It’s Wednesday, the hump of the week. You look like you need another playlist – if you’re like me, your entire life is spent listening to music, and each day is a joy because of it. We’ve got some great live reviews coming up: yours truly will be going to see Fenech-Soler at London’s Heaven this evening, and the Mystery Jets at Camden’s Roundhouse tomorrow evening. Spotisveteran Dave Prowse will be seeing 3 Daft Monkeys at Gloucester’s Guildhall tomorrow evening too, following my review of them a fortnight ago. Keep your eyes peeled over the next week or so for these.
Now, today I have done a playlist generated exclusively by my Last.FM page, taking the top 20 artists and making a playlist from them. I’m going to start doing this more regularly, and perhaps every few weeks will submit a playlist of my ‘most listened to’ of the proceeding week. For now, this is the top of everything I’ve listened to, so read on for the blurb.
Blurb
So this playlist is made up of the top 20 artists on my Last.FM page and, where possible, uses the track I’ve listened to most by that artist.
Now, this is going to be, perhaps for some at least, schizophrenically eclectic. Just look at the opening 2 tracks. Meshuggah‘s Obzen is probably about as heavy as it’s going to get on this list, so it’s good to get it out of the way early, although there are some heavier moment later on. My concern is this track may put some listeners off instantly, but there’s little I can do other than assure people that this isn’t a list purely of attack metal, and hope there will be something for everyone. Because this heaviness is tapered instantly by the soothing liquid synths of Aphex Twin‘s Analogue Bubblebath.
More ambient electronica with Boards of Canada, before a poppy blast of prog from The Mars Volta and some haunting post-rock from The Twilight Sad. Then we have Venetian Snares, normally known for his insane breakcore, the surprise here is that the track I’ve listened to the most is pure ambience, with no percussion, no -core in sight. Gorgeous. What is also gorgeous is this rendition of Francisco Tárrega‘s La Cartagenera.
A pair of double-headers from Periphery and The Dillinger Escape Plan (prog-metal) followed by The National and Interpol (indie rock) and a classic from The Beatles. A trio of prog-metal (of sorts) is up next with Sikth, Gojira and Animals As Leaders (and as a side note, I’ve listened to so many of the Ricky Gervais podcasts that he actually appears 14th, after Sikth!), followed by the progressive hardcore of Glassjaw.
Foals and Del The Funky Homosapien take things in a more accessible direction before a short jab of Germlin‘s oddball Nintendocore. Finally, and perhaps thankfully, the playlist ends on a lovely folky moment from Adem.
