52 Weeks of Mixtapes
Week 12
Welcome back to 52 Weeks of Mixtapes, my second music series for The Low Major.
Every Sunday - unless it’s a week where I’m getting out and enjoying the world (oops!) - I’ll publish a mixtape of music centered around something - a feeling, a time, a person, a place. We’re running on vibes here. Each playlist cover will be a photo or an edit that’s my own work. This shit’s organic.
Two (self-imposed) rules for this project:
Each mixtape will never be more than an hour - usually in that 45-60 minute space, long enough to run with it, but I’m not gonna brute-force any level of length. Quality over quantity, as they say.
I’m also going to try to avoid reusing artists within the same mixtape and tracks within the same month. Sometimes songs are good enough that it’d be silly to not touch on them again, so you might see some old friends.
I’ll link to the playlist, talk a little bit (like, one sentence) about each track, their ordering and why they were included, and that’ll be all. Pretty simple, and hopefully enjoyable for you.
Okay. Don’t usually do this, and won’t likely be doing this going forward, but this mixtape’s a little special.
You see, for the past decade, I’ve been tracking all my Spotify listening data via last.fm - that’s a link to my profile. You can see everything I’ve listened to, from artist to album to track. It’s an incredible coming together of two of my passions, data and music - and I happened to find it at a very pivotal point, one where I began to really explore music.
I signed up March 28, 2014, and though this is coming out March 29, 2024, I’m rounding it to an even decade.
Across 260,656 listens (71 per day), 7,264 artists, 18,558 albums, and 35,489 tracks, it’s been an amazing journey discovering my own sound and (hopefully) helping others find theirs. Here’s to another decade.
pieces of me
a full decade of tracking my music, so here’s a favorite from each year
1 | Intro | The xx | 2:07
I didn’t know shit about electronica, really, when I was first exploring. The xx hooked me through Baz Luhrmann’s Gatsby and when I found out about this track off their self-titled, I realized how deep the world that awaited me was.
2 | Loud Places | Jamie xx feat. Romy | 4:43
I spoke about this in my review of this album for The Daily Spin - but this track was and remains one of the most impactful tracks I’ve heard in my lifetime. Impossible to forget, impossible not to mention.
3 | All We Need | ODESZA feat. Shy Girls | 3:31
This was never really my favorite track off the album, but it’s comfortably the easiest to come back to, I think, and brings the fullest composition forward - the heavy big-room bass and open atmosphere of songs like Koto and Kusanagi meets the poppier drums and vocals of It’s Only.
4 | Weekend | Flume feat. Moses Sumney
Every once in a while, I still catch myself humming the hook to this track, that beautifully hypnotic little piano ditty that lures you in.
5 | When The Summer Ends [RAC Mix] | Savoir Adore | 3:39
I have a crystalline memory of listening to this track and driving through the Malibu canyons for the last time. Though that was 2019, and I picked this track for 2018, the memory still stands - very emblematic of a year of closure.
6 | Lava | Still Woozy | 2:37
Still Woozy makes fun music in a way so few others can. I love that, and it’s a delightful reminder to find levity.
7 | It’s All So Incredibly Loud | Glass Animals | 4:19
How To Be A Human Being is Glass Animals at their best on the whole, but it is really difficult to push back on this song, that freeze-frame drama capturing in an instant and over minutes of soundscape.
8 | Nomu | Good Kid | 2:49
Local electronica enjoyer remembers the existence of rock, finds new hyperfixation. Loved this track since I first heard it, the rotational background vocals layer so beautifully that it makes my heart ache.
9 | DID I RLY LET GO | WHALES TALK | 2:46
I can’t really explain this one. Just good vibes, the song.
10 | Jungle | Hotel Mira | 3:17
A song impossible not to love. Very similar to ‘Nomu’ in the best way.
11 | Everlong | Matt Duncan | 3:35
A cover of the Foo Fighters song of the same name, I adore the way that Matt Duncan pulls in keyboard and stacks his vocals.
Enjoy the list! I’ll see y’all soon.