We’ve talked a lot about the importance of perseverance in this business of saving the world. A wise chimp once said, ‘we only fail when we give in trying.’ As long as we never give up and never surrender, we can only succeed, even if we’re walking on two left feet all the time!
Full of worms, prawns and fat little fish after a truly monumental feed, we doze off and dream our jellyfish dreams. The dreams are neither good nor bad — just a circling tableau of confusing images. We try to find meaning in the images. Sometimes we find it.
The Diplomats rocky history shouldn’t come as a surprise to any rap fan as this point. Since the group exploded in the early 2000s, the crew has fallen out more times than we can remember.
Author says about this track: “This was a day in which I discovered some earth-shattering, horrible news, but I was comforted by my wife and some very close friends…perspective and balance became important, and I tried to capture that idea in the piece.”
I knew I had to pick something from Sufjan for this playlist so I figured what better than this track from Planetarium, his collaborative effort with The National’s Bryce Dessner and James McAlister as well as contemporary/classical composer Nico Muhly.
Self-proclaimed New Orleans “soldiers of funk” Dumpstaphunk broke the hiatus in their recording career last year to release this “hopeful, yet cautious” track, featuring guest star Trombone Shorty, with the lofty ambition that we might change society and “see the end of all that is wrong”.
While there was plenty of soft rock, country rock and hard rock in the 70s, there was also a plethora of bubblegum rock. The Bay City Rollers, Leif Garrett, Donny Osmond and David Cassidy were some of the performers who belted out teen-dream lyrics. David’s image blew up when he was a member of the fictional television family band The Partridge Family…
For a while Bearcubs was primary known as an electronic music producer before surprising us with his first EP Underwaterfall as a vocalist. The production is dark and minimalistic. The lyrics hint at anxiety and depression issues. As the track picks up steam you realize how deep this track hits. With swirling vocals and heavy synths Bearcubs takes you under into the abyss.
Society does a poor job of dealing with grief, particularly in western European culture – it seems as if we’re happier to just tuck it away, not deal with it – to keep it hidden and put on the brave face. But we all know that’s a shitty way to cope with it, why wouldn’t we want help?
This track is pure happiness and celebration of life. Legendary Afro-Beat drummer Tony Allen was Fela Kuti’s drummer for many years, and eventually put out several albums under his own name. Allen’s love of jazz and upbringing in Nigeria led him to fuse jazz and Yoruban rhythms to build the foundation of Afro-Beat. Returning to his early influences, he released a jazz album in tribute to the late, great Art Blakey in September of this year.
What do you do with the sadness when you’re in a position to make others feel good? Where do you put it when you need to hide it?
Music and any other form of art might be a great escape, but that’s the tricky point: art usually demands you to be true to yourself and get in touch with your feelings. So how are you supposed to show up a smile when you’re doing exactly the one thing who forces you to remember how much you’re feeling down?
In recent years Wolf Alice has occasionally popped up on my radar. I thoroughly enjoyed them in 2014, when I discovered their song “She” off of their EP Blush. I bopped my head to “Fluffy,” one of the lead singles off their debut Your Love is Cool. But I didn’t really love them until Visions of a Life, their sophomore record.