I skipped a couple of weeks of playlists because I’ve been very busy with very strange new occupations.
Since arriving in New York, I’ve become a yes person. Yes, I’ll write an article about GMOs for your website. Yes, I’ll part-time waitress at your Lower East Side restaurant. Yes, I’ll assist with your matchmaking business. There’s no room for no’s right now, and that feels good. Busy as hell, but doing something different every three hours every day of the week. I feel like a human petri dish full of agar growing a dozen different fuzzy multicolored little cultures. Still hoping that one will take over the others at some point, but right now this feels just fine, walking 40 blocks a day.
Here’s to trying to hustle.
1. Q Lazzarus—”Goodbye Horses”
Watched the Elijah Wood slasher flick Maniac this week, which was gruesome, super psychological, and legitimately eerie; something I wouldn’t say about many contemporary horror movies. On the other hand, the second half wasn’t very good. But like its better-known predecessor Silence of the Lambs, it has this really great 1988 dance ballad with one of the hookiest synth lines ever and that haunting, swaying melody. All I can think about is psychologically disturbed people slow-dancing to it with corpses, and yet it maintains its romance. Tried to do karaoke to it last night but sadly it was not to be found. Someday. Great article about the cultishness and legacy of this song here.
2. Drake—”Hold On, We’re Going Home”
I saw Drake’s performance of this song at the VMA’s and was like OH WOW, he’s SINGING and THIS IS NOT BAD and then I totally forgot about it until three days ago when Drizzy’s album leaked and a gent mentioned how amazing this song is. Oh god, yesterday I was so gluttonously agreeing—I probably listened to it 15 times in the last 24 hours.
Okay, may we briefly reflect on the ongoing legacy of Degrassi: The Next Generation? I was up on Aubrey Graham/Drake/Jimmy years before he even ended up in that wheelchair that everyone loves to put him on blast for.
It’s only when seeing 14-year-old Aubrey pal around with Sean Cameron and Spinner Mason, taking middle school breezies out for Canadian milkshakes like it’s his job and giving them tender tongueless smooches, that you can truly appreciate the development of the Drizzy persona and the delightful novelty of him rapping “She just want to smoke and fuck / I said ‘Girl, that’s all that we do.'” (In “The Language,” not this track, which is the for-the-ladies R&B croon of the album.)
3. Desireless—”Voyage, Voyage”
When people wax about French New Wave, they’re usually talking Breathless, but don’t discount dark 80s dance music from the land of berets. Desireless was the cross-continent cross between Siouxsie, Human League, and Berlin. There was a time when I was fluent in French. Sadly, that time has passed, but I still find the language, especially when sung by a breathy lady, to be the equivalent of half a Xanax and a glass of wine. If you found yourself rewatching Megan Draper’s “Zou Bisou Bisou” o’er and o’er, here’s one for ya.
4. Ride—”Leave Them All Behind”
Embarrassingly, one thing that I got super excited about when moving to New York is the Topshop flagship store. Whether it was because of the impressive variety of angora sweaters and crop tops or just my unabashed materialism, I walked in and whirled around in wide-eyed glee like the kids in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
BUT I DIGRESS. I heard this in Topshop the other day. It’s been hard to leave behind my friends, family, and Sheltie-Corgi mix on the West Coast, and it was just really right for that moment. Which is all you can ever really ask for in a song, anyway.
Wheels turning around
Into alien grounds
Pass through different times
Leave them all behind
5. Lykke Li—”Silver Springs”
Angelic Scandinavian dark-pop dame Lykke Li covering one of Fleetwood Mac’s best and most earnest songs. Best song on this compilation by far, and the only one that does justice to Stevie and her brood.
HILARY POLLACK 