perhaps. If time itself and the world within it ever looms too large over you, this song is one to sink into then. It's like Born Under Punches in that sense. It's 20 minutes, which is daunting, I know, but if you ever want to simply not think for a while as you're laying down in bed, play this. It's better than doomscrolling, trust me. You'll be cradled as you're levitating.
