Our monthly discussion is later today, and this time there’s a twist…
Hi everyone —
Our monthly Riff community meet-up is today, and this one’s always a favorite: we’ll be sharing our top songs of the year and holiday picks. It’s low-key, fun, and a great way to discover new music you may have missed.
Everyone is welcome, and you’re free to share as much or as little as you like. You can keep your camera and mic off if you prefer.
Who: The Riff Community (that’s you!) What: Sharing and discussing our favorite tracks of 2025 & holiday faves When: Sunday, December 7th, starting at 4 PM Eastern Where:Zoom ID: 84599662582 Passcode: 93$.%cTD Why: Because discovering music together is just more fun.
Feel free to share widely! The more the merrier. Here’s a Friend Link you can use.
AOTY season kicks off with an all killer/no filler roundup of some of the year’s most noteworthy releases.
Good Morning!
Today we’re kicking off a 3- part series spotlighting the best releases 2025 had to offer.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Welcome to AOTY season.
It’s no secret that I believe hearing the right album at the right time can change your life. I could point to plenty of examples — and odds are good you can too — but the point is simple: music sticks when it meets you where you are.
I know I sound like a broken record (heh), but 2025 was once again an incredible time to be a music fan. The big station in your town might’ve been filling the airwaves with empty calories, but on the other end of the dial (and online), it was a completely different story. New artists were showing up daily. Older artists were too. Geese put out a great record, Goose put out a bunch.
It’s worth noting that in 2025, we saw releases from Madonna, Mekons, and 7 Seconds, plus live sets from Hüsker Dü and the Dream Syndicate. That doesn’t even touch the loads of reissues we were gifted this year (Lush, Unrest, etc.). Madge has a new record slated for 2026, and odds are good it’ll be on more than a few lists next December. Bob Mould’s still making records too — great news for music fans and hearing-aid manufacturers alike.
Part of what made this year interesting for me personally was a side project: I spent a good chunk of the year (re)listening to records from 1989 as part of a bracket challenge, and De La Soul’s 3 Feet High and Rising made the final four. Their Cabin in the Sky came out less than four weeks ago — and IMO, it’s some of the best work they’ve ever put out. The only reason it’s showing up here today is that it’s so new (note on that below). The more things change…
Growing up, the “best of” lists were both easy to find and incredibly monolithic — self-appointed tastemakers dictated what we heard on the radio, and that was that. Light work, but homogenized. Consumption was a collective experience. If you want to figure out someone’s age, ask about AT40 or name-drop Rick Dees. The reaction will tell you everything. That’s obviously no longer the case, though looking at some early lists, you’d be excused for thinking otherwise. After working through a bunch, I saw the same titles cropping up again and again.
It’s not that I think those records are bad. I just know there are hundreds of others worth your attention. As I read each of these, I kept thinking, where are the rest?
And that’s where lists like this come in.
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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. Winter finally hit here in America’s Dairyland, and we’re up to about 9” of snow and counting as I type this, with no sign of letting up. It also happens to be the week that Sirius XM is turned on for everyone. For me, the biggest threat on the road isn’t that first snow or ice; it’s First Wave, SiriusXMU, Smokey’s Soul Town all calling for my attention. I can steer into a skid without thinking about it. Taking my eyes off the dial is something else entirely. Existential threats aside, it’s largely influenced what I’ve been listening to this week. Songs I heard on there led to rabbit holes which led back to…the car radio. And so it goes. I’ve also been (re) listening to a lot of 2025 releases ahead of Steve GoldbergJami SmithSam Colt and I putting our annual AOTY lists together. Hopefully, you caught our preview of that, where we looked at the best of the 2020s (so far). If not, please check it out!
On to the music:
Side A: We kick things off easy with a little Billie Marten before heading to the best state in the union for the slinky grooves and sunny vibes of the Rose City band. From there, a quick stop in Philly for some killer power pop from
The Tisburys and over to the pond for a little Stereolab, some grapes of Grain, and a band called New Order. Not for nothing, Jamie Ward put together an awesome Stereolab playlist, which you can listen to here. Side one ends with two all-time classics from B.A.D. and The Tubes.
Side B: We start the 2nd half right here in Madison with some Spooner, and then going back to New Pornographers’ Electric Version, a little Dramarama, J Brekkie’s Diving Woman (which always reminds me of predawn commutes in the winter), and a dose of Destroyer. That’s followed with a little PJ, some Paul Weller, and Saint Etienne. I love this record, but have to admit I’m a little bummed this is gonna be the last one! More 2025 releases from Hayley Williams and Ninajirachi, and a little bit of BR-549 before winding things up with ORR faves Winged Wheel.
Do you make any end-of-year lists? If so, have you started putting them together?
Four writers. Zero consensus. Forty-plus albums that defined indie, post-punk, and everything in between—ranked, argued over, and ready for your queue.
Good morning!
Today we’re taking a quick look at the best records of 2020-2024.
Narrowing down a favorite anything can be tough. It’s much easier to overdeliver and give someone a list of 5 or even 10 top picks. And even that can be fraught. Are these objectively the best, or are they your favorites? Maybe a blend of both? And are you sharing something truly worthwhile — a nudge in the right direction — or have you just given the other person homework?
There’s also a line of thinking that you shouldn’t do these sorts of lists at all — much better to, say, group by genre or list by release date. And to that I say… fair point. But I should be clear here: I love lists — especially when it comes to music. Every music writer is really just three Rob Gordons in a trench coat, and I think (hope?) people like reading them.
If you’re looking for breakdowns on drop tuning, chord changes, or whatever, I’m not your guy, but that’s not usually why people check top 100 or best-of lists anyway. A few are there for the rage bait & hate reads; the rest are there for the recommendations without having to sift through 4000 releases a year.
In other words, they’re trying to avoid a homework assignment.
The first half of the 2020s gave us no shortage of unforgettable albums, from indie and post-punk to genre-crossing experiments. If you’re searching for the best records of the decade so far, consider this your cheat sheet.
For the past couple of years, Sam ColtSteve GoldbergJami Smith and I have put together our annual favorites. There’s not a lot of overlap in taste—or any other demographic—and that’s what keeps this so fun.
We’ll be doing it again this year, so please keep an eye out! In the interim, we wanted to tee things up by taking a quick look at our faves of the decade so far. A fool’s errand? Maybe, but why not?
Consider it the music writing equivalent of a recap or clip show, only this is the lead-in to 2025’s best-of, and not a “very special” episode of your favorite TV series.
Meet the Contributors
Jami Smith—Author of Songs That Saved Your Life, exploring overlooked queer perspectives in music. Her work has appeared in The Advocate and Out Traveler.
Jami’s List:
St. Vincent – Pay Your way in Pain (2021)
Dua Lipa – FutureNostalgia (2020)
Run the Jewels – RTJ4 (2020)
Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg (2021)
Doechii – Alligator Bites Never Heal (2024)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Cool It Down (2022)
Janelle Monae – Age of Pleasure (2023)
Beyonce – Renaissance (2022)
Brittany Howard – What Now (2024)
Cimafunk’s El Alimento (2021)
Sam Colt—Recovering copywriter and author of This Is A Newsletter!—a consistently hilarious, biting chronicle of modern life and its indignities.
Sam’s List:
Alfredo — Freddie Gibbs & The Alchemist (2020)
Promises — Floating Points, Pharaoh Sanders & the London Symphony Orchestra (2021)
Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You — Big Thief (2022)
Blue Rev — Alvvays (2022)
Cave World — Viagra Boys (2022)
SCARING THE HOES — Danny Brown & JPEGMAFIA (2023)
3D Country — Geese (2023)
“NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD” — Godspeed You! Black Emperor (2024)
No Name — Jack White (2024)
Imaginal Disk — Magdalena Bay (2024)
Steve Goldberg—Writes Earworms and Songloops, weaving personal essays with the songs that lodge themselves in your brain.
Fantastic Negrito — Have You Lost Your Mind Yet? (2020)
Silk Sonic — An Evening with Silk Sonic (2021)
Arooj Aftab — Vulture Prince (2021)
Sloan — Steady (2022)
Weyes Blood — And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow (2022)
Corey Hanson — Western Cum (2023)
King Gizzard — Petrodragonic Apocalypse (2023)
Cowboy Sadness — Selected Jambient Works Vol. 1 (2024)
Storefront Church — Ink and Oil (2024)
My List
Maggie Rogers — Don’t Forget Me (2024)
Wussy — Cincinnati, Ohio (2024)
Sweeping Promises — Good Living Is Coming For You (2023)
Chemical Brothers — For That Beautiful Feeling (2023)
New Pornographers — Continue as Guest (2023)
Spoon — Lucifer on the Sofa (2022)
Nada Surf — Moon Mirror (2024)
Destroyer — Have We Met (2020)
Alvvays — Blue Rev (2022)
Working Men’s Club — S/T (2020)
2020:
This year started on an auspicious note; I blew out my knee the first week of January, and also managed to fracture my foot in multiple places, because why not? At the time, I assumed that would be the defining event of 2020. Silly me. We went on vacation at the end of the month, my knee held together only by my stubborn desire to sit on a beach, and returned to a world almost unrecognizable. After that, we made the same descent into “online learning” and sourdough as everyone else.
Working Men’s Club’s self-titled debut was a bright spot in a bleak year, and landed with me because its sound harkened back to those late ’80s/early ’90s post-punk and dance records I was binging in my newfound free time. I found Destroyer retroactively, thanks primarily to readers here who never missed a chance to mention Dan Bejar whenever I talked up The New Pornographers. Have We Met is elegant, quirky, and well-built all at once. As good a trifecta as any when looking for a “best of” record. This is still one I play relatively often.
2021:
You may notice that there are no 2021 records on the above list. Given the lag between producing a record and us getting our hands on it, 2020 ran on the fumes of records actually recorded in 2019. The dearth of 2021 releases more accurately reflects what lockdown life looked like—a year of live streams and doing shows via Zoom to survive, not booking studio time. At least that’s my impression, anyway.
That’s not to say there weren’t some killer records like Japanese Breakfast’s Jubilee. I’m still #teamPsychopomp, but this is excellent, and “Be Sweet” got the nod for my favorite song of 2021, so there’s that. Ditto, Lily Konigsberg’s Lily We Need To Talk Now, and since this is my newsletter, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a live record by a certain Manchester band.But if you only have enough time/money/whatever for ONE record, and asked me which 2021 release to pick up, it’d be Dry Cleaning’s New Long Leg. The English post-punk band knocked it out of the park with their debut album. The musings/vocals mix well with the layered, dense soundscapes she’s talking over (but not overtaking). Dry Cleaning reminds me a bit of King Missile, except frontwoman Florence Shaw is talking about things like lanyards and helicopters, and not detachable… organs…
2022:
Look, anytime Spoon puts out a record, it is a cause for celebration, and Lucifer on the Sofa delivers. They’ve teased a new record for next year, and there’s a greater-than-zero chance I’ll be yapping about it in next year’s year-end piece.
The year also gave us debuts from The Linda Lindas and Wet Leg. The former channeled every pop-punk record in your cabinet, and with tracks like “Ur Mum,” the latter came across like the Gen Z equivalent of Lily Allen.
The Paranoid Style also gifted us For Executive Meeting, an LP where I gave up trying to find new superlatives and just went with: “This record is just one heckuva good time. Have fun.”
Afghan Whigs dropped one on 9/9 that was a solid 10, and 5-3-8 by Dendrons proved post-punk was alive and well. Picture Wire’s Colin Newman, Joy Division (in a good mood), and High Vis all stuck together making an album during the pandemic — and they’re listening to Pavement for inspiration. The result is first-rate post-punk from America’s Second City.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Cool It Down just missed the cut here. Had there not been a deadline to get this out, it’s possible I’d still be fussing with the lineup, and this would likely’ve been on it. As I noted at the time, it managed to thread the needle, making a record that sounds both “like a Yeah Yeah Yeahs record” and brand new all at once. The performance-art element isn’t as front & center as before, but the edge is as sharp as ever. No easy feat.
The record that pipped it? Alvvays — Blue Rev, where the chords are all in the right spots, and where the bridge on a track like “Belinda Says” is exactly as it needs to be. You can hear vestigial traces of the usual suspects here (Lush, MBV, etc.), but nothing is derivative. Blue Rev takes the best parts of power pop, dream pop, shoegaze, and whatever’s going on in lead singer Molly Rankin’s mind and just makes it work.
2023:
If 2021 was a reawakening, and 2022 was an (almost) return to normal, 2023 felt like when we hit our collective stride again. The last of the “pandemic project” modifiers peeled away, and the good music faucet was opened all the way up.
Drop Nineteens came out of nowhere to give us an incredible record, Seablite gave the shoegaze crowd a lil’ something, and the sad dads got a gift from Jason Isbell, the rare songwriter who can tell a whole story in one verse. The Chemical Brothers got in on the action with For That Beautiful Feeling. Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons still know a thing or two about putting together a record rather than piling a bunch of singles together and calling it good
Good Living Is Coming For You from Lawrence, Kansas-based Sweeping Promises was a revelation. The title sounds like the sort of slogan you’d see on Soviet agitprop posters or hear Peggy Olson come up with in a strategy session for Tupperware. Both are true. Speaking with the duo, frontwoman Lira Mondal described their sound as “Voracious, wild-eyed, grabbing-with-both-hands YOLO energy.” I also saw their sound described as “The B-52s if they never saw the sun.” Both of those are true, too.
Continue As Guest will take a listen or two before it clicks. But the band will win you over, as they invariably do. I often find myself writing, “Just go buy this record!” as a placeholder until I can better articulate my thoughts. Sometimes, I wish I could leave it at that. This is one of those cases.
2024:
Is there some recency bias here? Sure, maybe. But it’s undeniable that last year was chock-full of good records from end to end. Cloud Nothings tried to blow our speakers with Final Summer, and Cola dropped the best Parquet Courts record not made by Parquet Courts. What’s old was new again as J Mascis, Jesus and Mary Chain, and Pearl Jam all dropped new records. Kim Deal, too.
Last year saw Nada Surf gift us Moon Mirror, a rock-solid power pop from one of the most consistent, if not popular (heh), bands of our generation.
Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee garnered almost as much ink for how it was distributed as for how good it was. Any record that gets someone to sit down and listen for two hours without doing anything else is worth considering for any best-of list. Cindy Lee is the stage name of Patrick Flegel. No spoilers, but don’t be surprised if another Flegel shows up on this year’s list.
My fave of last year was Wussy’s Cincinnati, Ohio. I don’t know what it is about this band, but man, they strike a chord in me that few other bands can hit. I’ve mentioned it elsewhere, but I think better than anyone else, they have helped me “get” what living in the Midwest is like. And the music? Well, it’s an LP with gem after gem just waiting to be discovered.
That’s a wrap! Did we nail it? Miss something obvious? Snub your favorite? Let me know—I’m always ready to be proven wrong (or at least add a few more albums to the listening pile).
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.
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.
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.
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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