january 2023 music chat
Leave a commenthi!
i’m eating chips right now, they’re really good. btw we’re doing music chat here now because twitter is ????
here is all the preamble i am willing to do for this process: my music preferences are often very fickle and not objective in any meaningful way. often what makes a song “perfect” to me are things like “a sound plays at 1:32 that made me think of a cool wizard or something so i listened to the song every day for a month”
if you would like to ponder the cool wizard with me, then carry on.
top 3 albums
remi wolf – live at electric lady
i love remi. she has never made a bad song. standouts on this album are “liz” and “pink + white”. liz was already one of my favs by her, this version elevates it to heights i never thought possible. pink + white is the type of song i would listen to if i was riding around on a horse.
mamalarky – pocket fantasy
this album by itself is pretty good! unfortunately it is overshadowed by the final track, “Now”, which i ended up listening to 63 times in a row at work and then while making dinner. oop! it has ethereal femme vocals and is one of those songs that builds and builds until it suddenly ends which, if you know me, is like…… the whole bit.
smino – blkswn
this entire album is just really good. i end up listening to it a lot in winter, i think it lends itself to dark times. despite that, “netflix & dusse” is permanently in my summer playlist rotation, and “spitshine” is one of those tracks that always gets me hype when it comes on. i like smino’s other work but this album resonates with me in a way that the others don’t. if you like blwksn, Amine’s TwoPointFive has the same vibe.
top tracks
vulfpeck
simple step
i love a song that starts with directions.
• choose a bone in your body
• think about it real good
• move that bone (that bone don’t lie)
• start the motion — start to open your wings and fly
vulf purports that isolation of selected gyration can cause worldwide revolution, and i’m inclined to agree with him!
i spent a lot of last year listening to artists like grover washington jr, george benson, and bill withers; my love of this album, and specifically this track, feels like a further extension of that same genre.
clairo
bambi
i went through a phase with this album last year as summer was turning to fall. however, despite this being the first track on the album, i had never listened to it. the reason for this is because i listen to music the way a lunatic would: i download a bunch of albums in a single day, which sends them into my “recently added” playlist, and i just shuffle that for a week picking out the songs i like. i understand that people are standing outside my house now with torches and pitchforks but it’s simply how i am, sorry to say.
i know this song is about clairo’s own feelings regarding the music industry, but the verse after the key change at 03:04 really struck a chord with me. the back half of 2022 was really challenging for me, both professionally and personally, and something about the lyrics made them play in my head over and over.
take it or leave it, the moment’s here and you should believe it
know that you should
i pull until i’m left with the burns
blisters and dirt left in between my fingers
rushing so i can beat the line
but what if all i want is conversation and time?
i move so i don’t have to think twice
i drift and float through counties with my one-sided climb
kate bollinger
untitled
i’ve gone through a lot of phases with music as i’ve figured myself out bit by bit. kate bollinger harkens back to my era of listening to lots of ingrid michaelson, feist, and regina spektor. this was back when i was still “religious” and had a lot of complex feelings about my music preferences, but one of our youth leaders listened the aforementioned artists and so they felt like safe ground to tread.
anyway, i’m a ride or die for kate. there’s something about her song production that is a little otherworldly, a lot of her songs could double for background music in a ocean-focused nature documentary if you took the vocals out. someone get david attenborough on the line
greg foat
pointe vénus
each year, as winter draws to a close, i get really fixated on a song like this one. call it ‘a remembrance of spring’. if i close my eyes while listening to it i can almost feel the warmth of the sun on my skin. on those bright high-definition winter days, where the sky is finally something other than a blanket of gray, you can listen to this song in the car and pretend it’s not freezing outside. after seattle’s 6 months of perpetual gloom, one takes what they can get.
marci
entertainment
late addition to the music library, i didn’t discover this track until 01/30. i’ll be honest: the song is mostly carried, for me, by the ‘being abducted by aliens’ sort of sound that plays at the beginning. the rest of the song is really good too, but i’m here primarily for weird sounds. i haven’t listened to much of the rest of this album, but based off this single track i would recommend Blu DeTiger if you’re looking for more of the same.