Monday Mixtape, Vol. 32

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I can't in good conscience start a playlist this close to Christmas without a little Vince Guaraldi Trio's A Charlie Brown Christmas, easily my favorite Christmas album ever. Also in consideration: Home Alone Soundtrack, Boyz II Men A Christmas Collection, and Bing Crosby's Christmas Classics.

Anyways, we’re nearing the end of another wild year in music, so I’m still hard at work on my Top 100 Songs and Top 25 Albums playlists. These are hard as hell to slim down! I’m still at 200 songs after running through and deleting over 60.

As I continue to get through this, you can listen to the Monday Mixtape. I’ve included a few new jams, including hometown DC rapper, Goldlink, the spacey Mild High Cub, and the poppy but infectious Lissie. 

And of course, Christmas Time is Here. Well, almost. 

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 31

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The year is closing out, and that means I've been hard at work narrowing down all the albums I listened to this year to my favorite 25 as well as my favorite 100 songs! 

It's been quite the process since there were over 200 albums to begin with as well as thousands of songs to hear to make to the songs playlist. 

Anyways, those two playlists will be coming shortly, but in the meantime, here are some tunes I've been jamming to lately.

I found The New Basement Tapes randomly, but it's a supergroup of artists (Jim James from My Morning Jacket, Marcus Mumford, Elvis Costello, Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, and an unknown to me, Rhiannon Giddens) who were all assembled to take Bob Dylan lyrics from 1967 to record. It's a very cool album which begins with this track, "Down On The Bottom," which Jim James just crushes. 

G-Eazy is an Oakland rapper who has slowly but surely gained quite a following. He had a huge slot at Outside Lands here in SF, and "Random" shows his abilities. Check him out. 

Bully is a raw rock band with screeching vocals and a taste for distortion. Their sound is for those who like music without perfect edges.

I wrote about C. Duncan last week, but this album is sticking with me for its dreamy sound. “Say” is the opening track of Architect and sets the stage for the rest of the album. I’m still debating whether it makes it into the Top 25, but it’s close!   

Half Moon Run’s debut album last year made it into my Top 25 as they were one of the few rock bands that I heard with a bit of Radiohead in them. Their new album this year isn’t at the level of their debut, but “Turn Your Love” showcases their mix of electronics and more standard rock with barr chords and loud choruses. 

Prhyme is a collaboration of rapper Royce da 5’9 and legendary producer DJ Premier (outside of Q-Tip, no one exemplifies 90s rap beats more than Premier). I just started listening to this album from 2014, and I’m amazed I hadn’t heard about ti earlier. The album features Jay Electronica, Ab-Soul, Schoolboy Q, Mac Miller, and more and is a great listen. 

Finally, I wrote a short piece about Scott Weiland’s passing a few days ago (along with a Best of Stone Temple Pilots playlist!), and I thought it would only be fitting to end with an acoustic version of their most famous song. RIP. 

RIP Scott Weiland - Best of Stone Temple Pilots

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Stone Temple Pilots was one of my favorite bands growing up. They helped to define what the 90s sound was. They had three consecutive albums that were phenomenal, a feat that is rarely accomplished by any band.

STP was led by vocalist Scott Weiland, a man blanketed in an addiction whose wraps never let go. He died last night in his tour van.

STP wasn’t just rock n’ roll, they were talented and it all revolved around Weiland. Even as a young man, the addiction and sorrow covered Weiland’s face. He was in and out of jail his entire life. He was consumed by addiction. But he was an artist that created music that made millions of people’s lives better. The irony is that many of these artists can never solve the ills of their own life but always help others.

There’s too many songs to point to so I made a Best of Stone Temple Pilots playlist. “Interstate Love Song” will always remain one of my favorite songs OF ALL TIME. It’s so nostalgic, yet more importantly, it stands the test of time.

RIP.

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Monday Mixtape, Vol. 30

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When I was at Outside Lands this year, there was a teeny tent where artists would play a handful of songs prior to their sets on the big stages. One of these artists was Natalie Prass, who I have written about a number of times on this blog. 

It was Prass, her guitarist, and no more than twenty of us watching. I was an arm’s length away from her, and her delicate voice and stripped down renditions of her tracks was subtly beautiful. 

Prass’ debut album is easily one of my favorite albums this year, and she just released an EP (recorded live at her record label’s studio in Richmond, VA) which includes one of her best songs from her debut, “My Baby Don’t Understand Me,” and a few covers from the likes of Anita Baker, Simon & Garfunkel, and Grimes.

Which segueways perfectly to the incomparable Grimes. I haven’t written a lot about her new album Artangles. It’s an album NO ONE else could have made. She is an original melding genres in a kaleidoscope of sounds. If you’d like to get into the mind of one of the most brilliant and innovative artists out there right now, listen to this album.

She’s also respected and beloved by fellow artists as the cover by Natalie Prass would indicate. I included both the original Grimes song as well as Prass’ cover. 

I stumbled upon Mutemath accidentally, and I'm really digging their electro-pop sound. Check this album out if you like this mainly instrumental track (the other songs have singing!).

Last but not least is Freddie Gibbs, the rapper from Gary, Indiana. His new album, Shadow of a Doubt, is one of the better rap albums this year. Gibbs initially made a name for himself with a ton of mixtape but started to get a little more critical attention with his collaboration with Madlib on the crazy spacey, Pinata. I think he’s furthering his case as one of the best rappers out there. 

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving! 

Neil Young - Old Man

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I remember going to Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit concert a couple years ago. The concert is put on by Young with a ton of other big musicians to benefit children with severe physical impairments and complex communication needs. Neil Young and My Morning Jacket took the stage and performed "Harvest Moon."

I was blown away! I had never even heard that song. Hearing Young and Jim James sing together was a memorable experience, and I then realized how much I had been missing out on Neil Young.  

Which brings me to "Old Man." A song with one of the most famous and perfect choruses I've ever heard. This video shows Neil Young as a 26 year old performing the track. Words don't do it justice. What a unique and powerful voice.

  

Shout out to Society of Rock for posting this video. 

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 29

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Welp. I just wrote a ton and it got deleted because the page tried to reload. That sucks. Let's try this again. 

A number of solid albums have been released in the past few weeks that have reached into my Top 25 Albums of 2015. 

Borns has released one of the best Electro-Pop albums this year. He (yes, that's a dude singing!) tackles somberness like Beach House (as the guitar shows in "The Emotion") yet provides upbeat and lighthearted jams throughout (as his falsetto indicates on "Dopamine") that remind me a bit of Passion Pit and MGMT's first album. 

I first heard C. Duncan because he was nominated for the Mercury Prize - the award given to the best album of the year from the UK or Ireland. The prize ultimately went to Benjamin Clementine, a man with a mountain of a voice and a piano at his palms. But C. Duncan's album has intrigued me. I feel lost in a forest of folk, whistling tunes like he does in "For." The only guy I could think to compare him to is Bibio. 

I don't know how I found Sea Ghost, but they're unadorned rock by a singer with a voice no one would write home about, yet that sincerity is exactly why it works. The xylophone doesn't hurt either on "Cowboy Hat." 

Julia Holter vibrates in strings of instruments with an ethereal aura about her. She reminds me of Andrew Bird. Very cool album worth a listen! 

I wasn't overly impressed with Metric's album, but I thought this was a pretty powerful electro song.

The first half of Pure Bathing Culture's new album is really good but then it drops off a bit. If you like this track, check em out!   

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 28

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Life has been really crazy as of late, and the demands and time of work and life have had its effect on this blog! So I apologize that I have not been writing as much as I would like to. I'm headed to Salt Lake City in about eight minutes, and I wish I had more time to give an update on this week's mixtape, but I digress. 

Here it is, and if you're still reading this blog, thank you. 

That's a Rap, Vol. 2

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I apologize. I was supposed to post my follow up Rap playlists months ago! A while back, I posted That's a Rap, Vol. 1, which is an amazing array of tracks I highly recommend. The tracks in Volume 1 are primarily from 2013. But if you still haven't heard "F*ck Your Ethnicity" by Kendrick, "John Stockton" by Nemo Achida, or "There He Go" by Schoolboy Q, get your ass in gear! 

Volume 2 is another great playlist, but these tracks are primarily from 2014. If you haven't heard Isaiah Rashad, please listen to that entire album multiple times. If you haven't heard The Underachievers, please see my 5 Faves. 

I will post Volume 3 in the next few days as well. I wanted to make a Volume 4 but realized I hadn't even published these ones. 

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 27, and An Obit on Grantland

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Over the weekend, ESPN shut down Grantland, a site created by Bill Simmons and written by a phalanx of wordsmiths. It was my favorite site for four years and for many days, my only source of information.

There were too many amazing articles to list, too many talented writers to mention all of them, but the site warped around an orbit of - gasp - journalism. It was journalism, not click bait, not profits, not sex and skinniness, that provided substance in a universe of trolls and tirades. 

Writers like Zach Lowe, Jonah Keri, Katie Baker, Brian Phillips, and Bill Barnwell clearly analyzed the statistical and abstract in their respective fields, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, and football. I didn't need to go anywhere else - these were the best in their sport.

Jonathan Abrams excelled at the long form providing humanity to superhumans, Andy Greenwald reinvigorated TV, Shea Serrano did Shea Serrano things, Amos Barshad interviewed the world, and Molly Lambert wrote introspectively, thoughts spinning down the wormhole of every topic from porn conventions to Julia Roberts. Rembert Browne was the site's Zeitgeist, tuning us into LEONARD, opening up musicians like Childish Gambino and Mac Miller, interviewing the POTUS, and providing a needed voice in times when America was blind.

And to think I haven't even mentioned Charles Pierce, Wesley Morris, and Chuck Klosterman! But this site wasn't really about them. After reading many obits and Bill Simmons' own words (after he provided a link to a specific blog post on his Facebook page), the site was created to inspire the young. It was created to breed writers and provide a lens into what driven, brilliant, and hard working people can accomplish.

I don't know if I would have started this blog without Grantland's push. I don't know if I would have started writing like a layman without Simmons' journey from stoner to savant. But I know it helped.

One of the first things I read on Grantland was the Oral History - "The Greatest Paper That Ever Died" - on The National, one of the most infamous newspaper flameouts in history. The newspaper had a legendary cast, including Frank Deford, Norman Chad, and Grantland's very own, Charles Pierce.

In my mind, this story meant the world to Simmons. It represented the brashness of these individuals to take a risk and just fuckin' run. Each individual interviewed in the Oral History waxed nostalgic on those days. They were the best of the best, and they knew it. So Simmons took the playbook and ran.

The difference with Grantland was many of these young writers weren't anywhere near the stature of a Frank Deford. But Simmons saw something great in each one of them.

I have a feeling years down this windy web, we'll get another oral history. We'll get the insides and outs of this remarkable four year run from the individuals who knew it best. And then we'll all look back at the productive and inspiring things each one of these writers went on to do.

In the meantime, I'll keep reading wherever you are.

Thank you so much, all of you, for your words.

RIP Grantland.

-David