As the corona pandemic continues its slow burn across the planet and state after state here shuts down, I thought I’d jump in to help the inversely proportional number of inhabitants who seem to be grappling with a growing mix of anxiety, stress, and stir craziness (fueled nicely by a hearty helping of booze). Acknowledging first-hand how important both structure and variety are after only two weeks of locked down, work from home life (you can only binge watch so many shows before even your back fat and muffin top start to feel lazy, after all), I thought I’d offer a little bit of both with my quarantunes playlist.
A couple of rules behind what this is and is not — 1) it IS a giant mix of songs (over 60 hours’ worth!) that relate to the pandemic in some form or fashion (at least to my crazy brain). There’s songs about illness and how you might feel, songs about being stuck at home and slowly going nuts, even songs about drugs and other ways to pass the time. 2) Each of these connections to the pandemic and its myriad effects come ONLY from the song titles. While it was tempting to include lyrics referencing these things (“hands, touching hands, reaching out, touching me, touching yoooooooouuuuuuuuuu!” for example, from “Sweet Caroline” or “Abra-abra-cadabra — I wanna reach out and grab ya” from Steve Miller Band) or to go off band names that do the same (ie The Airborne Toxic Event or the Argentine band Virus, say) I had to set some rules for this little game, otherwise I’d never come out of the rabbit hole. (And even with these rules I still spent the better part of my Saturday rifling through songs.)
Two additional caveats — 3) the songs ONLY come from my personal catalog (instead of anything available on the interwebs) and 4) the songs MUST be ones I like enough to play without skipping. So while the latter caveat is somewhat implicit in the former — if I felt strongly enough to pay money for these songs, I must like them a little — but even in that down-sized population there are some things I’d rather not be reminded of (I’ve seen some of the clothes you buy — a blazer with colored elbow patches, eh? — we’ve all got our demons…) As a result I didn’t want to just pick songs whose titles worked, but I didn’t actually want to listen to. And therefore what you have before you is the fruits of all this winnowing — a playlist that spans genres and runs the gamut of topics tied to our collective isolation. Some of the bands you’ll recognize from posts over the years, some even I was surprised to find in the crates. I think it’s a fun mix, though — some connections are literal and obvious, others a little more subtle or silly — hopefully you’ll enjoy ’em either way.
I’ll keep adding to it as the days go by — I’ve had to stop at least six times while I was typing this as another song or theme popped into my head — so keep it on shuffle and see what shows up. Gimme a shout if there are any you think I should add — or shoot me your own playlist and we can highlight your creativity/chops here! Enjoy mine in the meantime:
Before we go, there were a couple new releases this week that were also worth flagging — first comes the latest single from the UK-based Squid, a five-piece from Brighton who mix some solid, jangly guitar riffs with a punkish energy that goes down nicely. Frontman/drummer (be still, my beating heart…) Ollie Judge has a half-howl delivery reminiscent of LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy and the rest of the band (guitarists Louis Borlase and Anton Pearson, bassist Laurie Nankivell, and keyboardist Arthur Leadbetter) conjure a comparably propulsive, almost danceable groove as Murphy’s former outfit. (For all these reasons Squid also calls to mind recent fave Silverbacks, who showed up a few posts ago.) This is hopefully the sign of more to come with a full-length shortly in tow — in the meantime enjoy “Sludge” here:
Second, Conor Oberst recently announced he was reuniting his former band, Bright Eyes, having spent recent years on a series of side projects (including most recently with Phoebe Bridgers as Better Oblivion Community Center). This week they released the first single from the upcoming album, their first new music in nine years. (No title or release date on the album yet.) It’s in line with the rest of the band’s output, which is a welcome return after all this time — it also sports bagpipes, which aside from toilet paper might be the single thing we need most these days, whether we knew it or not. Check out “Persona Non Grata” here:
Next up comes the latest from Car Seat Headrest and the second single from their upcoming album Making a Door Less Open (due May 1). Thankfully frontman Will Toledo appears to no longer be re-recording old material (as he did most recently for 2018’s Twin Fantasy), opting to give us products from his recent history. Similar to first single “Can’t Cool Me Down,” this one balances electronic elements with Toledo’s customary guitar, and it works quite well. Toledo’s sleepy croon remains a magnetic draw and he’s still got an ear for a winning hook. (As well as unique accompaniments — this one’s got a trumpet break at the end, so between the bagpipes and this one we’re really letting the unsung band camp heroes shine this week.) Let’s hope the rest of the album lives up to these first two — check out “Martin” while we wait:
We’ll close with a one-two wallop from much-loved Run the Jewels who dropped a pair of singles off their upcoming album on us this week (the aptly named Run the Jewels 4 — no release date set yet.) The first, “Yankee and the Brave,” is a straight ahead banger — just Mike and El just trading verses over a big, booming beat and bleating siren — while the second (“Ooh, La La”) is a touch smoother, riding along on a beat and line from Gang Starr. (That outfit’s legendary DJ Premier supplies the beat, while it also yanks a line from their song “DWYCK” by Greg Nice of Nice & Smooth fame.) Both are great reminders why this tandem is so irresistible — nimble verses, rock solid beats, and buckets of energy (particularly when you see em live). Color me even more excited for the much-delayed album — I’ll be givin’ these a workout in the meantime. You can do the same here (and check out the albums that made El, according to his interview with Pitchfork — some shared faves in there as well):
(PS — since we’re not allowed to travel anywhere, I added another location to the list on the right just so folks can vicariously enjoy/plan their first trip post-quarantine. See Richmond’s entry in the “I’ve Been Everywhere, Man” section…)
Stay safe, amici… — BS