Category: Chillhop

Focus

Finally, Sammie’s back with a new playlist. Except the playlist isn’t new at all! It’s very old, actually. Sammie’s back with a new very old playlist, finally.

This playlist predates Trash Garbage. In fact, Sammie sharing it with Matthew is what spawned the earliest conversations of “what if we had a blog that just published the kind of playlists we wanted but couldn’t ever find.” How could we, Bloggers, keep you from this important Trash Garbage Lore?

This 5-hour playlist has gotten Sammie through many a workday and many a work project. It’s ambient electronic, with almost no vocals to speak of, but just enough light percussion to keep your brain engaged. The songs were chosen for the playlist by queuing up a bunch of albums and then, if I was able to work through a period of time, I picked a couple of the most pleasing to keep as future background noise. Hopefully it helps you focus like it has helped me.

wrapping up the work week

the other end of checking your work email on monday morning. a lot of genres, but it’s all friday. less of a getting coffee and drilling down to work playlist and more of a soaking up the morning light and the last cup of coffee of the work week playlist. yesterday was thursday. today, it is friday.

TI-83+ LoFi Hip-Hop Beats to Relax/Study To

First act is instrumental chillhop, second act is downtempo hip-hop. Play straight for work hard to play hard, shuffle if you want an adventure. I know it sounds like it’s gonna be a chiptune playlist but that’s not the joke.

i can’t really get into twitch streams

sounds like: chill work vibes, a lightly chatty friend you can just put in the corner of your screen and not really pay attention to, a parasocial relationship

my romantic notion of a twitch stream may be more simply just a virtual approximation of a coffee shop (remember those? oh, covid), of working or reading while surrounded by the light conversation and arbitrary behavior of strangers. it doesn’t appear that this is what twitch actually is (since in practice lots of streamers do talk “with” you, reading and reacting to the chat), but this playlist is a musical adaptation of the atmosphere i was hoping for. one of the more literal playlists, the thesis here is slower/chiller work music characterized by the presence of human voices throughout. not vocals (with one or two exceptions), but exploring other ways that voices are used as instruments and woven into music.

pairs well with work that’s going to take a minute, watching someone not totally know where they’re going in dark souls, tuesdays

Downloading GBA ROMs at 1AM on a Thursday

A playlist for when you’re in high school, it’s way after you should have already gone to sleep in the middle of the week, but you just got news that the Mother 3 fan translation patch is out. You know you don’t have time to start it, but you can make time to at least take off the shrink wrap, in a sense. You can boot it up for like thirty seconds after all this anticipation and rest in the warm welcome of its cute family sprites and reassuring, looping soundtrack.

This one is loop-heavy electronic music that gradually fades into ambient, suitable for relaxing work music or for gently nudging you to maybe just go to sleep already.

checking your work email on monday morning

You like the taste of coffee. It has nothing to do with being More Productive. That said, you’d really like to get through your inbox before you finish this first cup of coffee today and/or panic.

This playlist is for quickly easing into a soothing sense of focus. It switches up genres enough to keep you engaged, but stays instrumental (you gotta read those emails, those words to focus on). There’s some lo-fi study beats on the nose, chillout on the palate, and a jazzy finish. Hopefully that’s the least pretentious thought you have this morning – again, you got emails to read. Maybe even write! Don’t worry, we’ll get you through the first hour and a half of your week.

this playlist also available on Apple Music