Weekly Playlist 12/13 — Plus a Little Christmas Music
Every Friday, I share the highlights of what I’ve been listening to over the course of the week, from old favorites to new discoveries. Playlist best enjoyed in order.
We’re all over the place this week.
We started with “Needle in the Camel’s Eye” by Brian Eno, a delightful kind of post-punkian thing that’s just fun to listen to from beginning to end — it’s those guitars. We continue in the alt-rock direction with “Cheated Hearts” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, one of the standouts from 2006’s Show Your Bones with a catchy chorus and a little more of a subdued performance from the band all around. What is certainly not subdued, on the other hand, is just about anything from Parquet Courts, like the fun “Wide Awake” with kind of Talking Heads vibes.
And then we move into a more electronic side of things, carrying on the fun vibes of “Wide Awake” with “Dream On” by Christian Falk and Swedish pop genius Robyn, whose vocal is a particular delight here. Similar to Robyn, Erasure has been creating brilliant, infectious synthpop for decades — 1988’s The Innocents is known for juggernauts like “A Little Respect” and “Chains of Love,” but “Phantom Bride” is almost just as fun. It certainly has a chorus that makes you want to sing and dance, and it’ll probably get stuck in your head, like all great Erasure songs, which is pretty much all Erasure songs. We stay in the synthpop lane but slow down and take it darker with Depeche Mode and the sexy “Blue Dress” from 1990.
This week brought a show from Andrew McMahon, which kicked off with a delightful acoustic set from singer Ivory Layne. But the recorded version of track “Committed” isn’t the chill version audiences are hearing live on the tour — it’s a fun pop track with a danceable beat. As for McMahon himself, he’s been making music for nearly two decades now, with a total of three projects and even more albums and songs behind him, each great in their own ways. “Paper Rain,” from his current Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness moniker, is one of the best examples of his recent songwriting, while Jack’s Mannequin goes back several years with “The Lights and Buzz,” a Christmas song penned in the aftermath of McMahon’s cancer treatments. Finally, we end with the beast that is Something Corporate’s “Konstatine,” still a clear fan favorite even if McMahon doesn’t play it anymore. But it’s still a beautiful song.
And now, Christmas music.
I must confess, I absolutely love Christmas music, especially traditional carols, and for years, I’ve been compiling Christmas music. It started as mix CDs and has evolved into playlist, with the oldest Spotify playlist going back to 2012 and the CDs going back a few years more, at least to around 2007 or 2008.
Like any devotee to mixes, I have a few rules — most importantly, no repeats of songs or artists. 2012 is one of the longest and most impressive, with 27 songs and clocking in at an hour and a half long. Highlights include Christmas favorites Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Christmas music genius Sufjan Stevens, local favorite B.E. Taylor, classics like Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole, traditional songs like “O Holy Night” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” and hopping from one genre to the next and back again. And when I can — and I could in 2012 — I end with “Auld Lang Syne.”
And as the year winds down, everyone is putting out their best-of lists, but this year, NPR decided to do something different and release multiple lists of 2019’s best music, hopefully better representing all the year had to offer.
