Monday Mixtape, Vol. 100!

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We did it!! 100 Monday Mixtapes! All I can say is I'm happy I got Layers & Sounds to this point. I initially started this blog in the hopes that I could share my musical tastes and potentially become somewhat of a quasi popular music blogger whose range of musical tastes brought all sorts of different people to the fray. I knew that was always a stretch, but I did get a press pass to a My Morning Jacket show and almost got Michael Rapaport to tweet links to my playlists of my Best of Jay-Z and Best of Nas to see which playlist was better. Rapaport couldn’t figure Spotify out at that point so it all fell through :( We’ll always have the laughs  

But I started this blog as Spotify and all the other streaming giants began to really gain steam, and it seemed like humble blogs became irrelevant because Spotify and others would recommend music to listen to (and TBH Discover is a pretty cool playlist!).

Nonetheless, I kept writing and sharing stuff because it helped me keep my creative mind alive while I slaved away at a job that was very stressful and not exactly creative. A few blog posts got a lot of views for some weird reason: An Intervention for...The Weeknd maybe the most so because I wrote about "I Can't Feel My Face" before it became a huge hit so my SEO came up on a lot of people's searches (or something like that.)

Of the hundreds and hundreds of poems I've written, I've shared about five of them since those are the only ones I think are worth a damn. I'm proud of them and glad I was able to find an outlet to say those things.

I wish I wrote more stream of conscious musings on books I’ve read since I ultimately forget so much of what I liked in books. I only have two books on my blog but better than none, I suppose.

I shared photographs and other things, it's all been an adventure and great to look back on as I hit this numerical milestone since Layers & Sounds started three years ago.

(We won’t talk about the fashion blog. A bit misguided but still glad I tried).

Anyways, here's some more music, my 100th Mixtape, god knows if I'll be able to do another 100 of these, but I can promise you the music will always be playing. 

Cheers!  

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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