Good morning! Need an antidote for the algorithms? Looking for a place to share the music you love with like-minded people? You’re in the right spot.
As always, thank you to those who have recently upgraded their subscriptions over the last several days. Your direct support fuels this community and makes a positive impact. Shares and reposts also help!
When you’re ready, joining them is easy. Just click here:
For those of you who are new, we kick off every week by sharing what we’ve been playing.
The playlist below is some of what’s been in heavy rotation for me. I’m thinking about travel, but this week it’s more about being in the air than on the road. For those of us in aviation, this week kicks off the high season. Doubly so if you live in a college town, as the mass exodus of students for winter break starts now. Closer to home, one of my kids will be taking his first solo trip— he’s off to Florida for a rugby tournament. It’s a massive leap of faith on our part, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t also kinda excited for him.
On to the music:
Side A kicks off with us taking a trip to Oceania to hear The Beths. It’s about to be high season for AOTY lists, too, and their Straight Line Was a Lie is sure to be on a lot of ‘em. From there, we head to the Rose City for a brand-new one from Foamboy. Bonus points if you recognize where their artist pic on Spotify is from. Double points if you’ve been there. Hazel English is back with some dream pop goodness in “Gimme” (worth noting the video was shot at JFK’s TWA Hotel), and one of my top songs of the year in Tunde Adebimpe’s “Somebody New.” Before Side A is done, we hit everywhere from DC to Curitiba, Brazil! It’s quite an itinerary.
Side B: We start the 2nd half doing a little time travel to hear from Innovations, before coming back to catch Willowake, Smashing Pumpkins, and Preoccupation’s “Andromeda” (another of my faves of 2025). From there, we hop to Lawrence, Kansas, and a couple stops in Canada to check out Home Front and Arcade Fire, before returning to the Carolinas for Superchunk’s killer take on a Magnetic Fields classic, and winding things up with the track that recently got my vote for “best Pink Floyd song.” Run like Hell? During the frenzy that is holiday travel, you don’t have to be in a terminal too long to see someone doing it.
Are you going anywhere this week? If so, I’d love to hear where you‘re off to, even if it’s just across town.
Today we’re taking a quick look at the latest from Playland, Via, and SG Goodman.
Longtime readers may recall that I reviewed 100 new (to me) records last year. Because I’m a glutton for punishment love music, I’m doing it again this year. This is the latest in the series.
Good morning!
Today we’re taking a look at the latest from Playland, SG Goodman, and Via.
The boilerplate intro: Every year, I celebrate all the great music we’ve been gifted while worrying that next year will see the other shoe drop. I first did that in December 2020 and have been proven wrong every month since. Not only are there a ton of releases steadily coming out, but it also transcends genre or any other artificial guardrail we try to put up.
In other words, a ton of good stuff is still coming out, and there’s something for everyone. It’s almost overwhelming— but in all the best ways. These are another batch that caught my attention recently.
Hard to believe that it’s almost AOTY season, but here we are. I’ll be posting through it, discussing what’s on my list, what isn’t, how I try to winnow things down, etc., over the coming weeks.
In the meantime, the records keep coming. There are always a few that get in under the wire, and ones from earlier in the year that might’ve been missed. Below are a few quick field reports from right between the sound machine.
Let’s get into it!
Playland- Playland 2
Cover art courtesy of Smoking Room Records
A late contender to the AOTY discourse has entered the chat.
I don’t think Playland 2 is trying to make a grand statement, but it ends up feeling like one anyway. Songs like “Everyone in the Park Is in Love,” “Power Outage,” and “Interactions” have a jangly brightness — fans of labelmates Ex-Pilots will find a lot to love here — blended with a lo-fi glow that lets the melodies bloom. It’s music that feels familiar, even when you’re hearing it for the first time.
Tracks like “Luv Like That,” “I Don’t Want to Live Here Anymore,” and “Vanity” pick up the pace, and the guitars get a little fuzzier. There’s some serious humanity in these tracks — they sound like someone trying to sort out their thoughts in real time. It’s messy but sincere. It’s not “perfect” in the traditional sense, but that’s exactly why it works. It sounds like, you know, a person. It plays like an album made because someone had something to say and didn’t want to wait. And in an era of performative nonsense, that feels kinda rad.
Forty years on, Psychocandy is still cool enough to make you lie about loving it
Covert art courtesy of Reprise Records
Good morning!
Today, we’re taking a quick look at the Jesus and Mary Chain’s seminal 1985 album, Psychocandy.
The Gospel According to the Reid Brothers
In 1985, The Jesus and Mary Chain kept things simple: take catchy pop hooks and slather them with enough distortion to shake your teeth loose. Whether you call it a wall of sound or a wall of noise depends on your taste.
The Velvet Underground comparisons are cheap and come easy. You can hear some similarities, but it’s not as simple as critics made it out to be. There are some exceptions, like “Never Understand” or “You Trip Me Up,” and those rare times are when the band lets the melodies reflect their pop leanings.
“Just Like Honey” is still a fan favorite. In another world, maybe one of the girl groups that inspired the Reid brothers would’ve taken it to number one. The opening beat comes right from the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” and the song has a kind of neat, naive feel hidden under all the fuzz.
At the other end of the spectrum lies “In A Hole,” my fave track on the record. Here, JAMC goes all-in on their haunting, otherworldly sound, finding something unique. “In a Hole” feels like the ground has fallen out from under your feet with swirling feedback and a melody desperate to get away from itself. I’m a champion of the relatively softer sounds of Darklands and the surf rock pastiche of Barbed Wire Kisses, but for my money, the band is at its best when they sound like what you’d overhear on the elevator to purgatory.
My Take on Psychocandy
Look, my relationship with Psychocandy has always been complicated. This is one of those records you’re supposed to love. And I get it. The noise is great. That it’s a one-of-a-kind record is also not up for debate, and its influence can be seen in the sounds of countless bands that followed in its wake. It is sui generis for noise rock- and if you squint and lean in toward the speakers, maybe shoegaze too.
The pop instincts are there, but aren’t as strong as people say….yet. This becomes especially apparent with the benefit of hindsight and hearing the band’s later work. If you take away the haze (and volume), there aren’t that many truly solid melodies. What remains is mostly a mood, and a dour one at that, with the band settling into hypnotic, almost ritual-like patterns. I’m mindful this is a minority opinion and heresy in some circles. That leaves the uncomfortable question of how justified that deep admiration really is..
To me, the album feels like a hipster relic: cool, distant, and overloaded with static. It reminds me of the impossibly cool kids at my school and how I liked their style more than anything else (do Ray Bans really ever go out of style?).
Don’t get me wrong; I like that static, and you can never have too much distortion. And I’ll listen to tracks like “In A Hole” “Sowing Seeds” and “Taste of Cindy” whenever, but really need to be in the mood for the rest of the record. I don’t buy the idea that the Jesus and Mary Chain were some sort of second coming of the Shangri-Las, Ronettes, etc, or that this record is the be-all end-all of their discography. That kind of pop magic only happens once.
Listen to Psychocandy via: Qobuz | Apple Music | Spotify (album not available on YouTube Music)
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the record! Did I get it right, or am I way off the mark?
Good morning! Need an antidote for the algorithms? Looking for a place to share the music you love with like-minded people? You’re in the right spot.
As always, thank you to those who have recently upgraded their subscriptions over the last several days. Your direct support fuels this community and makes a positive impact. Shares and reposts also help!
When you’re ready, joining them is easy. Just click here:
On to the music:
For those of you who are new, we kick off every week by sharing what we’ve been playing.
The playlist below is some of what’s been in heavy rotation for me. Maybe it’s the changing weather, or just wanderlust creeping in, but I’ve been thinking a lot about road trips lately. If you know me in IRL, you know this is an exercise in contrasts; I hate to drive, but love the open road. I contain multitudes, I guess. I dunno. Mostly, I just like seeing new places, especially in the part of the world I now call home.
Side A kicks off with a group that reminds me of a trip I took with my family down the length of I-5 as a kid. YGSF still reminds me of Southern California and AM Gold. They also remind me of an old friend. He’s no longer with us, but what they taught me- that music discovery is possible in the digital age- still very much is. From there, it’s a quick stop back in the Dairyland before a little globetrotting with Kinky and RBCF, then back to I-5 for a bit of the Dead. Side one winds out with a new one from our pals at Big Stir Records, a trip to the Great Lakes and Ex-Pilots, a fave from the Steel City. They’ve been teasing some new stuff, and I can’t wait.
Side B: We start the 2nd half the way we ended the first, with some stuff from the Smoking Room label, and new ones from Preoccupations and Lane. Cate Le Bon shows up again (what a great record!) before coming back to Madison for the latest from our friends in Spiral ISland. Then we turn the car around and head south to visit The Best around, and check out the latest from The Mountain Goats’ concept record. The record ends with my favorite track from one of my favorite bands. The record turns 40 tomorrow. Oof. Everything’s alright when you’re down, and time flies when you‘re having fun.
Today we’re taking a quick look at the latest from Great Lakes, Mavis Staples, and Lush.
Longtime readers may recall that I reviewed 100 new (to me) records last year. Because I’m a glutton for punishment love music, I’m doing it again this year. This is the latest in the series.
Good morning!
Today we’re taking a look at the latest from Great Lakes mavis Staples, and Lush.
The boilerplate intro: Every year, I celebrate all the great music we’ve been gifted while worrying that next year will see the other shoe drop. I first did that in December 2020 and have been proven wrong every month since. Not only are there a ton of releases steadily coming out, but it also transcends genre or any other artificial guardrail we try to put up.
In other words, a ton of good stuff is still coming out, and there’s something for everyone. It’s almost overwhelming— but in all the best ways. These are another batch that caught my attention recently.
Hard to believe that it’s almost AOTY season, but here we are. I’ll be posting through it, discussing what’s on my list, what isn’t, how I try to winnow things down, etc., over the coming weeks.
In the meantime, the records keep coming. There are always a few that get in under the wire, and ones from earlier in the year that might’ve been missed. Below are a few quick field reports from right between the sound machine.
Let’s get into it!
Great Lakes- Don’t Swim Too Close
Cover art courtesy of Elephant 6/HHBTM Records
Fair warning: I’m gonna go full “suburban dad” here. I don’t know what it is about hitting middle age, but this brand of cynical Americana has really started resonating with me in the last 4–5 years. It’s a sound that feels as lived-in and comfy as my worn-out Sambas and favorite pair of cargo shorts (I know! I know!). I’m not quite in sad-dad territory, but I can see it on the horizon. Distilled down, it feels relatable.
Frontman Ben Crum is wrestling with a lot of the same things we all are right now, noting:
Releasing music right now feels a bit like fiddling while Rome burns. While my new Great Lakes album, ‘Don’t Swim Too Close,’ is a personal and inward-focused record, once it was finished I was surprised to realize it also feels like a slow-burn meditation on whatever it is America means.
Same, Ben. SAME.
Of course, it helps that the record is good. After eight records and 25 years, Crum knows his way around a lyric and writes the sort that tell entire stories in a paragraph. These are character-driven tales that make you wince and smirk in equal measure. And even when the words get heavy, the music is there to lighten things up. The title track will get you moving… and it’s about him suffering a concussion.
I wrote it while recovering from a severe concussion that left me depressed and questioning my future. I honestly didn’t know if I was going to come back from it, and it scared me. Luckily, I did get better, and the song ended up being an ironically uplifting country/rock toe-tapper, with heavy lyrics (“I was feeling hopeless, but also helpless and alone / and more than a little dangerous to my soul”) set to a groove reminiscent of Doug Sahm, Jerry Jeff Walker, or CCR.
It’s worth repeating that while it may be topically heavy, this isn’t a bleak record. On the contrary, the irony and dark humor make a good thing better. As a Gen Xer, being a fan of irony isn’t a learned behavior; it’s encoded in our DNA. More so, it makes for a compelling listen, whether he’s singing about klaxon horns (“Another Klaxon Sounds”), or regret and anxiety (“Like an Open Grave”), or sharing so much of your idea for a book that you no longer want to actually write it (“On the Way Back”).
Something tells me, though, that we’ll hear more writing from Crum. At least I hope so. The band seems to be only getting better with age. It probably won’t be anything about cargo shorts, though…
I’m not sure I could tell you when I first heard Mavis Staples, though the smart money says it was likely as a kid, hearing her perform something like “I’ll Take You There” with her dad and siblings in the Staple Singers. Her voice is unmistakable, but there’s always been a current of determination, resolve, and hope. Whether it was the lot of them singing “The Weight” along with The Band in the Last Waltz or her take on Talking Heads’ “Slippery People” (TK LINK), her raspy voice has been soothing and consistent in a world of constant change.
And that hasn’t changed on “Sad and Beautiful World,” Staples’ latest. The record is 10 tracks- 9 covers and 1 original. Of course, Staples takes the 9 and makes them all her own, as only she can. I mean, who else could cover Tom Waits’ “Chicago” and make it sound smoother without sanding off any of the edges? No one, that’s who. It doesn’t hurt that Derek Trucks is here, along with Buddy Guy. Waits’ purists may want to skip it, but I hope you don’t; it’s chugs right along and is worth every note.
The title track was penned by Mark Linkous (RIP), and I’ll bet it’s gonna sound incredible live. Other tracks include her take on Frank Ocean’s “God Speed,” Curtis Mayfield’s “We’ve Got to Have Peace,” and the Hozier and Allison Russell-penned “Human Mind.”
The guest list reads like a who’s who of in-demand talent: Kevin Morby, Nathaniel Rateliff, Patterson Hood, and Bonnie Raitt, among others. As per federal law, MJ Lenderman also makes a guest appearance.
Producer Brad Cook does well to bring—and keep—the focus on Staples’ voice. With a roster like this, it could’ve been easy for her to get crowded out. Instead, we get some of her best work (a high vbar to be sure!), and a gorgeous record that perfectly meets the moment from someone who’s been lighting the way for decades.
Lush is forever linked with cassette tapes in my mind—or, more specifically, J-cards. In 1990, if I wasn’t listening to this on the original, I was scrawling the titles on one of the many mixtapes I included tracks like “De-Luxe,” “Down,” and “Bitter” on. These were my faves- and the titles were mercifully short. Lush was a band I was eager to share with anyone who would listen. Even the record itself is a mixtape compilation comprising the mini-album Scar, and Mad Love and Sweetness and Light EPs.
A few lifetimes later, a lot has changed. For one thing, I’m streaming an advance copy of the record online for something called a “newsletter” on a website called “Substack.” 15-year-old me would not recognize a thing in that sentence.
50 year old me recognizes a few; in the early 90s, record label 4AD never missed. That still seems to be true. The three tracks I shared so many times in high school are still the ones I’d encourage you to check out today, and I’d add “Second Sight” to the list. The harmonies of Emma Anderson and Miki Berenyi haven’t aged a day and sound better than ever here. This is a shoegaze record, but, with apologies to Kevin Shields, their sound is much sunnier and leans closer to pop than MBV. This is a genre that traffics in the abstract, but while MBV might be a blurred picture of red hues, Gala is one of yellows. It felt like a ray of sun in my teens and doubly so today.
Thankfully, no one will be subjected to my trying to squish some scrawl on a J-card, but there will be playlists. Many playlists. My handwriting may have gotten even worse, but somehow Gala has only improved.
Good morning! Need an antidote for the algorithms? Looking for a place to share the music you love with like-minded people? You’re in the right spot.
As always, thank you to those who have recently upgraded their subscriptions over the last several days. Your direct support fuels this community and makes a positive impact. Shares and reposts also help!
When you’re ready, joining them is easy. Just click here:
For those of you who are new, we kick off every week by sharing what we’ve been playing.
The playlist below is some of what’s been in heavy rotation for me. This week kicks off an all-timer from San Fran’s Faith No More that sounds as good at 36 as it did on day one. We should all be so lucky! From there, we’re off to the Steel City for one from Ex-Pilots. They’ve got a new, limited-run release on the way, so keep an eye out for that! We’ve also got a cool take on an R.E.M. standby (a cover of a cover, if you will), and since it’s AOTY season, one from one of my top 10 of last year. We also head back to the Bay Area for a track I once eloquently described as an “absolute banger,” and a brand new one from Mountain Goats. The latest from Great Lakes (a 2025 AOTY short lister) rounds things out.
Side B: As some of you know, I was home in Oregon for a Ducks football game a couple of weeks ago. The team did a great tie-in with the Grateful Dead, and that sparked a re-listen of a few of their records for me, both on the way back and once I was home. From there. It’s a 1-2 punch from the Crutchfield sisters & MJ Lenderman—what our friend Matt Ziegler describes as a “sonic hydra”— before moving to Throwing Muses.
The home stretch is a mix of sonic comfort food and songs new enough to still have the window stickers on ‘em, featuring tracks from Smashing Pumpkins, Nightbus, and Of House.
It was premature, but it felt like a corner had turned. It has, but it also turns out that they’re hardy creatures. Someone’ll need to keep the cockroaches company post-nuclear apocalypse, I guess. Part of their insidiousness is the way they change form. We’ve all had a run-in with the “name 3 songs” dorks and the boomer who will regard your disregard for Dylan as a war crime. They’re easy to spot and fun to laugh at.
But once you leave them in the dust, you meet the final boss, the “there’s no good new music anymore” guy. Guys like this:
It’s just 3 “name three songs” guys in a trench goat. And kudos to Gabbie for calling it out.
Here’s the deal:
There’s nothing worth feeling overwhelmed. An unholy number of songs are released every day. It’s reasonable to think you don’t have enough time to check out everything being released (that’s where I come in!). It’s also totally okay to like stuff from your youth (see also: Kevin & New Order). It’s science. But to frame discovery as a sort of loser behavior is mind-boggling. That’s some next-level fixed mindset happening!
It also misses a crucial point; “new” can also really just mean “new to you.” Any doubts I had evaporated over the summer listening to records as part of The Best Record of ‘89 bracket challenge. These are obviously 36-year-old records, but I was hearing several of them for the first time. And take your favorite band: odds are good you found them in high school or college. Now imagine someone hearing them for the first time. Today. The truth? That’s probably happening somewhere in the world as you read this.
The best solution for folks like this is to offer them an off-ramp, and that‘s what this is. New doesn’t have to mean chronologically recent. It can just mean hearing it with fresh ears. Some people are too far gone to get it, but for others, there’s still hope.
The first step is to hand ‘em a copy of Technique.
The indie pop band stops by to talk about their latest record, what we should know about the Louisville scene, and what’s next.
Good morning!
We’re in for a treat today; Louisville’s Second Story Man stops by to talk about their latest record, how it came to be, and what’s coming next.
The pitch: A Louisville band forms in the late 90s, and over the course of the next few years, puts out several EPs and a long player. The next several years see another couple of LPs—and a comparison to Jawbreaker (!)—and more than a couple of lineup changes.
In a mark of incredible timing, the band started recording a new record in… 2020. COVID had other plans, and between that and real life, the record took five years to come to fruition. But all good things come to those who wait, and ‘Calico’ is proof positive.
With this record, we made a conscious effort to embrace simplicity, to not overthink, and to accept imperfections. The instruments were all recorded live with no punching in allowed.
~Carrie Neumayer
Having retroactively gone back through the band’s discography, I can say that this record is a delight. Any vestigial line to Jawbreaker has been erased, replaced by a (slightly) refined sound. The best groups evolve over time, and this is no exception. And it’s a sound that really can only come from the chemistry that comes from playing together for years. If you like punchy, well-built indie pop, Calico is for you. We’ve already seen a couple of tracks featured on the weekly playlists; now the entire record is available.
I recently had a chance to chat with the band via email. In our wide-ranging discussion, we talked about where the band has been and what’s coming next. Our chat has only been lightly edited for grammar and flow.
KA—
Congrats on the new record! For those that might not know, can you walk us through the backstory of how this project came together? Carrie: Thanks! We started writing these songs sometime around 2017/2018 and finally got into the studio to record them in March 2020 with our friend Anne Gauthier. Then the world shut down, and so did we! I ended up going back to school and made a career change, Jeremy became a father, Drew was raising a young child, we grieved some very significant losses, and we all just kind of focused on other aspects of our lives until last yea,r when we decided that the record was worthy of seeing the light of day. We are extremely grateful to our longtime friends at Noise Pollution Record,s who believed in it and offered to put it out.
A previous review described the band as “…a female fronted Jawbreaker, with angular-gang-vocals in the style of Sleater-Kinney and bittersweet noise a la Superchunk for good measure.” That’s a lot to unpack, but more than anything else: Is that an accurate take?
Carrie: I think most long-term relationships inherently have many deaths and rebirths. That’s certainly been true for Second Story Man. We’ve reinvented our sound many times, so I don’t think that description accurately captures our 27 years of creative partnership. We’ve always aimed to make something that is uniquely us. Also, Evan and I sing equally on this album, so “female-fronted” is only half true!
Photo courtesy of Noise Pollution Records
Doubling clicking on that, this is the first record in several years. How is Calico different from the earlier albums?
Carrie: I had a realization recently that before this record, I’d held onto a belief that if I wasn’t singing and playing guitar at the same time 100% of the time, then I wasn’t working hard enough. So silly! With this record, we made a conscious effort to embrace simplicity, to not overthink, and to accept imperfections. The instruments were all recorded live with no punching in allowed. In our past albums, we were much more maximalist (and neurotic!)
Louisville is a place a lot of people might not be familiar with. What should we know about the city? What’s the scene like there?
Carrie: All four of us were born and raised in Louisville. Our drummer Drew and I even went to first grade together! Louisville is not quite southern and not quite northern. It’s a small city/big town. It lives in the in-between. I think the Ohio River plays a big role in the collective unconscious and shows up a lot in the music that gets made here in ways that are difficult to put into words. The scene is both robust and fragmented— there are multiple scenes, many of which do not overlap. For example, the Black gospel music scene in Louisville is legendary. There’s a thriving intergenerational hardcore/punk scene that can draw like 800 people to some of its shows! Then there’s the ever-evolving indie/art rock scene that all of us grew up in. It has splintered out in a lot of directions over time but has always had a moody, dynamic, cerebral, psych/experimental sort of flavor (e.g. Slint, Rodan, Rachel’s, Shipping News, Evergreen, Parlour, Wombo, and a hundred others I could name here) or channeled that sensibility through more of a literary and folk/country lens (e.g. Will Oldham, Catherine Irwin, Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band, Grace Rogers, etc.) The older I get, the more deeply I appreciate what we’ve got here.
For anyone new to Second Story Man, what’s the one thing you hope they walk away with?
Evan: Our record!
What’s next for the band? What do the next 6-9 months look like?
Carrie: Our plan is to take things one day at a time. We all work full-time, and Jeremy and Drew are parents, so finding time to do things the way we did when we were in our 20s isn’t possible! It sure would be fun to try to get out of town and play some shows. We’ll see!
Last one, just for fun; I bump into you as you walk out of the record store. What records are you carrying?
Carrie: The most recent records by current artists that I’ve enjoyed have been Grace Rogers’ “Mad Dogs”, Michael Beach’s “Big Black Plume” Idle Ray’s “Even in the Spring”, and S.G. Goodman’s “Planting by the Signs”
Jeremy: Some recent favorites have been Ghost Woman’s S/T album, Wand’s “1000 Days”, and Richard Swift’s “Walt Wolfman”
Drew: I’ve been listening to Tangerine Dream’s “Thief” soundtrack, the “K Pop Demonhunters” soundtrack, and covers by The Middle Age Dad Jam Band.
Good morning! Need an antidote for the algorithms? Looking for a place to share the music you love with like-minded people? You’re in the right spot.
As always, thank you to those who upgraded their subscriptions over the last several days. Your direct support fuels this community and makes a positive impact. Shares and reposts also help!
When you’re ready, joining them is easy. Just click here:
On to the music:
For those of you who are new, we kick off every week by sharing what we’ve been playing.
The playlist below is some of what I’ve had in heavy rotation. And welcome to November. Hard to believe 2025 is already rounding third and heading for home, but here we are. Is it obvious that I’ve still got baseball on my brain? Trust your gut. Someday—in like, 10 years—I might be able to enjoy last night’s Game 7. Not yet, though. If you’re a Dodger fan, enjoy your time in the sun! You’ve earned it. To everyone else: spring’s comin’!
Anyway, like last week, this week’s listening cleaves closer to the fall weather than anything. Acapulco Lips are back to kick things off, followed by a 1–2 punch of fresh tracks from Joyer and The Convenience, before going back in time. Can you name-check the ’80s sitcom that referenced Scritti Politti in an episode and why it might (or how?) be relevant to the paragraph above?
Side B takes us to the Windy City and a new one from Ratboys. It’s a good day any time they gift us some new sounds! We’ve also got one from Cate Le Bon, thanks to Austin Kleon talking it up in a guest post for Jacqui Devaney . You never know where a new favorite might come from! This side also overindexes on sonic comfort food with The Fall, JAMC, and my all-time fave GBV track. They have a brand-new one out as well—because of course they do—but I haven’t had a chance to hear it yet.
“A clown is a coronary in a wig waiting to happen. “ ~ Sheila Moeschen
Good morning!
Today we’re diving into the sounds of the season. Spooky Szn, that is.
It’s Spooky szn y’all!
It’s October, and that means a season of ghouls and zombies. It also means pumpkin spice everything, and if you’re in a “battleground state” like I am, some years it means the torture of nonstop political attack ads that often run back-to-back-to-back. This is an off year, so we’ve mostly been spared, but all of this is its own horror show (waves hands around).
I don’t know about you, but I think I’d take the zombies if given a choice.
There are often certain conventions attached to holiday playlists.
For example, on Thanksgiving, there really can only be one song. With Christmas, people usually have their own lines drawn in the sand:
Traditional vs. non-traditional…
Religion-themed vs laic…
What’s the earliest allowable date to hear Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You…”
And so on…
Instagram photo courtesy of SW Lauden
Halloween lists don’t generally bend to those same orthodoxies.
Maybe it’s because so many of us associate the day with the same themes. It’s not a consumption vs. family debate. It’s trick-or-treating and bad movies. And if you live where I do, there’s the annual angst surrounding whether or not it’ll snow.
In other words, anything goes, as long as it can be loosely tied to the day.
There are plenty of standards, a few curveballs, and at least one legit jump scare in here…and hopefully a new favorite (or two) to add to your mixes!
What’re your favorite tracks to play on Halloween? Any tracks that should be on here? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks for being here,
KA—
The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Halloween Playlist:
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