Notes From Northern Lands

Welcome to the triumphant return of Songs of the Week! I realised that it lasted two weeks before it looked like I packed it in, but I had a good reason to put it on hiatus as my daughter ended up in hospital for just under two weeks. I’ve been meaning to write about it here, but I can’t bring myself to put what happened into anything coherent right now. 

Having to take a break from my blog doesn’t mean that I stopped listening to music. Music is what I turn to when times are tough, and while I didn’t listen to anywhere near as much music as I normally would, I would still stick headphones in my ears when I got chance, mostly when I was walking back to my accommodation from the hospital.  

So, the tracks in this week’s playlist don’t just come from the last week. Instead, I’ve thrown in some of my most listened to, as well as some great new discoveries, to create a bumper playlist of 60 songs. 

Highlights include the latest release from Olivia Rodrigo in ages, ‘Vampire’, although she’s since released ‘bad idea right?’. One of my rules with these playlists is that I only include one track per artist a week, so ‘Vampire’ makes it in ahead of her new song as I think it’s a better song. 

I’m really loving Taking Back Sunday’s new song ‘The One’. It’s quite different to their older stuff, but, like me, the band has matured and so has their sound. It’s great to see bands that were a big part of my youth still going strong, so I’m looking forward to seeing what else Taking Back Sunday has in store. 

Three bands to feature this week that seemingly came out of nowhere (although I’m wrong, of course, as this blog post points out about Picture Parlour and laments people using the term ‘industry plants’, a term that has been levelled at two of the bands I’m about to mention here) are FIZZ, with the infectious as fuck ‘High in Brighton’, the apparent ‘next Wet Leg’ The Last Dinner Party, with ‘Sinner’, and the aforementioned Picture Parlour with ‘Norwegian Wood’. The last one is my favourite, with raw, scratchy vocals that transport you straight into a rocky dive bar and it reminds me a bit of Courtney Love’s Hole. I’m really looking forward to seeing what all three bands do next.  

Speaking of rocky as fuck songs, be sure to check out ‘HAMMS IN A GLASS’ by Winona Fighter. Other highlights include ‘Spiral City’ by CARR, new track ‘Drag Me Down’ by Loveless (which I’ve recently really got into, listening to both of their albums recently), ‘Every Night’ by Flor (another band whose albums I’ve been devouring, but this track is an absolute banger!), and ‘Lights Out’ by the brilliantly named Teen Jesus and The Jean Teasers. 

That’s it for this week. Check out the full playlist below and, as always, you can check this month’s ongoing playlist by clicking here. I’m pretty sure the schedule will be back to normal next time, so have a great music-filled week until then! 

Want me to check out your music for possible inclusion in one of my weekly playlists? Please email me at tmulrooney AT gmail DOT com. Please include a Spotify link to your track. 

1. Lost Cause – Jules Paymer
2. Vampire – Olivia Rodrigo
3. Sour – Echosmith
4. High In Brighton – FIZZ
5. The Cheaters guide To The Galaxy – Warwick Smith
6. The One – Taking Back Sunday
7. Give Me My Halo – YONAKA
8. Summer of Luv (feat. Unknown Mortal Orchestra) – Portugal. The Man, Unknown Mortal Orchestra
9. St. Girlfriend – Games We Play
10. Dummy – The Regrettes
11. Bad Actors – The Menzingers
12. The Time Of Year Always – Crawlers
13. Firestarter – SUMR, Siamese
14. Like an Animal – Piqued Jacks
15. Rattlesnake Heartbreak – Miniature Tigers
16. DESIRE – NOISY
17. Push It Down – L Devine
18. On My Way – Dazy
19. Unwritten – Settle Your Scores
20. Indecent – Maggie Miles
21. Fuck Around Phase – Housewife
22. Lights Out – Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers
23. The Implication – Parrotfish
24. $wing – FEVER 333
25. BOOM – Cassyette
26. Tomorrow Is Closed – Nothing But Thieves
27. delirious – swim school
28. Heaven Without You – KID BRUNSWICK
29. Honda Civic – Lauran Hibberd
30. I Gotta Feeling – STONE
31. Electric Touch (feat. Fall Out Boy) (Taylor’s Version) – Taylor Swift, Fall Out Boy
32. Think of Us Kissing – Hamish Hawk
33. Stand Anthem – Beverly Glenn-Copeland
34. Can You Get To That – Funkadelic
35. Bloomsday – Samantha Crain
36. Just Like Heaven – Hannah Peel
37. Setting Sun – Howling Bells
38. Clemency – Emma Pollock
39. Norwegian Wood – Picture Parlour
40. In My Head – NewDad
41. Weekend – Body Type
42. What’s The Point In Life – Coach Party
43. HAMMS IN A GLASS – Winona Fighter
44. Consciousness – JonoJono
45. Rather B Dead – Middle Part
46. Who’s Laughing Now – DURRY
47. Spiral City – CARR
48. Get Up Kid – Thirty Seconds To Mars
49. Do You Wanna Talk – Wild Horse
50. I Know I Know – Vistas
51. Remember All The Girls – The Sherlocks
52. Woman Of The Year – The View
53. Strawberry Woman – Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit
54. Every Night – flor
55. Sinner – The Last Dinner Party
56. Classics – Moon Taxi
57. How Does It Feel – Tom Grennan
58. Might Love Myself – Beartooth
59. Modern Day – BLOXX
60. Drag Me Down – Loveless

This week I’ve mostly been on the hunt for artists that I’ve never listened to. This is one of the reasons I love the stat tracking music website last.fm (check out my profile here) as I can instantly look-up the artist and see if I’ve ever listened to them before. While I can’t guarantee I’ve never heard them while out in public or at a party, I can assume that most of the artists I’ve listened to are included in my last.fm profile.

I’ve been tracking what I’ve been listening to on there since 2005, and I’ve it says I’ve listened to over 16,600 artists so far. But that’s barely scratched the surface of how much music there is in the world (just look at the profile for BBC Radio 6, who is currently clocking in at over 88,000 artists). Obviously, I’ll always have my favourite musical artists that I’ll stick on when I don’t feel like hearing anything new, but I also don’t want to spend my life stuck in the same musical rut. I like to branch out and try things from all sorts of genres, so that’s why you may see a random mix of genres in every weekly playlist.

Yeah, you could say I’m a little obsessive in hunting down new music, but I’m not one to sit still when it comes to music. One day I hope to publish a post about all the ways I find new music, as there’s far more ways to discover music then you may think. With that in mind, this week I’ve mostly been doing one of the things I do to find new music, and that’s through listening to Spotify’s Fresh Finds playlists.

Fresh Finds is a Spotify brand that seeks to highlight new music from independent artists. Spotify’s thousands of editors and music experts scour blogs, social media, and go through submissions they receive, and some of them will end up on a Fresh Finds playlist. There’s a main Fresh Finds playlist that is a mix of genres, and then there’s sub-playlists like Fresh Finds Pop, Fresh Finds Indie, Fresh Finds Rock etc. The main playlist is completely refreshed every Wednesday, whereas the sub-playlists get new songs added every Wednesday, but the older ones may stick around for a month or two.

Fresh Finds is a great way to find new talent that may only have a few hundred listeners through Spotify, if that, and I’ve found some absolute gems through this initiative in the past. I’ve included quite a few on this week’s playlist, and expect more to appear on playlists in future weeks.

In addition to Fresh Finds and my regular Spotify listening, I’ve also been trying out some random artists on the likes of Bandcamp and Soundcloud. There’s a great profile on Soundcloud that I follow from a blog called Fresh On The Net. This is run by Tom Robinson, who has a show on BBC Radio 6. Each week, artists can submit their songs to The Listening Post. These are then listened to by Tom and the team, as well as anyone else who visits the blog, and voted on to create a top ten each week. The songs may end up on BBC Radio 6 too, but there’s no guarantee.

One of the new albums I checked out this week was Jessie Ware’s latest release, That! Feels Good!. I’ve only included the title track on the playlist, but the whole album is well worth listening to. It’s a catchy, pop album filled with wall-to-wall bangers.

Finally, speaking of BBC Radio 6, on Friday I was listening to the 10 June 2023 episode of The Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show on BBC Sounds. A bit of funky music is the perfect way to get that Friday feeling. So, there are a few songs from the show included on the playlist too.

Anyway, enjoy the playlist. I’ll be back with more picks next Sunday! Don’t forget, you can check out my June 2023 playlist to hear everything (at least everything that’s available on Spotify) that I’ve been loving this month.

NOTE ON LAST.FM: I mainly track my music (known as ‘scrobbling’) through last.fm’s connection to Spotify. But when I’m listening to other stuff through my laptop, such as the radio or websites like Bandcamp, I use a Chrome extension called Web Scrobbler. It doesn’t work with every website that plays music, but there are a good few hundred supported. If I hear a song in other places, I’ll sometimes use Shazam on my phone to find out what it is, which then gets automatically added to a Spotify playlist. I may then manually add it to last.fm with Open Scrobbler. But I’m not obsessive about doing that, as adding each song manually would suck up a lot of time.

1. Off The 45 – Jo Hill
2. His Sofa – Nieve Ella
3. STFU – TTRRUUCES
4. Real Life – Lanterns on the Lake
5. Dream Girl – Baby Queen
6. Devotion – The Pink Spiders
7. Save Rock And Roll – Fall Out Boy, Elton John
8. Run, Run, Run – McKinley Dixon
9. Out In The Streets – The Bug Club
10. Money Talks – Hallan
11. Undo the Blue – Iraina Mancini
12. If You Don’t Want My Love – Jalen Ngonda
13. Haunted – Spanish Love Songs
14. Sorry – Konyikeh
15. Cherry – MINOE
16. Darlin’ – Flour
17. Analogue – Folk Bitch Trio
18. Cheddar – petie
19. Mommy Issues – Jules Paymer
20. Lovely Dream – Ghost King
21. Caroline – Banfi
22. I’ve Loved You For So Long – The Aces
23. Crying On The Subway – Annie Tracy
24. Daydream in Tokyo – Lucy Gaffney
25. 23 – Wallice
26. Afterthought – La Rhonza
27. That! Feels Good! – Jessie Ware
28. Walls – The Satellite Station
29. Cool Down My Hearts – Ella Thompson
30. There Is A God – The Staple Singers

One of my favourite things to do is to listen to music. I have it on all the time; whether I’m at work, washing the dishes, or taking a walk. I’m in a fortunate position that I have a job that allows me to listen to music all day. I think I’d be lost without this benefit, as sticking on some good tunes really helps me focus and get the best out of my day. I’m even listening to music as I write this, with Inhaler – Just to Keep You Satisfied currently blaring out of my speakers.

I also love writing, but it’s obvious from the last post being months ago that I’ve not been doing much of that lately. So, in an effort to both start writing more and share my passion for music, I’m going to start a new series in which I present my songs of the week.

I can’t promise it will be long. Sometimes it may just be a short track list and a few comments, while other times I may delve more into why I love the songs I chose. I’m going to try and pick at least 10 tracks that I loved that week. Sometimes there may be loads, sometimes there may only be a few (I’ve managed 25 this week). It really depends on how much music I’ve listened to that week. Although, at the rate I go through tracks, it will take some extenuating circumstances for me to not have enough choices that week.

The songs I pick won’t necessarily have been released that week, or even recently, although I’ll try and pick at least a few new tracks. With music streaming services apparently having over 100,000 tracks added every day (and it’s probably more now that AI generated music is flooding these services), it’s impossible to keep up. Even my Release Radar, a playlist that Spotify generates every Friday that includes new tracks from artists I follow and may be interested in, bangs out 200 tracks a week, and I can never get through it. But this is clearly a first world problem. As Jake Shears says in one of my picks this week, ‘there can never be too much music for me’.

No, the songs I pick will be a mixture of new and stuff that I’ve simply been really enjoying that week.

I’ll add these songs to a new Spotify playlist each week, which I’ll embed in every post. So, you can easily check out how great or terrible you think my taste is.

Anyway, enough blabbing, what have I picked this week?

I’m not going to talk about everything, as we’ll be here all day, but I’m going to pick out some highlights.

First up is ‘Not Strong Enough’ by the supergroup boygenius (made up Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus). The whole album (ironically called ‘the record’) is a shoe-in to be on my list of best albums released in 2023, but ‘Not Strong Enough’ is my favourite track on the album, as it’s simply sublime. The best thing about it is that all three singers have sections they sing on the song, and each sound unique but still manage to meld together perfectly to create one of the best tracks of 2023.

Speaking of new albums, May 26 wasn’t just a great day because it happens to be my birthday, but also because Arlo Parks released her new album ‘My Soft Machine’. The whole album is fantastic, but ‘Devotion’ is my pick from it. I recently started listening to Arlo Parks, thanks to Spotify’s all-knowing algorithm, and her new album shows me I made an excellent choice to hit ‘play’.

Blur released their first new single since 2015, unleashing The Narcissist, which is the first single off a forthcoming album that the band recorded in secret. I must admit that, beyond the hits that we all know, I’m not overly familiar with Blur’s discography, so I’m finding it hard to compare to older stuff. But it’s a good tune, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they do on the new album.

Bring me the Horizon released an absolute banger a few weeks back. ‘LosT’ is inspired by the emo genre, with the band saying that My Chemical Romance influenced the song. It was accompanied by an absolutely mad, but brilliant, music video. Naysayers will bemoan the fact that it sounds nothing like BMTH’s early sound, but bands evolve and BMTH have been experimenting with new sounds for ages now. I’m of the opinion that they’ve never been better than they are now, and I’m really excited for what the next album will be, especially if it includes more bangers like ‘LosT’.

If you’d told my younger self that I’d be loving the likes of Harry Styles and Jonas Brothers songs, I probably would have laughed. But these two tunes – Music For a Sushi Restaurant and Waffle House – are ear worms, and Harry Styles is putting out some fantastic music. I’m far past the point of caring about genre or how music snobs perceive a certain artist. All that matters is that I enjoy listening to it.

Probably the biggest outlier on this list is The Salmon Dance by The Chemical Brothers. I added this because it’s a) weird as hell and b) a banger. I first heard it a few weeks back on BBC Radio 6 (man, if you ever want to know how out of touch you are with music beyond the charts, listen to an hour of that station) when it was chosen as one of the Teatime Anthem’s. For some reason, I instantly fell in love with it and proceeded to play it to death over the following few days.

Finally, I’m still listening to Enter Shikari’s latest album, A Kiss for the Whole World x, quite a lot, and the title track remains one of my faves. The album got to UK number 1, a first for the band, and I’m implore you to check it out if you haven’t already. I do still prefer their previous effort, but I listened to that non-stop, so it’s going to be hard to top it.

Here’s the full list of my picks this week, followed by a Spotify embed so you can easily check it out.

1. Not Strong Enough – boygenius
2. So Sorry – Lola Young
3. Labour – Paris Paloma
4. Devotion – Arlo Parks
5. The Narcissist – Blur
6. Nothing Matters – The Last Dinner Party
7. LosT – Bring Me The Horizon
8. Music For a Sushi Restaurant- Harry Styles
9. BLOW OUT MY CANDLE – Betty Who
10. The Salmon Dance – The Chemical Brothers
11. I’m sorry – lovelytheband, blackbear
12. Too Much Music – Jake Shears
13. How Does It Feel – Tom Grennan
14. Waffle House – Jonas Brothers
15. Tattoo – Loreen
16. A Kiss for the Whole World x – Enter Shikari
17. Mountain – Sam Ryder
18. Bitter – Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!
19. After Hours – Aly & AJ
20. People pleaser – Cat Burns
21. Mountains at Midnight – Royal Blood
22. Overcome – Nothing But Thieves
23. Under You – Foo Fighters
24. Double Life – Cold War Kids
25. Kicking Up A Fuss – BC Camplight

If you want to see what I’m listening to throughout the month, I maintain monthly playlists that I add my favourite tracks to as I listen. Here’s the playlist for June 2023.