PEPSI COLA
Seems to me the world needs less of a “doing things” mentality more of a “feeling things” mentality. If you’re listening, Outdoor Voices, I’m available to turn your tired brand around. Until then, we’ll have to settle for this extremely “feeling things” playlist.
DJ Shadow - Nobody Speak (Feat. Run The Jewels)
Tove Lo - disco tits
Bleachers - Rollercoaster
Al Green - Let’s Stay Together
Pixies - Debaser
Lana Del Rey - Cola
Converge - I Can Tell You About Pain
The Strokes - Chances
Mitski - Your Best American Girl
St. Vincent - New York
It feels like cheating that this is technically a DJ Shadow song because all I hear is unbridled confidence from Jamie and Mikey. And sure, that descending guitar lick is light but sassy, and the horns build with suffocating intensity, but you could be forgiven for assuming this is a Run The Jewels track. Killer Mike and EL-P have been in the game so long that their wordplay is surgical. Listening to them trade barbs is like experiencing two zen masters trading koans—but with more dick references and twice the unhinged absurdism. If you haven’t heard their excellent new album, you’re missing out. For now, let their increasingly outlandish braggadocio wash over you. This is pump up music. This is don’t mess with me music. “Nobody Speak” could be your spirit animal. Picture this.
Admittedly, my listening doesn’t always stray into club ready electro-dance but every once in a while there’s a moment where my head turns because something bangs hard. Tove Lo isn’t shy. The NSFW “disco tits” is about what you think it’s about, building from a pulsing back beat and featuring warped chipmunk samples and stabbing keyboards. If this song doesn’t have you ready to go, you’re a cop.
I was late to the Jack Antonoff party. Like everyone else in 2012, I was all in on fun. and certainly The Format for those playing emo pop bingo. Bleachers, however, was something I had to warm up to. I think I needed time to understand Antonoff’s artistic lane as a solo artist. Bleachers songs are like big 80s movies on the brink of an explosive montage. They are a sugar rush of emotion—Bruce Springsteen if you cut out the dad vibes and cranked up the earnestness. “Rollercoaster“ is the sound of falling in love, the fireworks in your chest set to big money power pop and new wave shine. The kind of grandeur Antonoff traffics in requires a bit of suspended disbelief, but of course, that’s what falling in love feels like to begin with.
Before COVID-19 and the end of Western Civilization, I did a lot more traveling for my job. While I don’t mind airports, I’m hyper sensitive to time changes. I tend to live on caffeine and anxiety when I travel alone and I have trouble sleeping. A lot of the time I’m turning to Al Green for comfort. To me, Al Green provides a tenderness and calm that no other artist can tap into. I probably heard “Let’s Stay Together” for the first time when I saw Pulp Fiction in high school. Up until then, the only love songs I had heard were ones that repeated well-worn clichés, or were about intense longing (I was 15, sue me). Al Green showed me a deeper connection exists in this life and taking a moment the cherish it, privately and without society’s distortions, is important. For me, Al Green made it safe to be and feel romantic, something that I often find comforting when I’m on the road.
I was in college when someone showed me Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí’s film Un chien andalou, which depicted someone taking a razorblade across Simone Mareuil’s eyeball in the opening shot. This, of course, was some clever editing, but that kind of image stays with you because it’s bonkers. That’s one of the reasons why I think “Debaser” is a quintessential Pixies song—it’s outrageously raw, immediate, and even makes use of Un chien andalou conceptually. To love the Pixies is to love contradictions: wave after wave of spiraling guitar heroics, Black Francis’ manic screams, Kim Deal’s sweet counterpoint vocals, and the gory truth pumped through sentimental hooks. The world is a big mess with no descernable plot, but if you listen just right, it’s kind of fun sometimes (unless you’re Simone Mareuil).
Yes, *that* Lana Del Rey song. All smoky wobble, big strings, and Pepsi. The definitive Lana Del Rey moment—let’s take “Gimme Shelter” and strip it of politics. Drink up, it’s a hot summer.
Converge songs are transformative. You can feel the push towards transcendence in every disgustingly broken breakdown and manic riff. “I Can Tell You About Pain” was the first single from The Dusk in Us and it’s one of the most relentless songs in their catalog. It comes in three parts; charging, unwinding, and calamitous. Kurt Ballou makes this galloping four-piece sound like military-grade murder cyborgs but the glue is Jacob Bannon’s impassioned screams as he reaches towards the truth. Converge create hardcore/metal drama like no other, specializing in a chaotic brand of heavy music that remains urgent and vital. In the search for something real, they are peerless.
2020 was the year I learned that I love The Strokes. Throughout quarantine, I’d joke with friends that as a teenager I didn’t get Julian Casablancas because I cared about everything too much. Now, as an adult, I care very little about most things, so that world weary apathy plays better for me at 32 than it did at 15. “Chances” is taken from the critically maligned Comeback Machine, which is actually more sentimental and contemplative than “Music Twitter” would lead you to believe. The song builds from tight guitar lines, swelling synthesizers, and 80s cool. Casablancas’ falsetto is downright endearing until you realize he’s telling someone to kiss off. That’s the magic of The Strokes—hidden twists through nostalgic pastiche.
The sound of you dissolving into shards of light and feelings and fuzz isn’t a breakdown, it’s just Mitski. It’s just the chorus of this absolutely gargantuan song. “Your Best American Girl” is an incredible story of self/cultural acceptance. We often feel as though we have to change for other people, when in fact, the change that needs to happen is for us to love ourselves. That sort of revelation is twice as wonderful when it’s set to crashing guitars.
I’ve been to New York twice in my life but this St. Vincent song makes me think of the last time I was there. There’s special moment that happens when you’re alone, looking out at the endless city lights from your hotel. Annie Clark laments the loss of a friend, or a lover, set against soft piano and ascending electronics during this song and it’s as fragile as it is unwavering. Sometimes, having the space to feel everything at once, at your own pace, is exactly what you need. “New York” makes me think about the strands and connections in my life—all at once missing someone and knowing that they are always right beside me as the city sprawls on for miles and miles.
Originally published July 11, 2020 as part of Hella Vibes.