Number 32: 15 hours of songs.

Listen: Saudade

I needed a project.

Well, to be honest, I didn’t need a project, but I was glad to take one on.

Of all the social things we’ve lost due to the global health crisis, perhaps the one that’s had the biggest impact on me has been the prohibition of hosting. I love the cooking and the playlist building and the cocktail making, and the wine selecting, and the constant banter, and the uproarious laughter, and the after-dinner political talk and the living room lounge session over amaro. The side conversations and continuous jokes, the small arguments and knowing provocations. To feed and host and converse with my people is to be alive.

In the absence of that luxury, I feel like i’m probably best-equipped to do what I suppose I do all the time in this newsletter: recommend good stuff for you to read/watch/listen to as you pass the time.

This week, I embarked on a random project that sort of popped in my head on Tuesday and I started working on it immediately so as to commit myself to completing it. I thought it’d be cool to make a long playlist – 200 songs, to be exact– with some guiding philosophy. I didn’t wanna just throw together 200 tracks as they popped into my head.

So I went about creating what is essentially a musical Dewey Decimal System. I categorized music into 20 distinct sound profiles*. Each group consists of 10 tracks, and thus…200 total songs with a cumulative runtime of just over 15 hours.

I then spent two days listening and creating a long list of potential songs (~350), spent two days narrowing to 200, and then spent a day on upload, revision, and ordering.

I’ve named and numbered each group of 10 songs and the playlist is built in chronological order. Every 10 songs features a new sound profile.

*There are three exceptions:

Group 10 is LCD Soundsystem’s 2007 Sound of Silver album in its entirety. During this time of physical distancing, i’ve found myself routinely, almost reflexively turning it on in the afternoon as I conjure the energy for my late-day calls. If it can be that for me, perhaps it also can be for you. Also, it’s so good when consumed in one sitting. They cover a ton of ground in nine tracks. And ‘Someone Great’ is enduringly charming.

Group 13 is comprised of covers. These covers don’t share any notable musical characteristics; just covers. Enjoy them. They’re good covers. Thom Yorke method acting as Neil Young on ‘After the Gold Rush’ is almost too good. Like…it’s borderline upsetting.

Group 20 is all live recordings. These also share no musical characteristics. But they’re terrific. And let’s not act like all live recordings are good. In fact, more of them are shit than are good, if we’re honest. But these are good. They are decidedly not shit. There’s a Madison Square Garden version of ‘Jungleland’ by Bruce in here, which is sort of all you need to know.

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These are not my 200 favorite songs or even my favorite songs by each of the artists featured here. They’re just the ones that fit most neatly into the group as a whole. With that said, a few call-outs:

‘Stay Away’ by Nirvana in Group 6 is the perfect solution to snapping you out of the malaise of traversing the same 3 sitting spots in your apartment or house. Listen to Dave Grohl just absolutely destroying the drum kit and feel alive for a few minutes.

Have your own 4-song karaoke set in your living room at the start of Group 15 which features Third Eye Blind, Built to Spill, 4 Non Blondes, and The Cranberries sequentially.

If you’re feeling down and want to take a bit of time to wallow in it, that’s your prerogative. Group 9 is a trove of songs to hang down there on the low end with you. The working title for that section was “ladies drinking bourbon, probably” so…yeah.

Group 16 is a celebration of all the great work product that came out of The Roots negotiating into one of its early contracts a large Philadelphia house and a van to build an organic music collective. They fed and housed a whole community of artists and helped launch their careers.

Group 12 is the antidote for anyone who feels like modern rap has strayed too far down the path of autotune and mumbling. There’s nothing extra here. Killer lyricists over great production.

Group 8 features some of my all-time favorite blues tracks, including ones you may know well like B.B. King’s ‘Lucille’, but also a few you probably don’t like pre-Stevie Nicks Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Jumping at Shadows’.

Here’s the full list of groups:

If you know what you like, I suggest skipping around and finding it.

If you’re open to a bit of adventure/discovery, feel free to shuffle and skip freely.

I also had to cut and missed a ton of really influential genres/eras/styles. This is hardly comprehensive in any way.

Enjoy the tunes.

Two Final Notes

1. The cover photo - Farrah Fawcett for Nike, 1976. Why? Because look how fucking cool she is. That’s why.

2. The name - Saudade is a Portuguese word that has no direct English translation. It roughly means a feeling of nostalgic melancholy. A longing sadness.

   I don’t doubt that many of you are feeling disconnected from your people, and hope the sharing of music/culture provides some meaningful connection.