I have arrived at the dozen mark of playlists on my new journey and, aside from some melodic metal with beautiful vocals out of the Netherlands, I have none of those harsh guttural screams that can sometimes dispel the vibe. I have not one but two instrumental tracks on this, by two artists who specialize in mood setting grooves as well as four of my favorite current songwriters in Charli xcx, Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey and the Söderberg sisters. I also get in real touch with my teens and early twenties with tracks that remind us of the Family Values tour and my goth times. I’m really proud of this list, enjoy!
Track #1: Charli xcx – Move Me – Crash (2022)
Charli may be celebrating the release of her new album brat right now but this was the record that really got me interested in her work. Yes, I knew that she was the backing vocals on Iggy Azalea’s Fancy but the whole record took me by complete surprise and I had to pick it up on vinyl. When the song was being created, it was noted that it would be a great song for Halsey to perform but Charli was adamant that the song was hers and hers alone. I’m glad she made that choice because it is a phenomenal track off of an album full of them.
“Something ’bout the way you
Hold my body tight even on my lowest nights
Locked down by my side
Even when I’m borderline
Yeah, I don’t even know why I push you away
It’s something ’bout the way you”
Track #2: Tycho – Spectre – Awake (2014)
Thanks to my friend Drex, I was put on the path of Tycho, also known as Scott Hansen, a dance and electronic musician from Sacramento, California. Always chill vibes and a fantastic drive, Tycho is an artist I’ll put on for long drives or good smoke sessions on the patio, the perfect summer music in my opinion. Awake was the record that piqued my interest when I heard it and this is a buried little track that I think needs some good exposure, even ten years later.
Instrumental
Track #3: Within Temptation – The Purge – Bleed Out (2023)
This one is a little embarrassing for a guy who loves metal like I do because this Waddinxveen, South Holland, Netherlands band has been around since 1996 and I only started listening when Spotify suggested the lead single off of their 2023 record. Needless to say, I totally devoured the whole thing immediately and now it is one of my most listened-to new albums in 2024 without a doubt. No doubt, it is destined to be part of my Wrapped at the end of the year but the beauty of the melodic vocals and crashing guitars and drums in this track makes it a great choice for their first appearance on the playlist. There will be more.
“Let me feel it ’cause I don’t know, I can’t see
All I feel’s I’m breaking up
Oh, can’t you see it’s taking over, over me?
Can’t you see?
Yeah, you want me to fight it, and you want me to let go
Yeah, you tell me to fight it, and you damn me if I don’t
So let me bleed it out and purge me, I can’t see
No, I can’t see, no, I can’t see”
Track #4: Clutch – Firebirds – Psychic Warfare (2015)
I think it was through either the Jackass show or movie or the CKY videos but I was put on the path of how kick-ass this Germantown, Maryland is but it wasn’t until this single came onto my Spotify recommended list a few years back that I really started paying attention. This is undoubtedly a total drive song that keeps your head bopping throughout and it is born from being a road trippin’ song about a guy picking up a mysterious hitchhiker, something vocals, rhythm guitar and keyboard player Neil Fallon describes on a really solid commentary video that’s worth checking out on YouTube.
““Firebirds! Energy weapons!
Both these things are interesting to me
I don’t care how you get them
I need them both, and I need them urgently””
Track #5: Faith No More – Last Cup Of Sorrow – Album Of The Year (1997)
My music god and favorite singer of all time makes his second appearance as the Mike Patton fronted Faith No More’s second single off of their sixth record is now a part of my playlists. It was the first album to feature the band’s current guitarist Jon Hudson, and was their last studio album before their eleven-year hiatus from 1998 to 2009. For me, this song feels like an early indicator of the style Patton would bring to his new band, Tomahawk, in 1999, although their debut record wouldn’t land until 2001. I really love that all the marketing and artwork around the single are fashioned like the Alfred Hitchcock film, Vertigo. Patton’s love and reverence for film is something I fanboy out for big time.
“Like a snake between two stones
It itches in your bones
Take a deep breath and swallow
Your sorrow
Tomorrow”
Track #6: Arctic Monkeys – Brainstorm – Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007)
If there was a band that was at the top of the British indie rock sound of the mid 2000s, it was defintiely these guys, which is weird for me because I didn’t get into them until way later. For me, it wasn’t until the Guitar Hero and Rock Band era, where this song was a king for sure, but it was also before their signature sound would change for the AM record. This sound has since changed again but it is really awesome to go back to the style that put them on the map, for a fast and drive bop that really makes you want to dance or just shake your limbs around like a Muppet.
“Brian, top marks for not trying
So kind of you to bless us with your effortlessness
We’re grateful and so strangely comforted
And I wonder, are you putting us under?
‘Cause we can’t take our eyes off the t-shirt and ties combination
Well, see you later, innovator”
Track #7: Orgy – Fiction (Dreams In Digital) – Vapor Transmissions (2000)
Here is a track that brings me back to the mammoth tour at the cusp and start of the millennium, which was the Family Values tour and one that even produced a record. I had a soft spot for this Los Angeles band, someone I always saw as the more electronic side of nu-metal that came through with Deftones, Korn and Limp Bizkit, something that vocalist Jay Gordon and guitarists Amir Derakh and Ryan Shuck, the founding members of the group, call “death pop” which is sort of fitting. There is a real beauty to this, the first single off of their sophomore record and one that definitely got a lot of play on my CD player at the time. Remember those? It was also one of the over five hundred CDs that got stolen from my first apartment circa 2001. Yeah, it still hurts.
“And your pixel army can’t save you now
My finger’s on the kill switch
I remember I used to compose your dreams
Control your dreams
And don’t be afraid to expose yourself
Before I shut you down
You’ve made some changes
Since the virus caught you sleeping”
Track #8: First Aid Kit – Fireworks – Ruins (2018)
The harmonies created by Svedmyra, Stockholm, Sweden-born sisters Johanna and Klara Söderberg are of a quality that you don’t see very often and were an instant lure to a music lover like myself. I was obsessed when I heard their song Rebel Heart for the first time, a song that will most likely end up on a playlist here, but it was this track and the subsequent performance I saw on The Late Show and the Spotify Studio sessions that really caught my ear and I feel like I listened to Ruins on a loop for a couple weeks afterwards. The song was the second single off the album and is about big dreams that fell unrealized. Such a beautiful four minutes of music.
“Stood out on that beach in Chicago
Woke up next to you on Silver Lake Avenue
Wherever I went I always knew, always knew
Till I didn’t know”
Track #9: Lucy In Disguise – 1987 Pt. 2 – Sunset Radio (2019)
This playlist is already a bit of an anomaly as I have not one but two instrumental tracks on it. Actually, I’m a little surprised that nothing off of a movie score has made it here yet but this track from Eau Claire, Wisconsin artist Lucy In Disguise kind of forms its own chill landscape in your mind, which is fitting as they are categorized as future synth and chillwave. This song feels like a cool and breezy odyssey but it really hits its stride from about a minute thirty to forty five on and becomes a groove that you want to night drive to and feel the wind course over you. Such a damn good track and one I wouldn’t have known unless I got into Le Matos and their score for the Canadian sci-fi action flick, Turbo Kid.
Instrumental
Track #10: H.I.M. – Join Me In Death – Razorblade Romance (2000)
To say that I liked or enjoyed Ville Vallo and his Helsinki, Finland gothic rock ban would be a massive understatement. The reality is that when I first heard their songs on Bam Margera’s CKY video, predating his Jackass work, I was so hooked, got the CDs, got the merch and was a die-hard H.I.M. guy through and through. This track is so beautiful in its pitch-black romance but encompasses exactly the sound that Ville loves to produce. Love, death, lust and need are all wrapped in a dark cloud of guitars and piano keys. It’s simply just awesome.
“This world is a cruel place
And we’re here only to lose
So, before life tears us apart
Let death bless me with you”
Track # 11: Arcade Fire – Wake Up – Funeral (2004)
The legendary group of Canadian minstrels out of Montreal, Quebec make their return to the playlist with a song that is probably one of their most widely known. The final single off of their debut album, a record that released a whopping five singles, this song is typically the one that they close all of their shows with and just the “sing to the sky” atmosphere of it all, I totally get it. The lyrics themselves describe the discontentment that comes with growing older, but also how we can overcome this ennui and live more of a laissez-faire attitude to deflate that crushing feeling. Being from Quebec, I thought using French terms would be appropriate.
“Children, wake up
Hold your mistake up
Before they turn the summer into dust
If the children don’t grow up
Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up
We’re just a million little gods causing rain storms
Turning every good thing to rust
I guess we’ll just have to adjust”
Track #12: Taylor Swift featuring Lana Del Rey – Snow On The Beach – Midnights (2023)
Two of my absolute favorites on the same track? Yes, please! Sadly, I’m barring them both from appearing on any playlist for the following few months but this son is so worth it, a showing of two of the greatest living songwriters coming together for a swirly and poignant track about the immediate love connection between two individuals. Going through this song and then the album again for the hundredth time afterward, I was easily reminded again that this might be my favorite of Taylor’s work. The difficult choice was whether to put the first version of the song on the playlist or to put the “More Lana” version on instead. It was a hard decision but I opted for the first one but both are insanely good.
“And it’s like snow at the beach
Weird, but fuckin’ beautiful
Flying in a dream
Stars by the pocketful
You wanting me
Tonight feels impossible
But it’s comin’ down
No sound, it’s all around”
Track #13: Hoobastank – Out Of Control – The Reason (2003)
Everytime I think of this band these days, I have no choice but to yell out “Seven dollars of Hoobastank” which is a line that Jason Mantzoukas’s character Raffi, or Brollo El Comyado, on the comedy series, The League. That was a plug to a great series but I was actually on the Hooba train since the beginning and this might be the heaviest song that they produced. Great energy and a good drive, this is a song that will immediately get you grooving in my opinion. The track was the first song released off of the mega popular The Reason record and, unfortunately features back up vocals from the rightfully disgraced band Lost Prophets but it’s still a damn good song that holds up today.
“I may never know the answer
To this endless mystery
Where should I go? What should I do?
I don’t understand what you want from me”
Track #14: Saint Asonia – Above It All – Introvert (2022)
Being a huge fan of Norwood, Ontario band Three Days Grace since the first angle, I would follow establishing lead singer Adam Gontier to any project he does and when Spotify suggested this supergroup, my eyes widened and my jaw dropped. I loved this first track immediately and the darkness of it and pure Gontier flare and style on the track are exactly why. Saint Asonia is comprised of Gontier, his brother Cale on bass, Staind’s guitarist Mike Mishok and drummer Cody Watkins and their EP is one of my favorites in the last five years, all launched by this track. The only issue with it is now I’m waiting for a full album to be released as their page has gone silent with those updates for a long time now.
“It’s time to take a stand and save our lives
Rise before we fall
There’s no more second chance it’s do or die
Rise above it all”
Steve Stebbing 