I do this every year. You may have noticed that this weblog is pretty bare, and that my previous post was last year's soundtrack. You may have been here every day, wondering when I would drop more hot content. Perhaps you clicked the refresh button, thinking the problem belonged to your browser. Friends, it was my problem all along.
These songs are what I loved this year, or what reminds me of this year, and are arranged in an order that sounds good. You are not allowed to listen to this on shuffle until you have first listened to it sequentially every day for one month.
My yearly soundtrack used to fit on an 80-minute CD, which was burned and mailed to friends. I now post it to Spotify, a service I do not use or approve of.
This playlist is on Spotify at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Pn91MHocuOYPicNtNToVE?si=8550949d76e342fb
Previous soundtracks can be found at Spotify here.
1. Erasure - A Little Respect
In January 2021, the 2005 Hyundai Elantra was broken, was fixed, and then immediately the catalytic converter broke. I bought the last new 2020 Toyota Camry the dealership had in stock, as they were currently selling the 2021 model. (I was fortunate to get this car just before the great global chip shortage made buying both used and new cars more expensive or impossible.)
The 2020 Camry has a CD player; it's the final model where they included one. The Hyundai had a CD player as well, but the Camry has a fancier audio system. I decided I'd listen to every CD I own, excluding burned CDs, in order, without skipping any songs. I'm made it from Fiona Apple to The Jayhawks so far.
I thought I would rediscover some hidden gems while listening to these compacts discs, but I have not. It turns out that back when you purchased CDs, you would listen to each one a lot, and accurately determine which songs you liked and which were duds. The great deep cuts I thought I'd find are not there. They were never there.
But it has been fun! There haven't been revelations but there have been a few noticeable things. The 4th Foo Fighters album, One by One, is pretty solid. Latter day Neko Case is probably better than Fox Confessor.
I would have gotten further through my CD collection were it not for the complimentary Sirius/XM subscription that came with the car purchase. The New Wave channel, 1st Wave, rules.
2. Dayglow - Can I Call You Tonight
XMU is another good Sirius/XM channel. They played this song a lot, but not as much as they played the 2020 Fleet Foxes songs.
3. Cherry Glazerr - Big Bang
My workplace officially adopted a hybrid schedule, where we would work from home some days and be in the office others, and all try to be in the office together on Wednesdays. It all fell apart during the Delta wave, but during one of those office days, the coworker who humors me by talking about what we're listening to mentioned some new Cherry Glazerr songs. Big Bang and Rabbit Hole are both pretty good!
4. Japanese Breakfast - Posing in Bondage
You remember Japanese Breakfast from the 2019 Soundtrack? I was the first person to discover them when I watched their live festival performance on YouTube. Their 2021 album was on many best-of lists. Their Liberty Hall concert was the first show I attended since Covid began. Great show. Lots of clapping after very mild guitar and saxophone solos though, which was odd, perhaps people were just happy to be in a live venue again. Posing in Bondage was my favorite performance at the show, it had a strobe light thing going for the second half of the song, pretty cool. So, with all my respect to this Paprika performance on Kimmel, I'm going with this song for my soundtrack.
5. Simple Minds - Alive and Kicking
Man, that 1st Wave channel, so good. You get out of Paul's Tae Kwan Do tournament and press the engine start button and wait for the entertainment system to boot up and then you hear Simple Minds? So nice.
6. Chvrches - Lullabies
I liked this Chvrches album better than their last one.
7. Hospitality - Eighth Avenue
I listened to this burned CD on the way to a Kentucky Derby party. It felt so right that I listened to it again on the way home, and listened to their second album several times in the following days. I miss them.
8. Kiwi Jr - Cooler Returns
XMU played this song a lot. Since it was released early in the year, this might be the song I listened to most in 2021.
9. Better Than Ezra - In the Blood
The soundtrack to our long Fourth of July celebration (drinking beers to stay hydrated while the children played in an inflatable pool) was the radio. 90.9 The Bridge was playing the top 909 songs of the 90s, according to... a listener poll? I have no idea. It seemed more like a shuffle than a countdown. But it was better this way, getting to hear Better Than Ezra's fourth most popular song instead of the usual.
10. Wet Leg - Chaise Lounge
I think I heard this first from Stereogum? These ladies seem fun.
11. Mike Adams at His Honest Weight - Seven Year Ache (Roseanne Cash cover)
I bought his EP of country covers a few years back, and was listening to it when I was driving Paul to and from practice. I guess it was the first time I paid attention to the lyrics, and my mind punished me for my attempt to decipher them by repeating the song in my head for many days. Mike Adams' version isn't on Spotify, but the original is. Adams' version is available at Bandcamp:
12. Linda Ronstadt - Silver Threads and Golden Needles
I learned a lot from the really great Linda Ronstadt documentary that I watched this year for free on YouTube, check it out!
13. Halsey - I am not a woman, I’m a god
Nine Inch Nails producing Halsey? Uhh, I didn't have that on my 2021 bingo card!!!
14. The B-52's - Private Idaho
If you listen to the 1st Wave channel on Sirius/XM for more than an hour without hearing a song by The Pretenders or the B-52's, brother, you aren't listening to the 1st Wave channel on Sirius/XM.
15. Silverbacks - Klub Silberrucken
When I read about a band on Stereogum or elsewhere, I'm checking if there's a dude singing and if it's more or less straightforward rock. I love the ladies, but it seems like I have no problem finding new bands that are fronted by females. And I like some synths or laid back vibes, but those are also plentiful. I tested out many dude rock bands this year, and nothing really stuck. Silverbacks were one of those bands. HOW IRONIC that I picked the one song of theirs where the female vocalist is featured.
If you want to hear the dude sing, listen to their song Dunkirk
16. We Were Promised Jetpacks - Nothing Ever Changes
Dudes singing straightforward rock, hell yeah, the Jetpacks are back!
17. Ratboys - Collected
Ratboys were on last year's soundtrack. This year they re-recorded songs from their first EP. I have liked all of their releases - I really like how she sings or the sound of her voice or both, but if you can't stand how she sings I would nod and say, "Yeah, I can see how it would irritate a person."
18. Julien Baker - Relative Fiction
I bought this when it came out. I thought her switch to a full band would be right up my alley. I’ve listened to it plenty of times, but I’m still not connecting with it as much as I hoped.
19. Matthew Sweet - Sick of Myself
This song would pop into my head often this fall, and I don’t know why, but I’m not complaining. I picked up this CD many times on visits to Best Buy in 1995, but never did best buy it.
20. Torres - Thirstier
Let's check and see what I wrote about Torres the last time she appeared on a soundtrack, back in 2015. "I have nothing to say about this except that I like it." Okay, how about this time I'll say... "This rocks!" Should I have changed this selection to her song Don't Go Putting Wishes in my Head because it came on while I was at The Bourgeois Pig having TWO drinks with TWO friends? According to the old rules of this soundtrack, yes!
21. Clairo - Zinnias
22. Lorde - Fallen Fruit
I grouped these two together; they’re both decent songs on disappointing albums. They both write great uptempo songs, I didn’t want them to go Beck’s Sea Change on us.
23. REO Speedwagon - Don’t Let Him Go
Carl Newman had a couple of tweets about REO Speedwagon one day this summer, and that was enough to get me to listen to a full album of theirs. This is a great opening track.
24. Snail Mail - Madonna
25. The Beatles - I’ve Got a Feeling (Naked version)
I watched Get Back on Disney Plus! I enjoyed it. I didn't not enjoy all 7.5 hours equally, but I enjoyed it. And I very much enjoyed seeing all the tweets afterward, and the goofing on the director who wanted The Beatles to play in an ancient amphitheater lit by torches with 200 Arabs cheering them on. I even enjoyed having multiple Let It Be songs in my head for two weeks afterward.
