Steve Stebbing

Being a beginner to the real cohesion of playlists, doing them as a “day-by-day add to” list has sometimes worked out perfectly but other times, it has seemed like a mish-mash of crazy styles, tone shifts and jarring transitions. Well, this is probably a grouping of songs that belongs with the latter as I have shifts like Ladytron to Eyes Set To Kill, The Smiths to Stabbing Westward and The National to Taproot. I did try and sneak in my own music therapy to start getting myself over a total tragedy that has happened to one of my all time favorite duos.

Track #1: Shinedown – Cut The Cord – Threat To Survival (2015)

Starting this playlist off with a proven hit generator in this Jacksonville, Florida rock band who have been putting out solid records since 2003 and I really only just got into them fully in the last decade. I definitely should have been into them earlier, as they did the theme song for WWE Monday Night RAW years ago, using their song Enemies, but their album Attention Attention really got my, well, attention. From there, I started backtracking and came across this track, the first single released from the 2015 album. That record was largely panned by critics but this song was celebrated and it still makes me bop whenever it comes on.

“Let me tell you: I’m vicious
Not passive-aggressive
I’ve got my finger on the pulse
Starin’ straight into a hole, and I get it
And I’m a savage; it’s automatic
I got a way of makin’ noise
The power to destroy with no static”

Track #2: Toadies – Tyler – Rubberneck (1994)

When it comes to this Fort Worth, Texas rock band that formed at the inception of the grunge era, Possum Kingdom is the song I feel like we know and love. It wasn’t until I dug into the album that track came off of that I realized it is such a treasure trove of great rock songs and this one is definitely my favorite. The song is named after a small town an hour and a half outside of Dallas, a place without much going on and the focus is on a sexual assault that happened in town. The point of view of the song is from the attacker and gets really dark but, damn, why did the Toadies have to make it all with a catchy sound around it? It makes me feel weird and now I pass that feeling on to you.

“We can drive
To any place
Day and night
To cross this state”

Track #3: Thirty Seconds To Mars – The Story – A Beautiful Lie (2005)

No matter how weird Jared Leto comes across in real life and whether he really runs a cult or whatever rumors swirl around him, I still feel very drawn to his music and have since the release of their first album. With A Beautiful Lie, I feel they made a real landmark record and it was this song of it that I feel myself constantly drawn to. It has an echoey drive to it that resonates to my very musical core every time and it has a bridge in it that I belt out along with Jared and can’t get it out of my head for hours afterwards. This is a warning here, you haven’t seen the last of Jared, Shannon and company on these lists as I make them.

“I’m in the middle of nothing
And it’s where I want to be
I’m at the bottom of everything
And I finally start to leave”

Track #4: Ladytron – Destroy Everything You Touch – Witching Hour (2005)

It’s really starting to feel like 2005 is the story of this playlist this time around as now we have two records in a row from the mid-aughts time. This electro-pop trio out of Liverpool, England made their first impression on me with this song off of their third album, and like most of my discoveries in that genre, I was hooked big time. The rising intensity of this song gets me grooving almost immediately and I saw it referred to as a “scorched earth banger” and I can’t think of a better way to describe it. The second single released off of Witching Hour, I really have to recommend the music video as well, an artful piece directed by Adam Bartley in his only time behind the camera.

“Everything you touch, you don’t feel
Do not know what you steal
Shakes your hand
Takes your gun
Walks you out of the sun
What you touch, you don’t feel
Do not know what you steal
Destroy everything you touch today
Please destroy me this way”

Track #5: Eyes Set To Kill – Drift Away – Eyes Set To Kill (2018)

The Rodriguez sisters out of Tempe, Arizona make their second appearance on one of my playlists and this is kind of a big one as they kicked off this whole project as song one on playlist one and it was a song of this album too. I dig this track a lot, one that serves as the first of the last four songs on the record, and the emo drive of it really gets going as an earworm every time I hear it. The song feels like it speaks to themes of promises broken and extreme abandonment so, as far as an emo song goes, it kind of checks all the boxes. The difference is it has some good metal crunch to it. Seriously, if this band’s name is new to you, fix it with this album ASAP.

“All of the blood and all the shame
Was it all for nothing?
I swallowed my pride to be a slave
Yeah, I took the beating
There is no hope to hold onto
No point in believing
These letters to home
Aren’t getting through”

Track #6: My Chemical Romance – I’m Not Okay (I Promise) – Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge (2004)

Speaking of emo songs, it’s time to bring one of the all-time heavyweights in that genre to the playlists and, with how much I enjoy this group, I’m surprised it’s taken this long. Founded by brothers Gerard and Mikey Way in 2001 out of Newark, New Jersey, the lyrics automatically gripped my the first time I heard them and it was this song that started the ball rolling, which also happened to be the first single off their second record. The song is basically a plea for help from a girl being mentally abused by a partner using her own personal pictures against her. The song plays both angles through the central narrator, Gerard, to claim some sort of understanding. Emo songs can sometimes have ridiculous depth to them and these guys are the kings of that.

“Forget about the dirty looks
The photographs your boyfriend took
You said you read me like a book
But the pages all are torn and frayed now”

Track #7: Dead Poet Society – .CoDA. – -!- (2021)

I love bringing a band that isn’t widely known to this list and this rock band out of Boston, Massachusetts really deserves to have ears on them. Formed in 2013, it’s crazy to think that the band didn’t get their first full record released until after the beginning of the pandemic after the release of four EPs but here we are. A bunch of Berklee College of Music graduates, they wouldn’t have had musical exposure if it wasn’t for the love they experienced with Mexican fans through a music blog called Pepe Problemas. This is the first track I heard by them and it put me on the path of this full debut album as well as the follow-up Fission which was released at the very beginning of the year. These guys deserve to blow up big time and I hope the rock charts begin to realize that.

“Talk shit, bitch
Say it like you wanna leave
You love me like cocaine, yeah
Don’t lie, get it right
Need me every night
You love me like, you love me like
You love me like cocaine, yeah
You love me like, I love you like”

Track #8: The Smiths – Bigmouth Strikes Again – The Queen Is Dead (1986)

Let’s get this opinion out of the way. Morrissey has made a career out of being a complete asshole, saying inflammatory things and giving his shitty thoughts on everything and cancelling shows over his own bloated ego. That said, Johnny Marr is a rock god without question and The Smiths hold an undeniable place in music history and were the inspiration for so many. This is a song I really felt like I needed on a bad Monday and it’s kind of cool that this was the first Smiths song to land on the playlist as I really thought it would be the more common How Soon Is Now that was first selected. This was the leading single off of this record and it is iconic, to say the least.

“And now I know how Joan of Arc felt
Now I know how Joan of Arc felt
As the flames rose to her Roman nose
And her Walkman started to melt (Ah)”

Track #9: Stabbing Westward – Save Yourself – Darkest Days (1998)

It looks like this is the part of the playlist where we get even more classic and this band fits right in with bands like Nine Inch Nails and, what came from that band, Filter. An industrial rock quintet out of Macomb, Illinois, this was the record where I really started paying attention to them, even though the hit song “What Do I Have To Do?” lives in an industrial emo hall of fame in my opinion. I remember buying this album just based on that one track alone and was treated to a concept album of sorts too. This song is part of the second act which is about lust, hope, and longing in the aftermath of a breakup. If you were heartbroken in the late 90s, this should’ve been your go-to. It still could be.

“I know that you’ve been damaged
Your soul has suffered such abuse
But I am not your savior
I am just as fucked as you
(I am just as fucked as you)”

Track #10: R.E.M. – What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? – Monster (1994)

Yes, we’re getting back to that Smiths-ish style of a classic with a rock band that lives in a legend status, and that is Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and the rest of R.E.M. I’m definitely not over the moon about their entire discography but some songs poke through and this one is reminiscent of the music video era when it was really at it’s height in the mid-nineties. Furthermore, this track popping up made me re-examine this album as an adult and it improved immensely with my music maturity now. I can see why this record was so loved and I wish I wasn’t so jaded at the time and had the broader understanding of music that I do today. This song was also the tipping point into a rockier sound from R.E.M., a landmark track if you will.

“I’d studied your cartoons, radio, music, TV, movies, magazines
Richard said, “Withdrawal in disgust is not the same as apathy”
A smile like the cartoon, tooth for a tooth
You said that irony was the shackles of youth”

Track # 11: The Weeknd – Gasoline – Dawn FM (2022)

The second appearance of the closest voice we have to Michael Jackson at present date, The Weeknd also doubles as Canadian content on this playlist, the only one so far. This song is one that got caught in my head as it was used as the official theme song for Wrestlemania this year and as a regular viewer of their programming, I heard it over and over again. The basis of the song is Abel speaking about himself as a selfish lover whose only self-worth is derived from his partner. It fits in as the first real track on the, largely, concept record Dawn FM, as of now, the last one he’s put out. I think he said he was done too, so this weirdo record and The Idol will be the last “Weeknd” releases.

“It’s 5 AM my time again
I’ve soaken up the moon, can’t sleep
It’s 5 AM my time again
I’m calling and you know it’s me
I’m pushin’ myself further
I’m just tryin’ to feel my heartbeat beat (Beat)
I wrap my hands around your neck
You love it when I always squeeze
It’s 5 AM, I’m high again
And you can see that I’m in pain (Ooh, ooh)
I’ve fallen into emptiness
I want you ’cause we’re both insane
I’m staring into the abyss
I’m lookin’ at myself again
I’m dozing off to R.E.M.
I’m trying not to lose my faith”

Track #12: Tenacious D – Tribute – Tenacious D (2001)

Given all the recent events surrounding The D and their apparent break up over a Donald Trump assassination attempt joke, when this song popped on I felt an initial sadness wash over me. The current filter of the year 2024 has a tainted taste on it but the original love I have for this album, all twenty-three years of it, won’t let me completely tarnish my comfort album, a record I know lyrically from front to back. I can’t let JB’s heinous decision-making skills rob me of the glory of this record and the memories I have attached to it! So, I offer a Tribute, if you will, to honor my deep feelings of love to a collection of songs that I’ve carried with me ever since they first hit my ears as well as a rock legend duo that called it quits for th stupidest of reasons.

“Ah-rah, dee
Soo-guh-goo-gee-goo-gee
Goo-guh fli-goo gee-goo
Guh fli-goo, ga-goo-buh-dee
Ooh, guh-goo-bee
Ooh-guh-guh-bee-guh-guh-bee
Fli-goo gee-goo
A-fliguh woo-wa mama Lucifer!”

Track #13: The National – All The Wine – Alligator (2005)

I guess I’ll come right out of the gate and address that I’m using the verion of this song from the second releasing of it rather than the one off of their third studio album and not the previously released EP from 2004. This band is one I found through the radio, on a great station called The Peak which showcased a different side of rock music but it was from their current album at the time, High Violent from 2010. Through that and the influence of my wife, I started to look through their earlier work, via the Blaylock playlists, and really fixated on this record a lot. I also really have love for a song that would contain the lyric “I’m a perfect piece of ass”. That’s so damn poetic, thank you Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner.

“I’m put together beautifully
Big wet bottle in my fist
Big wet rose in my teeth
I’m a perfect piece of ass
Like every Californian
So tall I take over the street
With high-beams shining up my back
A wingspan unbelievable
I’m a festival
I’m a parade”

Track #14: Taproot – Myself – Welcome (2002)

Wrapping this playlist up with a returning band and one of my favorites of all time, Ann Arbor, Michigan’s own Taproot, for have three immaculate records in a row, starting with their landmark debut, Gift. The second record clearly had a big effect on me as I have now brought a second track off of that album but this song in particular has a direct connection to the debut as it features a sample directly from the band’s first single, “Again & Again”. The bridge to the song also has such a good deep groove to it that /i have to crank the volume on it everytime. In a selfish move, I’m choosing to close this pretty all over the place playlist with a forever favorite of mine.

“Caressing gateways of the mind
Over, enter through spaces time
Heals wounds inspiring gifts of light
Inside myself just need some time
(Just need some time to myself)
To figure it out cause I’ve got no doubt
That when my dreams come true
It’s because of you
And the fact that I let you”