TNCN
I can't do anything original and I don't expect anyone to read this
In my first semester of college, I did many things that continue to impact me. Two of the most important things I did during that time period were 1) meeting my friend Neil and 2) completely ripping off his already unoriginal idea of creating a Spotify playlist of all of his favorite songs.
7 years later, Neil and I are still friends and my playlist, “Totally Not Copying Neil,” consists of ~4,000 songs. That’s a lot. Probably too many, honestly. Some of those songs I haven’t heard in a while. Some I probably don’t like as much as I did when I added them. Regardless, the big takeaway here is that I ripped off Neil’s idea before and I am doing it again by creating a sparsely-read substack that will maybe help me fill the void left by my college radio show.
Much like that radio show, I expect this to be an irregularly-scheduled, inconsistent, meandering mess that is theoretically about music but may venture off into whatever my interest of the week happens to be. But it’ll be fun for me to write again. And I hope maybe someone will enjoy watching me talk to myself. Even if it is just Neil.
This time I am gonna try to focus on music exclusively. So here are some songs that I think are good or relevant to where I’m at right now:
The Night Josh Tillman Came To Our Apt. - Father John Misty
This was the first song I added to my massive playlist. Do I still like it as much as I did November 16, 2016 when I added it? Probably not. Is it still a fun song about stupid people who are entirely engulfed and engrossed with themselves and their own greatness? Yes, definitely.
Fourth of July - Sufjan Stevens
I’m named after my grandfather. He died 15 years ago this week. Last week I listened to this whole album, Carrie & Lowell, and cried. At first in a sad, oh-my-god-I-miss-you-uncontrollably sort of way, then in a more I-miss-you-but-I’m-glad-I-remember-you sort of way. If you want to cry about losing a loved one or ruminate on life and finding bits of meaning in memory, I cannot recommend this album enough.
Also, as anyone who knows me might expect, I have to mention that Sufjan is part-Greek.
Float Away - Slaughter Beach, Dog
The band Modern Baseball put out 3 albums from 2012-2016 and then broke up. I was devastated. While Slaughter Beach, Dog contained some of the members of Modern Baseball, it just wasn’t the same and I couldn’t get into their music at the time. I probably just wanted something that sounded exactly like Modern Baseball which their music certainly wasn’t. Yet now I really enjoy the stuff I didn’t like at first, with their modern indie folk sound. This newish single has been one of my favorite songs this year and I am very excited for their upcoming album.
Cigarettes & Alcohol - Oasis
This song pretty much singlehandedly drove me to get an electric guitar this year. I can kinda almost sorta play a really fucking terrible and dreadfully slow version of this song and somehow that makes me really happy.
How To Live With Yourself - PUP
I think PUP are my favorite band. Are they particularly excellent musicians? Not necessarily. Some of the guitars, especially on the first PUP record from 2014, sound like icepicks and Stefan doesn’t have the greatest voice in the world. Their most recent album was not their best either and this song was a B-side from that album. But, damn, they try their hardest and it is so incredibly endearing, at least to me. While PUP may not be the most technical band out there, for the music they make, it all works together perfectly and I haven’t found another band that comes anywhere close to scratching the same itch or fitting the same niche. Admittedly, I am a sucker for songs with singalong gang vocals, which most PUP songs, including this one, feature. But, regardless, I definitely recommend giving them a try if a focus on rhythm guitar, self-aware, blunt lyricism, and what I might call “practiced sloppiness” appeal to you.
And I, personally, really have to learn how to stop qualifying things I like just in case other people don’t like them as much. PUP are great musicians and a great band, I swear.
When Life Hands You Problems - Cheekface
Cheekface are like if you took grassroots leftist organizers and asked them to form a band that was relatable to the youth, focusing primarily on doomscrollers born between ‘95 and ‘05. Are they corny? Probably. Do I care? No, keep it to yourself.
GOATED. (feat. Denzel Curry) - Armani White
I feel like any playlist with Fourth of July on it needs some levity to save it from just being a pathetic cryfest. Denzel Curry is one of my favorite artists and, while his album from last year is excellent, this song has gotten stuck in my head at least a few times a month since he and Armani White released it in January.
Now that I look at this list, I notice that it is almost exclusively songs from the last 7 years. That would’ve been cool if I did like a thematic thing and picked a song from each year or something like that. I kinda like the more random, less-related selection that I ended up with. Maybe I will pick a theme or something if I ever do this again. Either way, this was certainly cathartic.
I promise for next time (should there be one) that I will try to stem my seemingly-endless flow of rhetorical questions and hyphenated compound adjectives. I also promise I will use at least one semicolon as it is my favorite punctuation and, yet, I used none here. God, this must be insufferable to read. Please check out Neil’s much better, much more cohesive substack:
And if you wanna read more of this from me for some reason: