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I feel like this outgoing summer was sort of a weird period for me, as far as music listening habits went. I’m usually pretty regularly poking around for new music and burning through it, and sometimes even regularly jotting down my thoughts and notes about each release as I get to it. But the last few months… I don’t know. I found myself listening to more baseball games and podcasts, or returning to older music when I was in a listening mood. And I very much wasn’t usually taking any notes or making observations about it like I normally do.
I don’t know, maybe it’s a minor case of burnout? I know I’ve been joking about how I need to make these playlist articles a little less overwhelming, so maybe this is the chance to really try and enforce that. I usually try and dig into as many of the inclusions as I can, which is why these things can reach the word and page counts that I do. But maybe I can ease off a little (in another change, I’m actually writing the intro first this time to get myself into a writing headspace, rather than at the end to try and wrap it all up).
For all that hedging, I did actually find new stuff that I enjoyed! And I still really do want to make this playlist and write this article about it! I’ve loved making these; they’re great little time capsules of points in my life, and going back to look at what I was listening to and read my thoughts is a fun thing to do from time to time. I still kind of regret the little stretch from 2019-2020 when I wasn’t publishing anything like this*, and I’d like to avoid that happening again.
*And I probably won’t put out a make-up list for that era like I once thought I might, but I did at least do my normal preliminary work for them, so I can’t rule it out either. But if nothing else, I have stuff to reference on my end.
We’ll see how that manifests in the writing, maybe just starting the article will spur a whole bunch of thoughts that I’ve been subconsciously holding in. I was feeling lost trying to decide what my favorite albums or songs of the summer were until I started doing my normal playlist plotting and article brainstorming, and then ideas started to click into place. Maybe I’ll have more to say than I realized. No way to know unless I start somewhere, though.
As per usual, I have both YouTube and Spotify Playlists available for listening along. And a large number of these artists are on Bandcamp, which if you purchase music, remains the best way to support your favorites directly. The site even occasionally waives their cut of sales (we just passed a Bandcamp Friday at the start of September, but there is another one coming up on October 2nd, plus two more left in the year after that for the first Fridays of November and December).
Anyway, here are those playlist embeds, before we jump into the article version of the playlist:
The notes on what’s missing: 7mai isn’t on either YouTube or Spotify. The tracks from Battery Operated Orchestra, alpha, and ok seashells are on YouTube, but not Spotify. And Scarlet Bandit is also only on YouTube, but one of the songs I added was a cover that appears to be exclusive to the Bandcamp release (of Shania Twain’s “I’m Holdin’ On to Love (to Save My Life)”, specifically, if you’re interested), so I’m substituting one of their originals, “Goin’ Out Tonite”, onto the YouTube playlist instead.
It’s weird, just looking over my preliminary list of songs to cover before I really dive in; I was worried I wouldn’t have anything to talk about here, but there really was a lot of stuff that I enjoyed listening to over the last four months! I thought that I listened to less music than I normally do, but now I’m not sure. Maybe I was just less active in seeking out new stuff, maybe I just played the stuff I liked on repeat less than normal, maybe I was just busy with other things. I do know there was what felt like a stretch where I didn’t see any new stuff that interested me, but that shifted hard around the end of July and start of August for whatever reason.
Also, another thing that stands out to me is that the electropop and synthpop stuff ruled hard here. It’s not surprising, that’s generally one of my favorite genres to go looking through, but I felt like I was in a dry spot finding good stuff for my last few playlist articles in favor of indie rock or power pop or post-punk or stuff like that, but this time, the synth-driven stuff just took over. Including the stuff at the top…
Editing note: Okay, so, returning to this intro after writing most of the piece and starting to clean it up, I’m realizing that this piece didn’t wind up that much shorter than normal, maybe about three-quarters my usual length. It’s a start, I guess. At least it helped spur me out of my writer’s block.
The Playlist as an Article:
MunaI was wondering what would be my “Favorite Album of the Summer” pick for a bit, and then I actually went and started my pre-writing note taking process and realized that it was very clearly ‘Dancing on the Wall’, Muna’s fourth album. It feels really weird that I even forgot it, it was easily the album I listened to the most, and it was one of the things I stayed locked into during that July dry spell of discovery that I mentioned. Honestly, that might be part of the problem, it came out right after my last article and I had to go double check that it hit my cut-off.
But the other issue might just be that it’s really good in a way that didn’t give me an easy hook to talk about. Muna’s last three albums were all at the top of my personal list for the cycles they came out in, so this wasn’t a change. Is it a notable departure in style? No, not really; Muna has come back after four years to deliver more of their usual synth-driven alternative-pop. Is it a major improvement or change in quality? Nope, I enjoyed it at least as much as their last album, 2022’s self-titled; they killed it, just like they always do. Is it their best album? …I don’t think so? Honestly, I did a couple re-listens of their discography because ‘Dancing on the Wall’ got me in the mood, and even when I went in with the idea of ranking them, I usually just came out of it saying “I dunno, they’re all good, they all have their moments!” I think I still would rank their debut ‘About U’ at the top, but I also believe that’s as much an argument about my nostalgia and it being my introduction to them (although that four song run at the start of the LP is also still pretty legendary, in my mind).