2017
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5wQHzO4Ji55ig0YxksPTcr
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPXZHlD_pYLoKYoDsQpa3zUJPUxpof4Nd
So I've been making "mix tapes" since I was like 12, initially with stuff I had recorded off the radio or taped from grainy abused vinyl. For the last decade or two, I've been handing out mix CDs (or in lazy years I'd just buy KFOG Live from the Archives as a stocking stuffer/charitable donation but LFTA became kinda crappy and then disappeared altogether as KFOG went jockless, so I started making my own every year).
But pretty much nobody can play CDs anymore (or they just rip them anyway) and putting copied mp3s on memory sticks seems a bit much. So I'm trying sharing as a YouTube playlist.
I paid for all this music at least once -- as I heard stuff I liked throughout the year, I'd buy the physical CDs, partially to support the people who went through the trouble to create, play, produce, promote, and distribute the music, and partially just so I'd have freedom to operate.
And as I do each December, I made a compilation of some of the songs I liked, or that were particularly anthemy or catchy and that I hadn't gotten tired of yet. And miraculously it still ended up slightly under 74 minutes (feel free to look up why a CD holds 74 minutes of music). Old habits are hard to break.
Editorial comments:
No Portugal. The Man this year. Good new album (Woodstock), and they got super big, but I kind of resent the fact that they are getting treated like a new band. You've been hearing them here since 2011.
Same with The National (decent new album, Sleep Well Beast; on my mix since 2010). But they cancelled the Berkeley show for which I had tickets (supposedly because of smoke from the Atlas fire) and still have not rescheduled. Yeah.
No Arcade Fire. Also first on the mix in 2010, I like the new album Everything Now, and the show in Oakland was amazing. But I figured I'd mix it up a bit. Even though I'm a creature of habit.
I've added in some Naked and Famous and Cage the Elephant. Neither are that new (In Rolling Waves by The Naked and Famous was 2013, and Tell me I'm pretty by Cage the Elephant was 2015, but I've been playing them a lot and they didn't make the list before. And The Naked and Famous is from New Zealand so that's an excuse this year, I suppose.
Harry Styles - guilty pleasure. Sorry.
Same for Imagine Dragons.
I spared you Spoon, Roger Waters, and Macklemore who all had decent new albums that only I seem to like.
Sucker for Pain was thanks to Christina in Cabo this summer. The Suicide Squad soundtrack has like 13 other good songs on it (some of which were on last year's mix).
Lord Huron -- yeah that's the Hannah and Clay slow song from Thirteen Reasons Why. Maybe next year I'll make a list of all the Netflix stuff I could not stop watching.
Conor Oberst (formerly Bright Eyes) is still making beautiful but depressing stuff (Someone called it "Jaap's please-shoot-me-now music")
Honorable mention for Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Amazing album, The Nashville Sound (one of my faves of the year), but I was told I can't have steel guitar on here. Last of my kind would have been the song, in case you're curious (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtFav19_UhE).
Kendrick Lamar. Another great album, but I only have the explicit version, which limits its general playability. And no single stand-out song.
Fleet Foxes: The album Crack-Up was pushed to me over and over by Amazon (and everyone who rates music) so I relented and bought it, but it's a bit like later Radiohead -- good but none of the songs spoke to me, or were particularly mix tapable.
Drowning by Boogie wit Da Hoodie should be on here (credit, once again, Christina) but I could not find an album to buy and it's pretty explicit. So add it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUtlqtdn1Xo) to your private version
No Ed Sheeran. In case you are desperate for it or have been hiding under a rock, just stream BBC Radio One any time of day or night and they will be playing it. Or any other station or stream, for that matter. But yeah he's obviously artist of the year.
General rants:
As the legal song-by-song music download system and the streaming ecosystem evolved and CD burners and players went out of fashion, the traditional mix tape/CD went by the wayside because for some reason nobody developed a legal mechanism to share a playlist with rights to the songs included. Stupid - you can share .m3u or xml playlist files, but the only way to share the actual songs is by copying them (with no way to pay for them other than klutzy mechanisms like adding an iTunes gift card so the receiver can make them legal). And the streaming worlds like spotify only allow playlist sharing from premium subscriber to premium subscriber.
So I went back to burning mix CDs which I (allegedly) handed out to people. Until now.
This Youtube playlist is an experiment. Feedback appreciated. I pay for Youtube Red which gives me access to their full catalog of music videos, but I'm not sure how playable this is if you don't have Youtube Red. Let me know. If you'd rather have a CD or a stick, also let me know. And as a test drive, I redid the 2016 mix on youtube as well.