Monday Mixtape, Vol. 138

This White Reaper track has got to be the song of the summer! How good is the guitar??

It only takes a few seconds into this recently released Lupe Fiasco track that I knew it had to be recorded back in his Food & Liquor days. If it wasn’t for Lupe’s “F and F” shoutout (to Lupe’s label 1st and Fifteenth) that he constantly yelled out on his classic debut album, the production and flow is old school Lupe. According to Complex, this was recorded before Food & Liquor and will be part of a release by Lupe’s longtime business partner of unreleased tracks over many years of their label. Can’t wait.

Not sure who Litany is, but “My Dude” got me caught with its 80s vibe and the gal’s voice.

Funny because I was talking on last week’s mixtape write-up about how Whitney reminded me of Real Estate, but then I started listening to Golden Daze, and dear lord, Golden Daze wins for best album of the year that sounds like Real Estate. It’s not a bad thing, Real Estate had the acoustic indie chill vibe on lockdown for many years at which point Mac Demarco kind of took over (and might have ceded the belt given how much I disliked his last album), but there were bound to be a ton of admirers influenced by Real Estate. Often imitated, never duplicated.

Enjoy the other music on this week’s mixtape and have a great week!

Playlist - Wait...Rock? Vol. 2

In my first playlist of this series, I worried that rock had died the day of Kurt Cobain's suicide. Fortunately, there's been a wave of new bands bringing rock back to the forefront. These bands continue to pop up and rock out.

Almost every band on this playlist has only released one album (and the Wavves/Cloud Nothings collaboration technically counts as their first album!), so it's primarily brand new stuff!