If you don't remember the month of March this year, no one blames you -- this year has been miserable. But the staff writer's here at your second-favorite music website took a look at each other's Discover Weekly playlists on Spotify. If you're unfamiliar, it's essentially an automatically generated playlist for each Spotify user that refreshes each Monday.
So of course we used this as an opportunity to judge each other. Continue on for our great reviews of our fellow Discover Weekly playlists!
Slone reviews Botts
If I could talk about every track, I might.
Aaron and I both like folksy shit. So, this week’s Discover Weekly started strong with “Angel,” a certified banger from Swedish duo First Aid Kit. If you get nothing else from this, give them a listen when you get a chance. Elsewhere on this front, we got some tracks from Charlie Parr, Tyler Childers, the Indigo Girls, the Highwomen, and Morgan Wade, whose career prospects continue to excite me. Special mention to Buddy Miller and Brandi Carlile covering John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery.”
As far as things go that greatly excite me without me having previously been aware of their existence, I submit A Decade With Duke, an album by Justin Vernon in collaboration with what I believe to be a high school jazz ensemble? Check out the version of “For Emma” off of this. DeYarmond Edison also makes an appearance. As does Japanese Breakfast’s cover of “Skinny Love.” But not Bon Iver proper. We are much too underground for that.
This was also how I learned that there’s a 2022 Lyle Lovett album, 12th of June which was released, of course, on the 13th of May. Dude hasn’t put out an album in 10 years and came back with something great. I wish for more of you to listen to Lyle Lovett.
Now. Let’s talk about Silicone Boone. Having never heard of this gentleman, I gave his name a quick Wikipedia search. There was nothing. In fact, the top result was about penile implants. Undeterred, I expanded to Google. There, I learned that “Silicone Boone is a singer/songwriter from the hills of Eastern Kentucky. He sings mainly about the concerns of interplanetary travel and of the galactic…” Google cuts off there and his website description has been updated so I will never know how this sentence ends. This fellow is genuinely fascinating to me. He is apparently formerly Amish and describes his album as “foregoing typical trappings of spare and haunting folk, and embraces rock and roll to create something loud and expansive enough to contain his vast rumination on the existence of humanity’s future in and among the stars.” I am genuinely fascinated. We may need to speak to this guy.
Botts reviews Ritter
Let’s role play for a bit. You’re a famous Hollywood celebrity cruising with Leonardo Dicaprio. He says, “I really admired your last movie. You killed it.” You lean back trying to play cool. After a brief bit of sexual tension, he resumes: “Can you hand me the aux cord? I wanna show you something.” You want to be so deep in Leo’s world you hand him the aux cord. You hope he doesn’t feel the sweat residue from your palms on the cord. But, with a reassuring glance from his seductive eyes, you know he truly doesn’t care either way. Maybe he felt it, maybe he didn’t. The only true part that matters is what you’re feeling right now. He taps into a playlist and your night is about to get funky…
The playlist Leo would metaphorically play would be Dane’s Discover Weekly. I take you through my somewhat erotic, definitely bromantic mind because Kentucky’s own Jennifer Lawrence described how Leo ruined her time filming Don’t Look Up. I encourage you to look up the story. And in no way is this a tear down of Dane’s music preference, a tear down of Leo or JLaw, or anything to insinuate bad blood in a future litigation (I’m also not scared of litigation knowing I have B. Slone on my side). But, this is to introduce you all to my mind and how strings of irrelevant information often subtly and overtly influence it.
Bidding a fair adieu to a long-winded introduction, a Dane Discovery Weekly (having listened to it two weeks in a row now) is something you would expect Homer Simpson to jam to on a lo-fi beat. The rap, lo-fi pop, and stoner beats often lead you to contemplative places.
One such place I went to was classifying rap into categories that are connected to historical time periods. Rappers who lean on the stereotype of being a king, giving glory to god, etc., might fall under the umbrella of being a "medieval rapper". While a rapper who leans on the ides of making money, everything being about ‘green’, and constantly being on a grind, might fall victim to being in the Teddy Roosevelt Trust-Bust era. Or, how far-off space-age problems really are in the here and now – and looking to persist for a long time ("Moon" by Taedo Bills – although this was a song from last week). God, my mind is a weird place.
Dane’s Discover Weekly was also bound to irk him this week. Someone gratuitously did a cover of a Frank Ocean song. I rest in peace knowing Dane was irked a little bit ("thinking bout forever" by flowervillain). Dane also had a song from the Minions soundtrack – to his credit the song was by BROCKHAMPTON. This past weekend I heard both Dane and Brandon say that the album was banging and that’s why they wanted to see the movie.
But, maybe more apparent is Dane’s ambiance being present in every Discover Weekly. Every ambient feel has had the subtle love and depth of Frank Ocean, the stigmata of a lost soul, and the grandeur of what an alternate timeline of what an edgy NSYNC looks like.
Give Dane’s weekly changing playlist a follow if you like to spice up your life with stuff that will make you say, “wait, wtf was that?!” You’re going to like what you hear, I guarantee it.
Ritter reviews Slone
Suffice to say, I think Spotify knocked it out of the park with everyone's playlists this go-round.
It's amazing seeing how much these playlists describe our music interests, since the majority of this playlist is 70s/80s/90s rock and that is Brandon to a "T". Featuring the Doors, Electric Light Orchestra, Pete Townshend, and Hüsker Du, this is a nice nostalgic throwback to great music. Additionally, Spotify must've been listening in on my conversations with my dad lately, as songs from the Smashing Pumpkins and Thin Lizzy from the exact albums we discussed are on here.
One of my favorite genres of music is "Women in Punk/Pop-Punk", second only to "Strong Women featured on Strong Women's songs" (e.g. "WAP", "Kiss Me More", "Telephone"). Brandon has several women-centric bands filling that category on his playlist -- the Courtneys (who were entirely new to me), Blondie, and although not punk/pop-punk, I can't leave the Cocteau Twins out. Elizabeth Fraser is one of the best voices to grace music ever.
Other new discoveries: first time hearing the Butthole Surfers, whose Spotify biography describes them as "the most infamously named band in the anus of popular music". I shit you not. Their lead singer's name is Gibby, too. Dougie Poole's "Vaping on the Job" entered my country playlist I enjoyed it so much. Silver Jews' "Honk if Your Lonely" was met with similar enjoyment.
The worst of the worst is that Jackie Chan apparently makes music. Spoiler alert, it is not good. The best of the best was a tie between when I played "Everlong" by the Foo Fighters twice (because it's one of the best songs ever written and one play is not enough) and the surprise of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem of Muppets fame popped up unexpectedly. Side note, I'm tired of being left out of the "we like folksy shit" group :(
My wife's review: "this playlist is fun, who made this?"
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Who had the best playlist? Who had the worst and why was it Dane? Let us know in the comments below!
- channel.WAV staff
tbh mine is probably the worst because of the jackie chan song
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