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
So, my all-time favorite album is the soundtrack to SimCity 3000.
This sounds like a joke and I have no way to assure you it is not. So instead, I’m going to talk about what I like about it and what I tried to do with this playlist. Also, I think I might talk about Trash Garbage a little, because it’s my blog and I get to put whatever I want here until Matthew removes it during copyediting.
The reason I want to talk about Trash Garbage a bit is that when I sat down to earnestly talk about why I had picked songs out for this playlist I had a fleeting thought of “wow, how unlike this blog this is”. Which is true, but it doesn’t mean that this is out of place. What I liked about Trash Garbage from the inception is that Matthew and I really never had any intention of what this should be. The bulk of our conversations about this blog essentially boil down to one of us saying “this feels pretty Trash Garbage” and the other going “I agree, post it”. It’s that sort of creative freedom that’s actually enabled me to try doing some of this, which I would not have considered otherwise.
Bringing us back to the soundtrack to SimCity 3000, AKA my favorite album. Last year, I went through some personal hardships and needed something that didn’t sound like anything else I was already listening to. I discovered this soundtrack. I’m not really sure how; I think I had listened to other game soundtracks and this came up as related. (ed note but still fuck algorithms don’t forget this.) I didn’t know anything about SimCity (a thing that came up today, when I mentioned that I would post this, was Matthew saying “the description should be like an in-game SimCity notification or something!” to which I responded “I’ve never actually played SimCity”), but somehow found myself charmed by a very optimistic and charming album full of music that I think perfectly matches the idea of what some people endeavor to achieve with ambient music, creating songs that are fundamentally interesting to focus on, but completely capable of blending into the background. I became fascinated with this album, and it started to score every workday, and then eventually started to become the soundtrack to the time I was spending at home.
But obviously at some point you just listen to an album enough that you crave a little variety, and I found myself in the strange position of wanting to listen not to the SimCity 3000 soundtrack, but to music that sounded like the SimCity 3000soundtrack. Upset I couldn’t find those albums readily existing, I started to pull tracks that reminded me of it into a small playlist. Not only does this playlist contain music that simply sounds like SimCity’s soundtrack (“The Sheriff”, “The Mirage”) it also contains works that simply remind me of the plastic utopia of the Sims universe (all the James Ferraro that made it on here) and, finally, songs that the original composer, Jerry Martin, mentioned inspired him when he was composing this soundtrack (“Zombie”, “A Remark You Made”)
It’s obvious that I recommend listening to the original soundtrack as well, but I also feel obligated to point out that Jerry Martin runs his own website where he occasionally makes high-quality downloads of this music available for free. So maybe check that out, if this is your kinda thing.
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
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.
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.
