Weekly Playlist

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.

These days, Placebo feels like one of the musical relics of the early-2000s emo scene — even though “Pure Morning” in particular predates it by a few years — but there’s something about “Pure Morning” that still stands out. It doesn’t feel dated, and it’s among the band’s best work.

Everyone knows T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong (Get It On),” but for something even sexier — at least lyrically, I present “Raw Ramp.” About halfway through, it shifts gears and becomes almost a completely different song, but, of course, still with the mix of grit and sensuality T. Rex was good at.

Without Placebo and T. Rex, maybe we never get Fall Out Boy — which may be a weird statement to some, but it’s just the trajectory of rock music and the neverending stream of one band influencing another. Everything that came before impacts everything after it. In 2007, Fall Out Boy released Infinity on High, one of their weaker releases despite big choruses and rifts. It just didn’t have quite the same punch prior releases did, but one of the highlights is “Bang the Doldrums.”

Speaking of weak releases, Taylor Swift’s Reputation has moments of promise but largely falls short, with lyrics in particular that feel lazy and pointedly vindictive, even for a songwriter whose, uh, reputation at this point was her songs about ex-boyfriends — which is why when she complains now about the interest in her love life, I roll my eyes a little. She built a career on kissing and telling in her lyrics, and even in “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” she’s clearly referencing a friendship gone wrong, whether she’s going after someone in particular or playing up her reputation. But it’s a fun, catchy song, one of the highlights of Reputation that doesn’t feel so much like Swift trying really hard to break out of certain preconceived notions of her and her music.

Before we close, we have two pop masterminds responsible for some of the catchiest songs in pop — first, duo Erasure with “Sometimes,” not one of their more intense earworms but one of their most famous and sweetest love songs. I don’t know what it is that makes Andy Bell and Vince Clarke mesh so brilliantly as songwriters, but may they never, ever stop. And then in the same vein, there’s Robyn. Body Talk is a masterpiece, and it’s hard to single out songs that stand out. The whole thing is fantastic. But you can’t go wrong with “Fembot,” with glitchy synths and subtle layers and distortion on Robyn’s vocals.

We end on a totally different note — catchy still, but with more acoustic guitars and less synthesizers — with “Rain” by Bishop Allen.

For your reading (and bonus listening), enjoy Spin’s picks for Prince’s best deep cuts, including one of my personal favorites, “Private Joy.”