In case you haven’t been reading these for long (or at all) and you’re wondering why the heck I post a list of songs at the end of every month, perhaps I should explain: A few years ago a friend of mine and I started making a playlist for every month, in a sense to act as a piece of nostalgia, as something of a musical fingerprint of a moment in time. It takes very little effort and is one of my favorite ongoing musical projects.
That said, here’s January’s list, which chronicles the new Vampire Weekend album release, hitting 100,000 listens on Last.fm (the song was “Last Dance” by the Raveonettes), listening to albums from people’s year-end best-of lists, mourning the loss of Jay Reatard and the end of These Arms Are Snakes, seeing Cross Canadian Ragweed live and remembering that I like Jimmy Eat World a hell of a lot. And bands with swear words in their name.
And, to start the year off right (hey, we’re only one twelfth of the way in), I’m going to be posting the songs from one of the many handy streaming music services that let you embed playlists. Check out the player below or go here to listen.
The Dead Texan – “A Chronicle of Early Failures, Part 2″ (The Dead Texan)
The Low Anthem – “Charlie Darwin” (Oh My God, Charlie Darwin)
The Big Pink – “Velvet” (A Brief History of Love)
Vampire Weekend – “White Sky” (Contra)
Vampire Weekend – “California English” (Contra)
The Raveonettes – “Last Dance” (In and Out of Control)
Mastodon – “Crack the Skye” (Crack the Skye)
Metric – “Sick Muse” (Fantasies)
Jay Reatard – “Faking It” (Watch Me Fall)
Cross Canadian Ragweed – “17″ (Cross Canadian Ragweed)
The Antlers – “Sylvia” (Hospice)
The Decemberists – “The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid” (Hazards of Love)
These Arms Are Snakes – “The Shit Sisters” (Oxeneers or the Lion Sleeps When Its Antelope Go Home)
The Very Best – “Julia” (Warm Heart of Africa)
Infinite Body – “Dive” (Carve Out the Face of My God)
Native – “Backseat Crew” (Wrestling Moves)
Jimmy Eat World – “Big Casino” (Chase This Light)
Jimmy Eat World – “Chase This Light” (Chase This Light)
Somehow they managed to keep conflicts to a minimum, as far as my own preferences go, anyway. There are a couple bands I might have to skip out early on to catch something else, but the only major conflict for me is Saturday evening. Kings Of Leon, The Decemberists, !!! and Andrew Bird all playing at the same time. I don’t even know where to start with that one. I’ve seen Andrew Bird, so I may have to sacrifice there, but even then, he puts on an amazing show.
Here’s how I plan to break it down:
Friday
Nickel Creek
Of Montreal
Circa Survive
Rufus Wainwright
The Jesus And Mary Chain
Peeping Tom
Interpol
Sonic Youth
Bjork
Saturday
Regina Spektor
The New Pornographers
Kings Of Leon vs. The Decemberists vs. !!! vs. Andrew Bird
The Arcade Fire
Girl Talk
Red Hot Chili Peppers
The Black Keys
Sunday
Mika
Anathallo
Grizzly Bear
Explosions In The Sky
The Roots
Willie Nelson
Amos Lee
Ratatat
Damien Rice
Rage Against The Machine
Meanwhile, I’m packing up my sunscreen and shorts (two things I don’t use that often; yeah, I’m a nerd) and expecting to have a very fun weekend. I’ll be lucky if I don’t come back deaf, malnourished, underslept and looking like Pigpen.
A while back my best friend started keeping a monthly playlist. Any particular song that she felt was a favorite or most-played item was added to this list. The idea is that, at some undefined point in the future, she’ll appreciate being able to go back and see what she was listening to at a particular era of time.
I took the idea and changed the rules to fit me a little better. I create a monthly playlist but it not only contains favorites of the time, but any song that caught my attention (in a good way) during the month, whether or not I really listened to it a huge amount.
So now I’m going to post these on my blog at the end of each month. For this introductory post I’ll post January’s because it’s the first playlist and I need to catch up. February is soon to follow. Oh, a little disclaimer: the songs aren’t sorted in any order other than whatever order they went on the list.
Monthly Playlist – January 2007
Band Of Horses – “The Funeral” (Everything All The Time)
The Black Keys – “Thickfreakness” (Thickfreakness)
Brand New – “Sowing Season (Yeah)” (The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me)
Calexico and Iron & Wine – “He Lays In The Reins” (In The Reins)
Calexico and Iron & Wine – “Sixteen, Maybe Less” (In The Reins)
DragonForce – “Through The Fire And Flames” (Inhuman Rampage)
Eluvium – “The Well-Meaning Professor” (An Accidental Memory In The Case Of Death)
The final part of my four-part series. The list to end all lists. I present to you the best new albums in 2006.
mewithoutYou – Brother, Sister
This Will Destroy You – Young Mountain
Mew – And The Glass Handed Kites
Jeremy Enigk – World Waits
Joshua Radin – We Were Here
Malajube – Trompe-L’Oeil (US Release)
Band Of Horses – Everything All The Time
John Mayer – Continuum
P.O.S. – Audition
Norma Jean – Redeemer
Thom Yorke – The Eraser
Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
Sufjan Stevens – The Avalanche
The Decemberists – The Crane Wife
The Appleseed Cast – Peregrine
Damien Rice – 9
The Knife – Silent Shout
Underoath – Define The Great Line
Angels & Airwaves – We Don’t Need To Whisper
Muse – Black Holes And Revelations
Well, that’s all folks. I had fun making these lists and you probably hated reading them. Or maybe you found something new to love. If that’s the case, my goal has been met.
Have a merry Christmas and a happy new year. Keep on discovering.
I keep coming across all sorts of random videos on YouTube that are well worth viewing but haven’t ever mentioned them to anyone. All are music-related, of course:
French DJ group Birdy Nam Nam performing “Absesses” I had never heard of these guys, but their turntable skills take them beyond your average DJ. If this were just an audio track, I probably wouldn’t realize turntables were even involved.
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