Weekly Playlist 5/8
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.
Thank God for last-minute new discoveries (and some new releases).
Things are kind of all over the place this week, starting with “Cinnamon” from Hayley Williams’ solo effort. Much of the album is repetitive, but there’s something about what’s going on in “Cinnamon” that’s tough to ignore —the beat, the mix of styles and sounds, Williams’ vocals, a bite of a St. Vincent vibe, especially St. Vincent with David Byrne. While Petals for Armor overall feels like it’s pulling from the less interesting corners of modern pop music, “Cinnamon” breaks out of that and goes its own way.
It’s kind of hard to make a playlist flow after that, but we move to Jimmy Eat World’s “Your House,” a slower, sweeter, and sadder more acoustic take from Bleed American. Is it fair to call it one of the album’s best tracks when the things is nearly perfect? We stay in a similar mood with “Suddenly Mary” by The Posies, then go full pop rock with Weezer’s latest, “The End of the Game,” which opens with a great riff and is super fun in the way that Weezer is known for. And then we turn to ’90s country with Shania Twain, who put out some really great stuff like “Don’t Be Stupid (You Know I Love You).”
Finally, we end on a stranger note, but let’s be honest, there’s nowhere to put this one at the end — “Separate from the Arc” by Solar Bears, a great work of electronics and a little ambience.
People have been getting creative in quarantine, and one of the fun results is David Wain’s YouTube series Collaborative Covers by Amateurs of Rock Songs, or CCARS, where participants record different parts of a song from their different parts of the quarantined world to results that range from impressive to hilarious. My personal favorite is “1921” from Tommy.
Happy weekend, everyone! May we be inching near the end of this.
