find playlists, fuck algorithms
look, I know it’s clearly a punk 4-piece, but I’m talkin’ about the watercolor drip SPIDERVIBES, baybeeeeeee
this playlist is for everyone obsessed with the opening scene of the new spiderverse movie. it is all i’ve thought about for a month. this is what if that one-minute of movie soundtrackified punk band warming up was the whole band.
Hell yeah, it’s a goddamn emo teen sad breakup thirsty horny dance party. If you don’t hear it and think “i am 16 again”, what’s the point? We’d have failed. Dance out your teenage longing.
weird sad dance party. perfect for social gatherings!
gentle tunes for soothing times. a chill blend of quiet folk-tinged indie flavors to put on while sitting around with friends. invoke the joys of having best friends who all live within walking distance coming over on sunday night to just sit around and sip some black tea.
Hurting. Longing. Dancing to disco music.
A soundtrack to uneventful teenage days. Not the angsty side of youth, but the biding your time of youth. Music your cooler friends listen to that lodge in your head for processing, vibes from video games that incongruously feel like hanging out at the mall, something something identity. A cross between getting a ride from a friend so you don’t have to take the school bus and a Makoto Shinkai movie. Sort of works either as a playlist for work music or for waiting for everyone to arrive for book club.
A playlist for anyone who gets their best work done around 10:30 pm, but has a day job.
Despite being wildly genre-agnostic, the vibe is pretty consistently mellow, warm, but a little melancholy throughout. All of these songs live in a world that’s mostly gone to bed for the day and has thus gotten pretty quiet. It’s not a late-night playlist that’s going to eventually lull you to sleep, but rather one that’s content to stay up with you for a little while. And if you put it on in the middle of the day, it’ll pretend it’s the nighttime with you.
Some twinkly vibes for taking pictures of bats and plants in a cave. That’s it. I just like this level from this game. Here, I made a one-hour loop of it! Put on the playlist, put this video on in the background, and just feel how cozy and charming this is!
I’m not interested in writing about the concept of nostalgia or its utilization in late-capitalism and/or the collective trauma of a pandemic or whatever vis a vis New Pokémon Snap. So instead here is every Pokémon featured in the cave level from the original N64 Pokémon Snap ranked by what they would sing at karaoke and how good it would be.
14. Zubat would croon “She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5 off-key and get mad at people who happen to be leaving the bar during their performance.
13. Grimer would be a white guy doing Wiz Khalifa. He will butcher it. Everyone will be uncomfortable.
12. Weepinbell would do a Disney song and it will suck.
11. Jynx would dedicate her song to her boyfriend and then do a very warbly rendition of “Landslide” and it’ll make the crowd confused and uncomfortable for just a whole bunch of different reasons
10. Magikarp would do a very slow, 5-minute song that nobody’s ever heard of. It has a full minute of guitar solo played by a MIDI keyboard that Magikarp just stands on stage nodding along to. There is still a whole chorus to go.
9. Ditto would do a song that somebody else has already done earlier that night, obviously.
8. Jigglypuff would be hella shitfaced and do “Sugar, We’re Going Down” but would only actually scream the choruses and either doesn’t know or is too drunk to pay attention to the verses. Jigglypuff really worked up the crowd first, so it will be a huge disappointment when you realize what’s going on.
7. Articuno will do “Born in the USA” and some people will be extremely into it and some people will be extremely not into it.
6. Koffing will throw everyone for a loop and do a surprisingly touching rendition of a Phoebe Bridgers song, but it will bring the mood down.
5. The Bulbasaur that are actually Ditto would do “Piano Man”. Everyone will roll their eyes, but get really into it. The crowd is all singing along by the end of it.
4. Pikachu is reluctantly dragged on stage by their friend to do Lady Gaga’s parts of “Shallow” with them. It turns out they’re a breathtakingly good singer, but they don’t like to show off. A bunch of men try to buy them a drink at the bar afterward, but Pikachu doesn’t drink. Pikachu leaves the bar to go home at 10pm on the dot.
3. Victreebell would do a terrifyingly metal rendition of Britney Spears’ “Toxic”. It will work astoundingly well.
2. Muk would do Biggie Smalls’ “Big Poppa” and it will slap.
1. Pikachu Riding Articuno would be the equivalent of Carly Rae Jepsen showing up at your local bar for no reason, singing “Cut To The Feeling”, politely waving to the stunned crowd, and leaving. No one will ever believe you when you say this happened.
songs for acting like a grownup. not songs about growing up, because actual teens listen to godawful music about growing up. i did not have good taste as a teen. i sure thought i did though.
songs for staring at your computer in deep focus on something you can sink your teeth into but aren’t exactly enthusiastic about and you know it’s gonna take all afternoon so you need to put your headphones on and sink in
songs for maybe you’re also kinda angry or bummed out or hell even fired up you do you babe
songs to serve as a conduit for your wallowing into productivity shit yeah it’s time for the hustle grind
songs for deep dark white noise
not a mountain goats playlist, although the lyrics of “Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1” could basically have been copy/pasted here and it would have evoked the same mood that i’m trying to capture here for this 3-hour, post-metal, dub techno, noise pop work playlist
or i guess it’s just this gif as a playlist
so if you want to listen to that
A more subjective, sensory one. The sound of the reprieve from the heat, the melancholy of the impending cold, and the post-irony of renting a car and driving upstate to pick apples and hope that you see the changing colors of the trees but will probably not manage to time correctly.
A blend of garage, blues, and indie rock, folk, with a lil bit of pop and hip-hop that I maintain sound inseparable from trying to remember where you stored your sweaters that were unthinkable just a few days ago.
Did you know that Apple Music has a playlist called “Vibes”. Just “Vibes”. What kind of vibes? What are neutral, pure vibes? This is to say that it is perhaps debatable what music is appropriate for apple picking, but this has not stopped Apple from determining what music is appropriate for VIBES.
update: This playlist is supposed to start with Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie (’68 Version)”, which over the years has endlessly gone on and off of Spotify. Sammie and I have real mixed feelings on using Spotify for Trash Garbage! How feasible is a project like Trash Garbage in 2021’s internet not using the most centralized platform available? What compromises must we make to play in this space?