🎵Geese, "Au Pays du Cocaine" (2025) Okay, FINE. I LIKE it now, okay?

🎵Fat Dog, "Wither" (2024) This song started as "it's pretty good" and very slowly became one of my favorite songs of the last few years. When the saxophone comes in...oof.

🎵Molly Nilsson, "Get a Life" (2025) That guitar loop is just so exhilarating. I was going to use the word groove here, but two days in a row would just be too much for all of us. What with all the stuff going on.

🎵Love Is All, "Spinning & Scratching" (2005) The guitar groove here is so very Extremely My Shit.

🎵Lucinda Williams, "How Much Did You Get For Your Soul" (2026) I've never been a big Lucinda Williams fan, but this song so massively hits the moment.

🎵Killing Joke, "Follow The Leaders" (1981) I know that "ahead of their time" just means "it took a while for their influence to be felt". But still.

🎵The School, "I Don't Believe In Love" (2008) The sensitive indie pop of the 00s always falls into one of two categories for me: The Kind of Music I Love -or- Cloying Crap That I Vigorously Hate. This is very solidly the former.

🎵Lightning Dust, "Diamond" (2013) In all of the tens of thousands of songs in my library, there are some that, for whatever reason, keep jumping back out at me. This is one. Beautiful

🎵The House of Love, "In A Room" (1990) My God, the guitar part in the middle.

🎵The (English) Beat, "Twist & Crawl" (1980) My God, but I Just Can't Stop It is a perfect album. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST.

🎵Peter Matthew Bauer, "Gold Paint for Blue Skies (New Year's Eve Version)" (2025) Guy from The Walkmen puts out song that is Very Good. That's it. That's the post.

I saw a critique of Springsteen's new song, it being too earnest and cringe, and if I could just take a second to introduce you to the entire Bruce Springsteen catalogue we could settle this in a heartbeat.

🎵Mogwai, "2 Rights Make 1 Wrong" (2001) This song was one of those record store moments: browsing in a shop in Richmond as this song was playing, with my love for it growing as the song built. Still gorgeous .

🎵Underworld, "Pearl's Girl" (1996) Listen, I'm as shocked as you are that, 30 years on, this hasn't lost a bit of it's thrill.

🎵Julianna Barwick & Mary Lattimore, "Perpetual Adoration" (2026) What do you get when you cross the beauty of Julianna Barwick's music with the beauty of Mary Lattimore's music? SHOCKER: it's beautiful.

🎵Olivia Rodrigo, "So American" (2024) Two years later and I'm still stunned at how much better she is at this than anyone else.

🎵Four Tet, "She Just Likes To Fight" (2010) I should try to come up with words for this other than "it's gorgeous", but that's pretty much where it begins and ends.

🎵Automatic, "Is It Now?" (2025) I was slow to get this album, mostly because I figured it would be more of the same. Which it is. But it's even better.

🎵The House of Love, "Happy" (1988) 2025 was the year that I realized that I had slept on The House of Love for way too long. Decades. Let me atone.

🎵The Connells, "The Joke" (1990) The Connells occupy a very particular place in time, where many rock bands were earnest and self-conscious. But my GOD you cannot deny the quality of these songs.

Lamenting having to pack away your Vince Guaraldi record for another 11 months? This piano bass drums release from last year will do just the trick. 💿 Easy like Sun am: okonski.bandcamp.com/album/entran...

🎵Sparks, "Tryouts for the Human Race" (1979) Name a better song about sperm. I'll wait.

🎵Fine, "Portal" (2025) There's some vague connection with Mazzy Star that I don't feel like looking up, but the main connection is "Is...this Mazzy Star?!"

🎵Disclosure feat. Lorde, "Magnets" (2015) I still like Lorde, but there was a period there where she could do no wrong. Just absolutely floating on another level.

🎵Joan Shelley, "Give It Up, It's Too Much" (2025) She'll never let you down. Ever.

🎵Sam Cooke, "Bring It On Home to Me" (1963) Hey, this Sam Cooke guy is pretty good.

🎵Jens Lekman, "For Skye" (2025) "Do the world a favor and come out tonight" is one of the most heart-melting compliments I've heard. Imagine someone saying that to you!

Beautiful one

🎵Rab Noakes, "Same Old Place (1979 version)" (1979) How is this just on an album called Demos and Rarities and not on an album called Greatest Hits?

🎵Cass McCombs, "Missionary Bell" (2025) Don't tell him I said this, but Cass McCombs is always a welcome addition to anyone's chill playlist.

🎵Sofie Royer, "Auto" (2025) I love catchy songs in languages I don't speak because then I don't have to worry about whether the lyrics are good or not.

🎵Water From Your Eyes, "Playing Classics" (2025) I can't really put my finger on why I find them equal parts intriguing and annoying. But there's no denying my excitement when this song comes on.

First listen to #LifeofaShowgirl with my 9 y.o. over breakfast. Production is, of course, the first thing to catch me. Still pretty safe, but I'm glad to have much harder beats and dropping the weirdly muted beats that dominated so much of TTPD and 2024 pop music in general.

🎵John Cale, "Gideon's Bible" (2025) Teach your children well! Which is to say that your children should know at least some John Cale songs.

🎵Julian Cubillos, "Flesh & Blood" (2025) Fine at the start, fabulous by the end.

🎵Cate Le Bon, "About Time" (2025) Didn't think I would be excited about a new Cate Le Bon album, but here we are.

🎵Peach Pit, "Your Long Black Hair (Full Band)" (2025) I don't normally go in for the qualified versions of songs: your "acoustic version" and whatnot. But this is one of the rare occasions when said qualified version is the superior one.

🎵TOLEDO, "Amends" (2025) God, I'm such a sucker for the trumpet-swollen emotional climax.

🎵Lush, "500" (1995) A subset of the sellout single is the "make it sound like Britpop" sound of the mid 90s. And as with the sellout single, nailing it is an art. Which, obviously, this does.

🎵Perfume Genius, "Me & Angel" (2025) Stating again for the record that Mike Hadreas has one button in my heart that only he can push. And he does. Like, every time.

🎵My Morning Jacket, "Half a Lifetime" (2025) I am decidedly not the world's foremost My Morning Jacket expert, but even I know them nailing their own sound when I hear it.

🎵Lack of Afro, "Heart & Soul" (2025) I am SO tired of acts with stupid jokey names, but...I can't deny what I like. Don't make me deny that! It will kill me! www.tunemine.com/post/7953912...

🎵The Meters, "Live Wire" (1969) Hey. You. Want to feel good? Want to be happy for a few minutes? No? Oh. Okay. Don't listen to this, then.

Music streaming services (Apple Music especially) have an extreme problem with people uploading AI garbage under the band names of established but inactive bands. Last week there was a new, horrifically awful song by the "Smith Westerns" and this week it's "Elastica". They've got to fix this. Now.

🎵Home Counties, "New Best Thing" (2025) You can take your "just because it has an insanely catchy chorus doesn't make it a great song" negativity right on out of here.

🎵Elastica, "Nothing Stays The Same" (2000) Woah woah woah. Hold on. For the last 25 years, I've been operating under the memory that the second Elastica album was bad. But this is good! Did they change it? One of those digital switcheroos?

The new Led Zeppelin doc starts with a warning that it contains "some drug use" and my reaction was: "SOME drug use?! How do you do a Led Zeppelin doc without containing boatloads of drug use?!"

🎵Jon Hopkins, "RITUAL (Nothing Is Lost)" (2025) How Jon Hopkins can keep conjuring up so much beauty is a wonderful mystery.

🎵Sharp Pins, "(I Wanna) Be Your Girl" (2025) People making music in 2025 have been listening to Guided By Voices. This is not a complaint. The exact opposite, in fact.

🎵Dave Barker, "Do Your Thing" (1972) One of my favorite genres is "when ska and reggae still showed their American soul music influences".