Desert Island XI - QUARANTINE ISLAND - Group 3 Listening Thread

[LJT]

@GAF Thanks for your thoughts, yeah it was an exploration of isolation and the my general feelings at being part of the healthcare community at the moment.

Later Cohen is still pretty good Cohen!

Yeah what happened with Frightened Rabbit was tragically sad. Glad you like the Fontaines, though I may have read Avxer dislikes them, they aren't everyones cup of tea but I do think they are one of the best new Irish bands around.

Also very happy with the Ballad of Roy Batty appreciation, its a beautiful song using some beautiful words from a great film!

 

[LJT]

@Bono_212

I didn't want my playlist to be too descriptive of my own experience in this all so i'm glad (if that is the appropriate word for this) that you can apply it to your own context!

Happy you enjoyed it so much!

I'll have thoughts posted for yours and Cobblers tomorrow, been a bit of a busy week but have had a long weekend to try and catch up.

 

[Jerry Dunk]

I've listened to a couple of these, need to put my thoughts together this week when I'm sobered up. More good lists happening!

 

[cobl04]

Cobbler part 2: This was a blast for me. I'm a huge fan of this type of electronica without being terribly knowledgeable about it, so there was a lot for me to discover and appreciate here. I've already noted how much i like that LCD Soundsystem track, and it worked especially well here as a dark precursor to some of the brighter stuff (instrumentally, at least) that followed.

The thing I really want to look into more is the Rufus du Sol album; the moment about half-way through where the huge synth line comes in is one of my favorite moments of this DI. I loved the transition between Terazzo and the Mount Kimbie track - the dissonance was a nice touch in throwing some textural variety into the mix. My transition out of Terazzo is a lot different; will be curious to see what you think of it. Anyway, this was a treat for me. Great work.

Thank you heaps man! I really appreciate this. I'd be more than happy to double down and give a deeper run into house, particularly given LM has also expressed an interest. I love electronic music so much and am a passionate advocate for the more maligned side of electronic, which is house, dance, techno, etc. I think a lot of people who profess to like electronic music look down on it because they think it's repetitive or doesn't go anywhere, when it's not the case.

With Rufus, I sadly have not been able to find anything else remotely as good by them, but do let me know if you do, and I'll revisit.

I'm stoked we're both on the Visible Cloaks train. I love Terrazzo so much; the moment about halfway through when it cuts out sounds like the universe ending through instantaneous vacuum decay, and then it comes back in with the ethereal vocals. Looking forward to seeing your take on it.

 

[Joey788]

LJT:

- You really did a fantastic job of setting an uncertain, tense tone throughout, while never letting it get too hopeless. It’s one of those playlists that I can see myself listening to regularly in the future.
- After the funeral procession intro, I thought Obongjayar and TV on the Radio were great picks for setting up a dark vibe while also keeping things upbeat. “DLZ” is one of my favorite TV on the Radio songs too.
- I don’t know much Leonard Cohen, but I thought this song was fantastic. It sounded like a more spiritual version of Nick Cave, which I love. And of course, it’s lyrically brilliant. Any advise on where I should start with Cohen’s catalog?
- “Death and the Miser” grew on me. I thought that “money, money, money” chorus would get on my nerves, but it worked well.
- The new Torres album is one of my favorite releases this year, and this is just a great cut from it.
- Fontaines D.C. and Screaming Females made for a great combination. I’m only familiar with the most recent album by the latter, so it was cool to hear some of their earlier work.
- I only know This Is The Kit from her vocals on the last National album. After hearing this song, I need to rectify that and listen to her albums.
- A Hawk and A Hacksaw and Frankie Rose created this calm presence with their tunes that I thought worked well after the more foreboding start to your playlist. It really worked to shift the mood a bit. Wild Beasts didn’t do anything for me though – I couldn’t get past the vocals, which were grating for me.
- This Grumbling Fur song is one of my favorite discoveries from this Desert Island run. To take that famous Blade Runner speech and incorporate it so naturally into this song is a remarkable achievement. I hope the rest of the album is just as good, but they set a real high bar with this track.
- “Two Weeks” is classic, and Agnes Obel made for an excellent follow-up. I think you picked the best song on that album for your list. I listened to it in full and it’s good, but “Island of Doom” is way ahead of the rest. Fever Ray was another strong pick.
- Austra and Another Sky were solid, but I didn’t like Everything Everything at all. “Broken Pieces” and “Feather” were alright, but this run was the weakest part of the playlist for me. I liked the Lantlos song but also felt that it didn’t really fit with the surrounding tracks. The transitions here were a little rough.
- Zola Jesus got the playlist back on track. She’s been getting lots of well-deserved love on multiple playlists this time around.
- Burial would have worked as an unconventional closer, as The Black Twig Pickers had a very different tone from the songs that preceded it. I’m guessing that’s it meant to be a postscript to the playlist. In that regard, it works a bit better, but I had trouble getting past those vocals.
- Despite a few mixed moments, I thought this playlist was fantastic.

All that leaves is iron yuppie for today or tomorrow to wrap up this DI listening session for me!

 

[LemonMelon]

I'm listening to LJT's list right now and intend to get to iYup's tonight.

 

[the tourist]

I’ll be picking this group up Monday and should be done before the end of Friday.

 

[gump]

This is a strong group. I've listened to Joey's, Ashley's and LJT's and really liked all of them. Will try to post my thoughts tomorrow. Looking forward to getting to cobbler's and iYup's.

 

[cobl04]

I'm halfway through Ashley's, and I just want to make everyone aware of a clause in the DI laws, which is that any list featuring "Regulate" is to be automatically crowned the winner. Apologies to anyone who feels this is unfair.

 

[LemonMelon]

I just finished iYup's list, the last of the competition for me.

Like It Is was the best song I was introduced to in this DI. Fucking amazing track.

 

[iron yuppie]

iyup's list:

I've read that Thom Yorke is a fan of Low, and I can definitely hear the connection on this track. It really reminds me of Radiohead. That sort of crackling, hissing production effect reminds me of "Videotape".
A lot of the songs in the first section of this list didn't totally move me, but I think they work for what you described (a mood washing over you as you're resting). I'm talking specifically about the tracks by Oliver Coates, Slowdive, Visible Cloaks...they're definitely not my style but I don't actively dislike hearing them (they may just be a bit repetitive for me...I might have a bad attention span). But there were highlights in that section.
I dig the beat that comes in the latter half of the Skee Mask track.
And the Satsuki Shibano track I enjoyed more than a lot of what surrounded it.
The John Talabot song is where things picked up for me, and I started liking the list a lot more. Not only because of the structure and vocals (although that helps) but it was more upbeat and dancey.
Then I think the Ibeyi track is killer, definitely my favorite song so far.
I've known of Fela Kuti for so many years but I think this is the first full track of his I've actually heard! It's cool as hell. I was cooking while listening to this one and I think it makes a good dinner prep companion. I'll have to listen to more of his stuff.
Followed by "The Phantom" which is also great. It sounds like it could soundtrack a '60s James Bond movie, where Bond is sneaking around some crowded club in Jamaica or the Bahamas.
The start of the Yusef Lateef track sounds exactly like the start of "My Girl" by the Temptations! I almost started singing "I got sunshiiiiiine on a cloudy day..." But this track is also good. I've enjoyed this jazz section of the list a lot.
After that you lost me for a little bit again until the Bjork track. But that's ok. "Unravel" is one of the first Bjork tracks I loved, and it's still a favorite.
The Perfume Genius track is great. Damn, I love his vocals here.
And you close with a strong Bowie track that I had somehow never heard before, and I think Lazarus closed his list with a relatively obscure Bowie track, too. I liked both closers. Bowie is the man.

Overall, I found a lot to like in this mix, even though there are 8 or 9 tracks that are basically the complete opposite of what I generally look for in music.

Good shit.

I have now listened to every DESERT ISLAND playlist. You all are cool.

Awesome, glad there was something you could enjoy in there. I realized when I looked at all the lists that mine was going to be an outlier; whether that hurts or helps it among all the listeners will be interesting to see.

 

[iron yuppie]

I just finished iYup's list, the last of the competition for me.

Like It Is was the best song I was introduced to in this DI. Fucking amazing track.

Cool, glad to hear it. That song really struck me when I first heard it. It's not typical of his style, even on an album called "The Blue Yusef Lateef." His stuff is generally a lot peppier, as you might expect from the jazz artists who came of age during the bop period.

 

[iron yuppie]

Joey, I am on your list right now, but wanted to comment on the transition between Daydreaming and Blackstar. Wow. Very impressive sequencing there.

 

[Jerry Dunk]

Joey, I was probably as familiar with the songs on your list as any in this competition, but even for me that's only about half of a list. I thought this was very good. Just a good collection of songs that sounded good together. And definitely a reminder to look up some artists I need to do deeper dives on, like Jenny Lewis. Porridge Radio's song was a good one by an artist I had not heard (I think someone else said this already, which further confirms it's a good introduction).

Cobbler, I thought yours was well executed as well. I thought the transition between them was smooth and worked, and was a good way to combine two concepts into one list. I'm not a house devotee in the same way, but I do like some house music. House and techno to me are really pleasant to listen to while accomplishing other tasks, since you can get into one sound and really just let it ride. There are a number of tracks here that I would add to a playlist I might throw on while trying to concentrate on something at work. That's a high compliment, even if it doesn't sound like it.

My hope is to knock out the remaining three lists over the next few days. I was very busy last weekend so I got a little behind on this.

 

[cobl04]

Cobbler, I thought yours was well executed as well. I thought the transition between them was smooth and worked, and was a good way to combine two concepts into one list. I'm not a house devotee in the same way, but I do like some house music. House and techno to me are really pleasant to listen to while accomplishing other tasks, since you can get into one sound and really just let it ride. There are a number of tracks here that I would add to a playlist I might throw on while trying to concentrate on something at work. That's a high compliment, even if it doesn't sound like it.

Thank you man, and yes, it's definitely a compliment. I agree, I love having it as background music. Which tracks in particular?

 

[bono_212]

I'm halfway through Ashley's, and I just want to make everyone aware of a clause in the DI laws, which is that any list featuring "Regulate" is to be automatically crowned the winner. Apologies to anyone who feels this is unfair.

Finally having a quiet night at work, so I'll try and respond to people's comments tonight!

 

[cobl04]

Ashley's list!!

To be honest, I didn't enjoy this one as much as I thought I would based on the box, which was a bit of a bummer! I was initially thinking it was going to be one of my favourites. Still great, though.

Fantastic first half for the most part. Tupac is very nostalgic for me, it takes me back to my teen years, I hadn't listened to him in a long time, and fuck man, can he rap or what. Good Day into Regulate was fucking sensational, great transition and two killer tracks. I thought the Pharcyde track was gonna be the one that I loved from Cassie's list years ago, but I had it confused with Soul Clap by F Stokes & Lazerbeak, which was close to Somethin that Means Somethin on her playlist and has lyrics featuring the word "runnin". This section fell a little flat for me, the songs weren't quite speaker-blowing, though all good. What's My Name brought it back, fucking killer, and it went well into Grace Jones, dope track alongside the Prince one. You did a good job of blending styles in this half given most of it was hip-hop. I was bemused to see The Who in here but it ended up fitting quite well, I assume this is a later Who track. Pretty good, if a little cheesy.

List kinda lost me from this point, just too many tracks that are very much your style (whenever I hear music like this I'm like "I must tell Ashley about it") and the sound just isn't my thing, quite a few of the tracks were greyed out on Spotify for me too, which made it a bit annoying, not your fault of course! Picked up again with Talking Heads, great song, loved the Models track, felt you could probably have gone straight into David & David. The Billy Idol song was not my thing, and I hope it's not as creepy as it sounded. Boomtown was great musically, but the vocals in the chorus were really sucky, the song seemed set to really go into the stratosphere and it just didn't. Great work into Red Eyes, a good TWOD song, and brilliant move then into Night, and I enjoyed American Girl and then Hollywood Nights is one of my favourite songs. So a pretty great, enjoyable stretch for the most from Talking Heads onwards. I think the transition into Tom Waits was much too sudden though, and I found myself wishing the "Ashley" section had been shortened and you'd taken time to drop us into Heart of Saturday Night, as it was it felt like a fast car crashing into a dank lounge bar.

Overall, enjoyable, with some stretches that did very little for me and other stretches that killed it. For once in this competition it was songs that I knew rather than didn't that really captured me.

 

[LemonMelon]

Going to be posting my thoughts on group 3 now.

Joey's list got off to a hot start with one of my favorite National tracks of the last few years and established a dark mood for the list from the get-go. While Cruel seemed slightly out of place with what surrounded it, I thought connecting it to The System Dreams was clever because of their shared spastic guitar work.

PJ Harvey brought more grit than most of the list, so that was cool, but after that things slipped into a streak of female-fronted indie rock with some folk-rock leanings that was maintained throughout the entirety of the list, with some refreshing exceptions. Some of those exceptions: a great Porcupine Tree track, the excellent Daydreaming/Black Star duo, A Sort of Homecoming, Sprawl II.

The one thing that did this list in for me and kept it from being greater than the sum of its very good parts, is that it had a very circular quality to the sequencing. Every time I felt like the list was going somewhere new, it reverted back to its cardinal genres of singer/songwriter and indie rock. In small doses, like a single 35-40 minute album, the Lucy Dacuses of Mitskis of the world really work for me, but the way they're spread out over this list halted its momentum a bit IMO.

One instance when this was very obvious was A Sort of Homecoming transitioning into Waxahatchee (but, to be fair, ASOH is difficult to transition into most things). The list seemed to be going somewhere fresh and it never quite got there. I think picking the best songs from this style and slowly progressing them into some of the other genres here (dark ambient, progressive rock) would have been very interesting. So yeah, a lot of these songs were very good, but the way they were sequenced left me a bit cold.

 

[LemonMelon]

Ashley's list had a really cool concept behind it and while I knew basically all of these songs incredibly well, it was interesting to hear them put together in a time and geographically-based context.

One thing I didn't like that I will get out of the way now is that, pacing wise, I think a couple sections on this list (Suga Free through Snoop, Plimsouls through Missing Persons) felt a little flabby and could have used some editing. I know how hard that can be though, saying no to songs you love. I never really do it and wouldn't blame anyone for levying the same complaint at my own list. Anyway, I probably could have done without the Dred Scott and Suga Free tracks. And Afro Puffs made me miss Mia. But that opening section was pretty enjoyable, just lacking the momentum of some other sections.

Complaints aside, I think the passages without sustained genre diving are super refreshing and flow together very well. The last 7 songs or so of the first disc make for a fun and consistent run (do I need to say anything about how perfect I Wanna Be Your Lover and Ain't Nobody are? Of course not) and, despite being split across two discs, I thought both halves were connected very nicely by a great Wang Chung track.

Though I said the middle of disc 2 was samey, most of that shit is right up my alley. Everyone should check out The Plimsouls, Missing Persons and The Motels if they haven't already. The slightly more classic rock ending run has an excellent build to it and, personally, I thought The Heart of Saturday Night was a perfect comedown, even if the transition out of Hollywood Nights was not seamless by any stretch. It just works regardless.

Overall, one of the better lists of the competition and a refreshing bit of escapism in a mostly heavy batch of lists.

 

[LemonMelon]

LJT's list was really memorable because it embraced how foreboding and uncomfortable it was by using some actively unsettling song choices that worked wonders. The Félix Blume track was a fantastic opener (I keep meaning to check that album out) and the creeping Balkan folk of A Hawk and A Hacksaw made for a great palate cleanser. It's moments like these that help a generally broadly dark list stand out amongst others.

With that being said, the tone was quite similar to Joey's list and they shared some ingredients; I noticed Torres appeared twice in this group, and her intense sound makes appearances throughout LJT's list. There are grungy guitars and moody electronic music all over this list, but the way it flowed felt smooth and natural despite a relatively short tracklist.

There weren't very many tracks on here that I disliked, but I guess my attention waned a bit between Wild Beasts and Another Sky. Nothing against the songs in that stretch, it's just that the kind of ominous electronic and chamber vibes you get from Fever Ray and Agnes Obel are about a mile away from where I'm at these days. The Austra track was a nice break though, I need to listen to her more often.

The flow during the ending run is sliiiiightly choppy because there's a lot happening here genre-wise, but the songs themselves were really high quality and the overall mood was maintained. Artists from this section that I have a lot of admiration for: Everything Everything, Nujabes, Burial.

It was a downer list for sure and that's fitting enough. It had a great deal of personality and brought surprises and a few old favorites. Nothing much else to say except that I liked it a lot.

 

[LemonMelon]

Cobbler's list, as I said in an earlier post, is a tale of two halves for me.

The first half is...nice? Nice. I think that's the word I want. God, I wish I could remember a lot of these folky indie songs but they're just not coming to me as I'm cycling through them now. The Camp Cope song stands out because the story at its center is so affecting. The Drones are outliers from basically all of music and while I'm a much bigger Tropical Fuck Storm fan, I was glad to see them represented here. The transition between Nick Cave and Stella Donnelly was way better than I could have expected and both songs were great. In general, I thought the sequencing in this section was really solid. Rolling Blackouts and Gang of Youths were great as always.

I'm guessing there wasn't meant to be a real "transition" between From Little Things Big Things Grow and Ngurra, so I'm not going to comment on that duo. It wasn't actively jarring as I listened though!

Fair warning: there were two songs from the back half not available on American Spotify, which sucks because I didn't get to hear either of them in context. I went back and checked them out on YouTube: Treaty was a very interesting mix of genres and a lot of fun, the Frusciante song was just whatever. I'm not a fan. Ignore me.

Broadly speaking, I fucking loved the second half of this list. Moodymann is just...he's the best. Everyone should listen to Moodymann. Despite a slightly uncomfortable pseudonym, Mr. Fingers is essential listening for those interested in house music. Cirrus is the best Bonobo track and a great pick. I didn't know that Pachanga Boys track but was spellbound for 15 minutes. The darker, electronic art rock run after that was handled well and provided some highlights. It's interesting to see Visible Cloaks show up twice in one group; they're a really intriguing band with a unique sound and they deserve more love.

One thing I really like on playlists is when there's a short curveball track to break things up and the Black Thought track served that role nicely before bringing us back to the house with Seeing Aliens, one of about a dozen great songs on Knock Knock. Bruh...everything about this half was great. More, please.

 

[LemonMelon]

iYup's list had a big hill to climb by spanning 133 minutes over only 22 tracks. I know just by looking at that count that pacing and transitions will be tricky. How did he do?

Mostly really fucking well.

I'll be honest and say that the first five songs or so worked for me more on an atmospheric level than a melodic one; I wouldn't listen to most of them out of context, but in a specific mood, I see a lot of value here in the textures and sound design of the tracks.

From Skee Mask on, I really started to engage with the list. Skee Mask is a brilliant producer of frigid IDM and I wish more people knew about him. The Four Tet and John Talabot (what happened to him?) tracks are personal favorites and I think this context helped them stand out as much as they do on their respective albums. I will say that, somewhere around this point in the list, I started to feel some fatigue. More variety or shorter songs would have been welcome in the early going of this list.

Thankfully, the turn from Ibeyi to the more afrobeat/afro-jazz midsection on the list was smooth as butter and introduced some fresh sounds. Basically everything from here to Yusef Lateef was sublime and possibly my favorite section of the tournament. I ended up researching albums by Mulatu Astatke, Duke Pearson and Yusef Lateef (who I had listened to before; Eastern Sounds is really good) because of this list.

Though I don't love the ending run quite as much (you picked some songs I don't like quite as much from artists I love; Disco King is awesome though), I think it's really cool how you managed you blend together different kinds of dance music together across this list (afrobeat vs Balearic beat, for example) and different applications of atmosphere (IDM vs jazz vs art pop, for example) without it getting too samey in the back half.

I've wanted to make a list like this one for a while: esoteric song choices, an emphasis on texture and rhythm over melody, lots of negative space. Despite some sections that dragged a bit, this was one of my favorite lists in the competition because it brought so many fresh ideas to the table and introduced and/or reacquainted me with some very talented artists.

 

[LemonMelon]

I just wrote 1,700 words about DI lists over the last hour, so it's likely that I skimmed over some things for the sake of time. If you have any specific questions about my commentary, let me know and I'll add to my thoughts.

 

[bono_212]

Ok, Cobbler. I tried my best to listen to this in one sitting as you requested, but even with a slow night at work, my daughter, dinner, and a few other things prevented it from being an entirely cohesive run-through, but it was one of my better efforts!

This first half was really entertaining for me. I enjoyed a lot of new to me acts, and I also really enjoyed being reminded of certain bands like Gang of youths. I don't know if I realized that I really like RBCF or not, but if that tracks anything to go on, I'm all in. There was maybe a bit of a slow start to this one, but I also added more songs from your first half than most other DI lists combined to my "discoveries" playlist I've been making along the way.

The only track that was a real misstep for me was the Kev Carmody one, which really just kinda sounded like the radio pap we have over here that I'm not overly fond of either.

I did really love the way you transitioned into the dance stuff ,and everything from track 12 to 18 was gold.

No one should have to fall victim to being the next song after Mr. Fingers, but unfortunately, Bonobo was it. I ended up pausing that track twice because I was getting distracted and couldn't quite get into it. From there on, I enjoyed the rest of your list. I mean, it's kinda fish in the barrel for me. Once again, I was surprised by the John Frusciante track. I'm starting to wonder what exactly it was I thought his music sounded like.

The inclusion of Black Thought where it was confused me a bit, simply because it goes right back into another house song, so the ending of the list maybe wasn't as strong as the rest of this second half, but they were both great songs.

Overall: Loved it. Definitely want to keep the second half around for work like I had tonight, which was all paperwork based, for sure! I love that kind of music for tasks like that. Thanks for the music!

 

[bono_212]

Ashley's list had a really cool concept behind it and while I knew basically all of these songs incredibly well, it was interesting to hear them put together in a time and geographically-based context.

One thing I didn't like that I will get out of the way now is that, pacing wise, I think a couple sections on this list (Suga Free through Snoop, Plimsouls through Missing Persons) felt a little flabby and could have used some editing. I know how hard that can be though, saying no to songs you love. I never really do it and wouldn't blame anyone for levying the same complaint at my own list. Anyway, I probably could have done without the Dred Scott and Suga Free tracks. And Afro Puffs made me miss Mia. But that opening section was pretty enjoyable, just lacking the momentum of some other sections.

Complaints aside, I think the passages without sustained genre diving are super refreshing and flow together very well. The last 7 songs or so of the first disc make for a fun and consistent run (do I need to say anything about how perfect I Wanna Be Your Lover and Ain't Nobody are? Of course not) and, despite being split across two discs, I thought both halves were connected very nicely by a great Wang Chung track.

Though I said the middle of disc 2 was samey, most of that shit is right up my alley. Everyone should check out The Plimsouls, Missing Persons and The Motels if they haven't already. The slightly more classic rock ending run has an excellent build to it and, personally, I thought The Heart of Saturday Night was a perfect comedown, even if the transition out of Hollywood Nights was not seamless by any stretch. It just works regardless.

Overall, one of the better lists of the competition and a refreshing bit of escapism in a mostly heavy batch of lists.

I mean, it goes without saying at this point that obviously we've talked about my list quite a bit, but I do agree, myself, having listened to the list a few times, that in retrospect, I should've removed about 4 or 5 songs. I did for a minute and then I just suddenly had this overwhelming feeling of, "but those songs are the ones people probably don't know!" and couldn't bare to remove them. On the other hand, the thought of doing a west coast hip hop section without Snoop, or Ice Cube seemed dumb, so it was like, "gotta leave them in, too" so in the end, that's how you end up with an hour of West Coast/G-Funk or however long it actually is.

I won't apologize for the second half, though. I love all of those songs.

. I think the transition into Tom Waits was much too sudden though, and I found myself wishing the "Ashley" section had been shortened and you'd taken time to drop us into Heart of Saturday Night, as it was it felt like a fast car crashing into a dank lounge bar.

Ah, major bummer you didn't like it much, but that's OK. I had a feeling this would be one of my weaker lists, and that's Ok. It's among my personal favorites, and I have wanted to make it for so long, that not doing so would've really frustrated me.

Highlighting the above comment, because I'm kinda amused as what you wrote was almost word for word what I told Travis I was trying to do with that section/transition: "Build, build, build, WHAM Tom Waits!"

Bono212: I think the word I would use to describe this list is "maximalist." It really goes all-in on the main concept, which is a strength and at times maybe a weakness as well - the latter in that it could have accomplished what it was aiming for in a significantly shorter run time IMO. An example is the G-Funk section - maybe an unpopular opinion but I find that subgenre kind of homogeneous.

I actually agreed with you about that feeling completely for quite a long time. I hated G-Funk until I started forcing myself to listen to more of it. It's still a very singles-heavy genre, to me, and I don't love the idea of full albums, but I've way come around to it over the past five or six years in a way I never would've expected. I remember growing up with that music and just flat out hating every second of it.

The exception on this list is the Lady of Rage track, which is awesomely ferocious.

And this is why this section was so hard for me. One of the songs I was going to cut was this one because I felt like, "Well, that's a pretty obvious song, right? And why include Lady of Rage if I'm going to include Snoop? And how can I do this section and not include Snoop?" So in the end you ended up with all three G-Funk songs (including Warren G). I don't mind if I don't do well, as long as people got something they enjoyed out of that section, and it really seems like all of the songs I had considered dropping have been mentioned by different people over the course of these responses as favorites, so...mission accomplished?

Grace Jones is phenomenal; I would have enjoyed a more prolonged section in that style.

I kinda already did that on my last DI list? Kinda, that was a little more Chaka Khan, now that I think about it. And honestly, I don't KNOW enough music that sounds like this...yet. I only just really started listening to Grace Jones a few years ago because she was headlining a festival out here and I wasn't about to miss that.

I think the second section hits its stride in pacing and variety more so than the first. Destination Unknown was a great discovery for me and it segued nicely into Naive Melody. In the synthy 80s section, I kept thinking how perfectly something from Bat for Lashes' latest album would have fit here, as it has a very similar concept as this list: moving to LA and adjusting to life there. I went into this thinking the very final stretch with Springsteen etc was playing it safe, but damn it's still great to hear those artists back-to-back. Petty and Seger in particular have so many great songs.

So overall a fully-realized concept and a lot of variety.

Very glad to hear the second half worked for you! Yes, it was hard not using newer music, but it's just something I haven't really associated with being out here too much. Also, as you can tell, the list already was pretty long and all over the place. There was an iteration of it with more modern stuff. I felt bad leaving out Best Coast, poor crazy kids.


Thank you for the feedback!

I had a friend from college who would always play "Eminence Front" on the jukebox when he was drunk at the bar.
Wow...I never knew Fleetwood Mac made music in this style? This doesn't sound like them at all! I'm shocked. I guess I'm only super familiar with their albums from the mid to late '70s.
I think I first heard this Siouxsie song on a recent episode of GLOW and it was nice to hear it again here.
One of my favorite discoveries on the list is the Plimsouls. The jangly guitar that shows up really caught my ear. Totally sounds like a song that would fit in a killer '80s movie montage.

Thank you for all of the kind words!

Highlighting this section of your post to say:
- My dad HATED The Who when I was a kid (I'm sure he still does) and he especially hated this song. It's got to be one of their more divisive tracks, and I couldn't help but smile at the idea of putting it on here, knowing in all likelihood that everyone was going to dislike it, but hey.
- I don't know that Fleetwood Mac has any other song that sounds like "Big Love" that I can think of, but the album it's on, Tango in the Night definitely is the most 80s thing they did that I'll listen to. It's not a great album, but the first four singles from it are all among my top 15 songs by the band (Big Love, Seven Wonders, Little Lies and Everywhere). It also has my favorite music video of all time, and live, Lindsey plays it completely solo, and it doesn't sound at all the same, but it's just a really great display of his unique guitar style.
- Yes! It was in GLOW recently and I had a little happiness freakout when it showed up.
- The Plimsouls basically score all of the movie Valley Girl, IIRC, so you're not far off.

 

[cobl04]

The first half is...nice? Nice. I think that's the word I want. God, I wish I could remember a lot of these folky indie songs but they're just not coming to me as I'm cycling through them now. The Camp Cope song stands out because the story at its center is so affecting. The Drones are outliers from basically all of music and while I'm a much bigger Tropical Fuck Storm fan, I was glad to see them represented here. The transition between Nick Cave and Stella Donnelly was way better than I could have expected and both songs were great. In general, I thought the sequencing in this section was really solid. Rolling Blackouts and Gang of Youths were great as always.

The stories across most of that album are quite affecting, I also really enjoy The Opener, The Face of God & Anna. What makes you say The Drones are outliers? I agree (and I've not even heard as much of their music as you), just wondering. For me it's a pretty unique style of garage / rock / folk / alt rock, and quite Australian in its way. Thanks for the nice comments man, your original post and your first line here made me think it was gonna be more harsh.

Fair warning: there were two songs from the back half not available on American Spotify, which sucks because I didn't get to hear either of them in context. I went back and checked them out on YouTube: Treaty was a very interesting mix of genres and a lot of fun, the Frusciante song was just whatever. I'm not a fan. Ignore me.

The Frusciante track I pretty much just added on because it fit nicely and was short and might surprise a few people. I doubt I'll ever listen to it again, and I can't even remember how it goes. A shame to hear that you had to YT a couple tracks. That version of Treaty isn't the original but a remix that became vastly more popular.

Broadly speaking, I fucking loved the second half of this list. Moodymann is just...he's the best. Everyone should listen to Moodymann. Despite a slightly uncomfortable pseudonym, Mr. Fingers is essential listening for those interested in house music. Cirrus is the best Bonobo track and a great pick. I didn't know that Pachanga Boys track but was spellbound for 15 minutes. The darker, electronic art rock run after that was handled well and provided some highlights. It's interesting to see Visible Cloaks show up twice in one group; they're a really intriguing band with a unique sound and they deserve more love.

YEEEESSSS!! Thank you man, I really fucking appreciate it. Moodymann is a fucking legend. If Laz is still reading, he's a bigger Prince fan than even you. Also, he's just fucking released a new album too, like today or yesterday, and it's fucking great. I was stoked to see that.

The Mr Fingers track came from a comp entitled "Essential Chicago House Classics", so yeah, foundational for anyone looking to get into house. I'm sure gvox has a story about seeing him way back when. Cirrus is the only Bonobo track I really love, fucking banger.

Time is fantastic, and a very, very well-known and much-loved track in dance circles. I'm really glad you liked it, it was the last addition to my list and I was concerned about adding it, but it really does capture the heady ecstasy of the dancefloor so well. Also, and this is my favourite thing about it, it is built entirely off Sufjan's "Sleeping Bear, Sault Saint Marie".

One thing I really like on playlists is when there's a short curveball track to break things up and the Black Thought track served that role nicely before bringing us back to the house with Seeing Aliens, one of about a dozen great songs on Knock Knock.

Thank you! I was a bit concerned about its inclusion as it's very different to the rest of the playlist, but I really thought it fit nicely and was a good breather before the fucking banger that is Seeing Aliens.

Bruh...everything about this half was great. More, please.

Thank you, truly! I'd love to know what some of your other highlights were.

 

[cobl04]

Ok, Cobbler. I tried my best to listen to this in one sitting as you requested, but even with a slow night at work, my daughter, dinner, and a few other things prevented it from being an entirely cohesive run-through, but it was one of my better efforts!

Thank you! No problem, good on you for trying!! I don't think it's really possible to get through a nearly three-hour long playlist in one go.

This first half was really entertaining for me. I enjoyed a lot of new to me acts, and I also really enjoyed being reminded of certain bands like Gang of youths. I don't know if I realized that I really like RBCF or not, but if that tracks anything to go on, I'm all in. There was maybe a bit of a slow start to this one, but I also added more songs from your first half than most other DI lists combined to my "discoveries" playlist I've been making along the way.

Awesome thank you! Would love to know what the songs were you added to your list!

I would say that RBCF track has the most urgency of maybe all of their songs I've heard, but it would take you only an hour to listen to their current discography, which consists of an album and an EP. My favourite song of theirs:

Overall: Loved it. Definitely want to keep the second half around for work like I had tonight, which was all paperwork based, for sure! I love that kind of music for tasks like that. Thanks for the music!

Thank you!

 

[LemonMelon]

Cobbler, I'll respond to your post when it's not 4 AM, but I wanted to post a couple of songs your list reminded me of that I think you would like:

This is legit one of the greatest music videos ever and the song is superb:



And this is a house song that samples Aja so I don't have to sell you on it:

 

[iron yuppie]

iYup's list had a big hill to climb by spanning 133 minutes over only 22 tracks. I know just by looking at that count that pacing and transitions will be tricky. How did he do?

Mostly really fucking well.

I'll be honest and say that the first five songs or so worked for me more on an atmospheric level than a melodic one; I wouldn't listen to most of them out of context, but in a specific mood, I see a lot of value here in the textures and sound design of the tracks.

From Skee Mask on, I really started to engage with the list. Skee Mask is a brilliant producer of frigid IDM and I wish more people knew about him. The Four Tet and John Talabot (what happened to him?) tracks are personal favorites and I think this context helped them stand out as much as they do on their respective albums. I will say that, somewhere around this point in the list, I started to feel some fatigue. More variety or shorter songs would have been welcome in the early going of this list.

Thankfully, the turn from Ibeyi to the more afrobeat/afro-jazz midsection on the list was smooth as butter and introduced some fresh sounds. Basically everything from here to Yusef Lateef was sublime and possibly my favorite section of the tournament. I ended up researching albums by Mulatu Astatke, Duke Pearson and Yusef Lateef (who I had listened to before; Eastern Sounds is really good) because of this list.

Though I don't love the ending run quite as much (you picked some songs I don't like quite as much from artists I love; Disco King is awesome though), I think it's really cool how you managed you blend together different kinds of dance music together across this list (afrobeat vs Balearic beat, for example) and different applications of atmosphere (IDM vs jazz vs art pop, for example) without it getting too samey in the back half.

I've wanted to make a list like this one for a while: esoteric song choices, an emphasis on texture and rhythm over melody, lots of negative space. Despite some sections that dragged a bit, this was one of my favorite lists in the competition because it brought so many fresh ideas to the table and introduced and/or reacquainted me with some very talented artists.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am glad this list worked for you, as indeed the structure was a risk. I totally recognized that going in. The little phrase you use at the end - "texture and rhythm over melody" - was exactly what I was going for. Better articulated than I could have. The song that inspired the whole thing is Miles Davis' "He Loved Him Madly." Seeing that it's 30-odd minutes long, I didn't use it, but the general vibe is what I wanted.

I'm thrilled a few people have mentioned "The Phantom" already. I came across it randomly on a list of hip-hop producers talking about their favorite tracks from the Blue Note label, and immediately fell in love with it. It rides that central groove so skillfully and with amazing variety. I don't think the album it's on has ever been reissued, which is a shame because the entire thing is great.

Re: Skee Mask. Compro is one of the best electronic albums I have heard. My partner, who doesn't often like stuff I'm listening to, made a point of asking me about it one of the first times I played it. She then made a Pandora station based on it and would listen to downbeat German techno for hours on end. What I learned from that is the style is pretty expansive, but no one does it better than Skee Mask.

 

[iron yuppie]

Joey: I think it's easy to look at this list as a B&C greatest hits kind of thing, but that would be unfair given that you are a major contributor to the forum. Therefore, it makes sense a list you make would be reflective of stuff that gets discussed there. I like that the list balances well-known choices with more obscure cuts, sometimes back-to-back. I love that you used an early Mitski track, for example, because there are a lot gems in her pre-Puberty 2 work. Plus, she has an album named after a Simpsons quote. What's not to like?

As a three-song stretch, All Mirrors - Daydreaming - Blackstar is hard to beat. I've heard All Mirrors twice in this DI and multiple times on the radio during that time as well, but every time it's like a revelation. Such a great track.

There were a number of expert transitions in this list as well. I mentioned Daydreaming - Blackstar already; Florence and the Machine into Jenny Lewis belongs in that category as well.

I love that tracks from Push the Sky Away appear on two different lists. One of my favorite albums ever. I am firmly of the opinion that the title track has to be the final song of any list it appears on - there is no way anything can adequately follow it. Warren Ellis is a bloody genius. But having said that, the Steven Wilson track was nice. Lots to enjoy on this list.