Playlist 29.03

Among the many things which I've had more time to devote to than before, music has been a big one. When the whole world and your surroundings have gone kind of silent, I've found it reassuring to mask that silence with music at all times of the day, even now as I'm writing this. I'll try to keep this fairly brief, so you can let out your sigh of relief, and just go through some songs, what I like about them and why I've decided to include them here.

Before I start, although it'll become instantly obvious, I have absolutely 0 musical knowledge, and all of this extremely superficial and personal blabbering.

Here's a link to the playlist, in case you want to listen along as you read: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1OGVGj2s5TqojZsRZpjcen?si=fH034NiGRw66Gni2-WSVkA

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1. One in a Million - Afro Nostalgia, Dream Koala

Recently, I've found it really comforting to listen to songs which my friends and I would listen to on repeat last year, it kind of gives me a sense of positive nostalgia. I also love this song because it uses a sample tune, also used in Mick Jenkin's "Healer" ft. Jean Deaux (whose voice I fell in love with in a song she did with Glass Animals, hands down my favourite band). I discovered Mick Jenkins while I was still in highschool, and so his album "The Waters" was constantly on repeat in my headphones. I haven't really managed to get many of my friends into him, but when one of my friends sent me "One in a Million", I fell in love with the contrast between Mick Jenkin's style, and the calm sound by Afro Nostalgia. I also pay a lot of attention to songs' lyrics, and I love all the parallels in this song, all saying the same thing but through different metaphors: "We on the same page / but different books / We love the same song / but different hooks". I love the way he addressed the idea of people growing apart, or perhaps never really being similar, but still being connected.

2. Fuck the World (Summer in London) - Brent Faiyaz

My friend sent me this a couple of days ago, and arguably I think I might love the title more than anything else. 'Fuck the World' - yes; (summer in London) -most likely, the way things are looking. For those of you who read my post where Kristian and I discussed some of my writing, you know I referred to absolutely despising London. To give you a little update, things have changed quite a lot since I really felt this way, and over the past couple of months I have found so many things around me to fall in love with, which I am beyond grateful for because I don't know how I would be facing lockdown here otherwise. At the same time, I am quite enjoying seeing what I've come to know as a buzzing and constantly moving city, go silent, so the prospect of a summer here doesn't sound too daunting; I'm finding new things to fall in love with every time I go out. Anyways, back to the song. Okay, I can't lie I love the lyric "Wanna fuck the world I'm a walking erection"; the beat is very chill and relaxed, but the lyrics carry pretty heavy weight and I love the contrast.

3. Baby You're Worth It - Kina

I feel like it would be enough to say that Kina as an artist is absolutely incredible. So many of my passing favourite songs have been by him, I love his style. Because most of his songs share a calm tune with repeating lyrics, it's easy to literally listen to the song on repeat for hours. Also when I first found this song, the lyrics "I'm not so perfect, baby yeah you're worth it, come right here" really resonated with something I was going through with someone (sometimes I read the things I write and I sound so annoying I want to hit myself, I'm sorry). I don't want to get into too much detail because this isn't the point of the post, but in case anyone's feeling particularly nosey, the jist was that there was a lot of back and forth between wanting and not wanting a relationship fuelled by 'you're a good person and I'm not', and the yoyo motion making me feel increasingly confused, anxious and generally horrible.

Therapist: So what do we do when we feel sad?

Me: Listen to sad music to make us sadder?

Therapist: This is one of the most confusing human coping mechanisms, but yes, that's probably the best thing to do

4. Begging - Dantes

There's a lot of songs with similar variations of these lyrics, and I don't want to lay out big claims, but I think this may be the best one out there. His voice, the pace, the music; I hate the word sexy but that's the only adjective that comes to mind in regards to this song. This is another one of those songs which i've been playing over and over from our group playlist from last year.

5. idontwannabeyouanymore - Billie Eilish

Billie Eilish is right on the verge between having become commercial, and still being quite 'edgy' and I normally wouldn't include someone who's considered semi-commercial (because I, myself am so edgy? let me just intervene here for a second. so I can imagine some of the more pretentious things I say may be annoying to you guys, but imagine constantly living with that voice in your head, because that's what I have to live with) but bear with me. I've never really listened to her music quite religiously like other people, but there's no question about how talented she is. I first heard this song sometime around February when I was fundraising for Eating Disorder Awareness Week and I thought this was such a close-to-life depiction of the mental battle with ones self a lot of people feel, in terms of self image and body image.

6. Funeral - Miguel

Considering I'm a big fan of Miguel's music, I actually cannot believe I've only found this song just now. I loved this because I thought it was quite different and experimental compared to others like "Come Through and Chill" or "All I Want is You". I'm buzzing to hear the rest of the album.

7. Mansions - Matt Champion

This song caught my eye (or ear rather) for a couple of reasons: the cover art is sick, I love BROCKHAMPTON and it was interesting to see a solo song by one of their members, and finally it really reminded me of "Shout" by Tears for Fears (you'll see why).

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I love seeing how with each song the paragraphs got shorter and shorter. Those were probably by favourites from this week, but here's a couple more, which I don't necessarily have explanations for:

8. Who Hurt You? - Daniel Caesar

9. Drugs You Should Try It - Princ£ Aureliu$

10. Grey - Two Feet

11. Tropics - Sabatino

12. Please - Saro

13. Insomnia - Rob Curly, TheRealVSpence

14. Bones - Oliver Koletzki, HVOB

15. Fill the Void - Stwo, Amir Obé, Daniel Caesar,

16. Strange Fruit - Carmen McRae (Mick Jenkins also uses a sample of this in a song)

17. All Mine - PLAZA

18. You Again - Garrickson, Qole

19. Chemistry - Left Boy

20. Child - Max Wonders