2019

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6pywrNvma3jxHtzKadtLOW   

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPXZHlD_pYLpS7eMr45lN6dGmjDt1XR52 

Playlist time! Barely got it in before the end of the decade. Once again, here is a somewhat indulgent compilation of songs that caught my attention or that I shazamed as soon as I heard them. Most of the songs (but definitely not all) were released in 2019. Once again, my sources range from blatant plagiarism of other people's playlists, to listening to Radio 1 most mornings (evenings in London - usually Nick Grimshaw), to nice people's Instagram (yes, some of you have great taste), to increasingly good recommendations from Spotify itself (you can tell that I'm in an anthem filter bubble).

No mariachi intermezzo this year, and I didn't bother making a Youtube version (yet - I have a few days off this week, so who knows. But given my whopping 42 views on YouTube last year, I figured Spotify is a lot less work - time for a Buggles remake? "Spotify killed the video star"). 

So here it is. Slightly shorter than last year - 30 songs, 1hr 48 min. 

Editorial comments:

1. Two of the songs are marked Explicit by Spotify. Just in case you find yourself in a situation like in the commercial you see when you google "soesman language training commercial". On the bright side, that's three less than last year.

2. No appearances by old-time favs like Nada Surf, The Cat Empire, etc., even though I'm a creature of habit.

3. Portugal. the Man is still on my no-play list, despite having seen them live dozens of times before they released that awful song and the world liked it. My grudge was confirmed by the fact that the Jonas Brothers pretty much copy-catted that song and named it, aptly, Sucker. 

4. Didn't go to Outside Lands this year. The "Golden Gate Pass" even-more-VIP-than-VIP thing kind of pissed me off. But I miss the inspiration, so I'll probably go next year ("I'm working remotely today").

5. Not much indie. No Billie Eilish, either - sorry (I do like her)

6. No Ariana Grande or Post Malone. Not much of the stuff that the rest of the world loved (overlap with e.g. Spotify's most streamed songs globally list -- https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DXcz8eC5kMSWZ?si=mKxWB86zRCOqQ2DyZWUYvw -- is minimal). 

   • Well, I take that back - I have Khalid and Sam Smith and Twenty One Pilots and Cage The Elephant ("I liked them before you did") and Lil Nas X and Ed Sheeran, so plenty of stuff that was popular.

7. Alec Benjamin is 25, apparently - even though he sounds like he is 14. 

8. Chiara Galiazzo's song is from 2014, but it's new to me. She won the Italian X Factor in 2012, so I'm only 7 years late.

9. Mark played Alkaline so many times that it got stuck in my head (and eventually on my playlist). 

10. Catfish and the Bottlemen is Spotify's recommendation algorithm at work. It works. 

11. Calma was #1 in almost every Latin American country. It made #71 on the Billboard Hot 100 (but #3 on US Hot Latin Songs - what is wrong with this?)

12. Two AJR songs. Yes, I know. 

    • (according to Wikipedia, "The band is a pop group who write, produce and mix their material in the living room of their apartment." They're my new Vampire Weekend)

13. In terms of ecosystem finance: I continue to subscribe to Spotify Premium (worth it), Youtube Premium (mostly so I can go "OK Google, play <song> by <artist>" while lying in bed), and Amazon Prime (used to be my primary source of CDs and mp3s, but they've lost me in music). The balkanization of video content catalogs worries me, hope music doesn't go the same way. 

14. I no longer use Pandora that much anymore - too bad, I used to like them, but Spotify dominates. 

15. Pitchfork always had pretty good obscure stuff but I no longer find much stuff I like there anymore. Don't know if it's me going off indie, or indie evolving in a direction I'm not into, or pitchfork trying too hard being too...too. Doug, help me out here.