Friday Playlist: We were much too young.

By Lesley | August 27, 2010

It’s Friday, and welcome to your playlist! I’m trying to give these playlists little themes. I suppose some of them are more obvious than others.

1. “Beetlebum” // Blur. I was positively passionate about Britpop in my early twenties — this was the height of Oasis’ popularity, after all. And then Damon Albarn started listening to Pavement and we got Blur’s self-titled fifth album. (Some people blame Graham Coxon for this, but I blame Stephen Malkmus.) At the time, it was a major departure, and for about a week I hated it. Until I started listening to it. “Beetlebum” was the song that kept me coming back to give it another chance.
2. “Phenomena” // Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I was not a huge fan of YYYs first album — like my old complaint with The Muffs (remember The Muffs?), I thought they took too many pefectly good songs and ruined them with tuneless screaming. I also think “Maps” is the most unduly-praised and overrated song of the aughts. Thus, I only came to appreciate them with their mostly-scream-free second album, off of which “Phenomena” is taken.
3. “Do I Move You” // Nina Simone. Nina Simone is one of my idols — and not just musically, but politically and intellectually as well.
4. “Addicted to Love” // Florence and the Machine. Is my love of cover songs overwhelmingly apparent yet? I have a particular soft spot for covers of culturally-oversaturated songs, that make efforts to sound very different from the original. Satisfying!
5. “Koop Island Blues” // Koop. Fans of So You Think You Dance may recognize this one from a couple seasons back. I already owned it, on one of the Mystery Albums that magically appear on my iPod without my having any idea whatsoever where they came from. Koop make shifty, velvety eletcro-jazz that sounds like it came off decades-old vinyl. Highly recommended.