monday, november 30th
Listeners' poll, make out jams, the Heat Miser & more
Ya ya ya…slackr!
Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving week! Nothing beats good, old-fashioned gluttony. We’re now plunged head first into December which is terrifying and entirely welcome. Get this year out of here!
We’ve got a brand new mixtape way down at the bottom of the email as well as our usual rundown of last week’s mixtape. But first…
2020 MMM Listener’s Poll!
As much as this year was a weekly kick in the cajones, there were some musical bright spots; as I’ve mentioned for the past two weeks, it’s the time of the year to do a little assessing of what we enjoyed in the past 12 months!
Below is a survey for you to share a few of the music things you came to love in 2020. I’ve done my best to make it accessible - you don’t have to be an expert to have preferences or opinions!
Submit your answers by Friday, December 11th - if you dare
Last Week This Morning
In this weekly section I’ll walk through the previous week’s mixtape: a track-by-track and sound-by-sound guide to what you heard, what you might have missed, and all the extracurriculars to go along with it. Today, we’ll look back on Monday, November 23rd.
Sleepwalk
We started off last week with “August 25th” by Les Yper-Sound off of their 2016 debut, the aptly named Explorations in Drums & Sax. This song was probably the best thing I got out of my record label internship; I just remember being mesmerized listening to it on a Wednesday afternoon and having the guts to ask the scary older (I’m probably the same age now that she was then) art director lady what we were hearing. It’s stuck with me pleasantly over the years, obtuse, instrumental, and funky.
All sleepwalk songs will be housed on the Spotify playlist below.
Did you really think it could be anyone else? Prince and “It’s Gonna Be Lonely,” duh. I’m just realizing this as I write, but this is a Make Out Jam™. (I feel like make out jams were as 80s as velvet scrunchies and Ronald Regan, something that our parents can hold over us with guilty pleasure.) It’s methodical without being slow (like good kissing should be) and is full of glittery explosions as it gradually crescendos (you get it). Believe me, Prince knew what he was doing.
Three weeks ago on a celebratory Saturday night, I found myself at a friend’s sifting through her bountiful (and consistently good) record collection. Being who I am, I played Marty Robbins’ Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs and followed it up with Moondance. Another pal took over, playing Billy Joel and then a big band record, which hit the spot to end the evening. It was Duke Ellington’s Recollections of the Big Band Era and within 24 hours I had ordered it on Discogs. Mind you, this is out of character; I much prefer the dig to the ease of ordering records online, but it was just so good! Again and again I’ve played it front to back, getting a kick out of Duke’s take on “Minnie the Moocher” every time. It’s got that classy, gaudy big band strut to start and then jumps into gear out of nowhere.
INTERLUDE! Since moving to New York I’ve played an onslaught of games with my roommates: board games, video games, card games, computer games, you name it. Those boys just love games and I am happy to oblige. One of the games they’ve had me play is Life is Strange: Before the Storm, the story of a few days in the hard and inextinguishingly dramatic life of teenager Chloe Price. The sound clip comes from the game’s bonus episode (spoiler alert: her dad dies and her best friend moves away in one fell swoop). It felt like the perfectly angsty segue into…
“Destroyer,” by Lala Lala. There was a Sunday back in April when I just was getting my ass kicked, couldn’t muster a good feeling to save my life. I went on a long bike ride and found myself sitting in a parking lot as the sun took its time to set. Somehow I came across this song (probably Twitter tbh) without ever having heard of Lala Lala and listened to it on repeat a few times before heading home.
I remember loving the soaring chorus and then literally not listening to it again for six months. Lillie West really hits the high notes for someone who grumbles through the the verses. After listening to it on repeat many more times, I’ve figured out that the key to the chorus is the keyboard (though perhaps a guitar) playing a slightly contrasting countermelody to give everything a little extra texture.
INTERLUDE II! It was Thanksgiving week…I had to include Charlie Brown!
Deceptively nasty little song to close us out. As a sort of the foil to Prince’s comparatively grandiose declarations, Eunice Collins’ “At the Hotel” is a gentle ode to different forms of sexual frustration happening simultaneously. It’s one of those mystical radio songs that you hear once and then it disappears off the face of the earth just before you’ve figured out enough words to find it later. I was lucky enough to be informed before I lost it forever.
I love that I have no clue who is singing lead here. (I honestly have no idea whether Eunice is male or female.) The male voice has prominence in the choruses; the female voice is solely featured on the verses.
Do you have thoughts, comments, or questions on last week’s mixtape? Listen again and leave a comment below! I’ve provided the link to the mixtape on SoundCloud as well as the playlist on Spotify for ease of listening.
A Tweet I Loved
Not sure why this one resonated so deeply.
Long-reads
These past few days have truly been an onslaught of “best of” blurbs, which you already know I’m here for. As a little inspiration, check out Amanda Petrusich’s list of her favorite music in 2020. Petrusich’s writing routinely turns me on to music that I come to love and I can’t wait to listen to some of the records she highlights here that I haven’t gotten the chance to turn to.
I tend to think of my listening process as partly cerebral (chewing over precedents, context, ingenuity, craftsmanship) and partly instinctive (a little gasp or a flutter in my belly). By June, I was operating chiefly on feeling. This meant a return to certain comforts and a lower tolerance for anything that felt too cynical, calculated, or mercenary. Usually, I genuinely savor the process of learning how to like something, but in 2020 I wanted only to be felled instantaneously.
- Amanda Petrusich, on her shifted listening habits in 2020
So long, farewell
Now that we’re in December, I feel a bit like the ghost of Christmas past, my time to leave drawing ever nearer. I’m excited to share what’s in store for these next few weeks and hope you’ll savor the end of this season with some small fraction of the enjoyment that I will (lol). I can’t wait to see your survey responses!
Stay safe, stay sane, and hit me up with any questions or recos.
With love,
TG
LOVED....Don't you break my heart!!!
What movie is the Jimmy Stewart audio clip from?