Instead of putting you through a compilation of every Hallelujah cover out there, I kept it at the mix title, which presents the three options each of us has post-November: 1. Cry uncontrollably, 2. Sleep, or get laid, depending on your interpretation, or 3. Stand up, put some dumb flowers around our necks, and find some people to start a fire with. There'll be dancing, a potential drowning (of tears), and someone no one invited to the party might steal your beer and start talking about America and how great again we could be. You may have to excuse yourself to hurl in a bathroom at one point. An ex may make a sloppy, unwanted move next to a tapped keg. But maybe, just maybe, for one moment, in the darkest pocket of that night, you'll walk to the sea and look at the sky and catch a star in the one hot second it decides to catapult itself through space. And as it shoots through the black, you won’t think of gun control laws or air strikes or the false light of celebrity or hotel moguls. You'll just see a star, doing its beautiful, natural thing. And you'll decide to have fun tonight, at the party, with friends, enjoying the music.
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Damien Jurado / Ohio (filous Remix)
I love how this gets into it from the beginning...like your ears have to adjust. My daughter calls it "the 'monica song", which is also one of its highlights for me (the harmonica).
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Damien Jurado (born 12 November 1972) is an American singer-songwriter in the indie-rock tradition of Seattle, Washington. His music is regarded as being heavily influenced by folk music. Over the years he has released albums on many labels; today his primary label is Secretly Canadian. He was once in the band, Coolidge, with Seattle's David Bazan. Jurado's solo career began during the mid-1990s, releasing lo-fi folk based recordings on his own cassette-only label, Casa Recordings, beginning in 1995. Read more on Last.fm more...
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River Whyless / Life Crisis
This was contender for first song of the mix for the past 6 months. But Ohio won in the end. Still remains one of my most played songs 2016, and best find on NPR's Tiny Desk. They use a typewriter as percussion: brilliant. Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyzf1EKNyno. When Marlowe asked me what that was, I told her it was "kind of like an old computer", so now she is royally confused about what a drum is. (I promise every song won't mention her.) I'm so bummed I missed them opening for Blind Pilot.
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River Whyless is a four piece band formed in Boone, North Carolina in 2006. The band consists of Ryan O'Keefe (vocals, guitar), Halli Anderson (vocals, violin), Daniel Shearin (bass, vocals) and Alex McWalters (drums). They have released two full length albums since their formation: "A Stone, A Leaf, An Unfound Door" (2012) and "We All the Light" (2016). After graduating from Appalachian State University they moved to Asheville where they began writing their sophomore album. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment / Sunday Candy
Total musical (and visual) candy. I've been loving Chance the Rapper. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4ooH8frBWg
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Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment is the name taken up by the band consisting of Donnie Trumpet, Chance the Rapper, Peter Cottontale & Nate Fox for their album 'Surf'. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Family of the Year / Hero
You've already probably heard this song if you watched that terrible (critically acclaimed) movie, Boyhood. If you haven't, I'd suggest you just listen to this, and ditch the 3 hour movie. I like that it's an "anti-hero" anthem, the antithesis to Bonnie Tyler's "I Want A Hero". He's like, "Naw, I'm good."
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Family of the Year is a 6 piece indie/folk band from Los Angeles, California. They have released one EP: 2009's "Where's the Sun"; and four albums: "Songbook" (2010), "Loma Vista" (2012), "Family of the Year" (2015), and "Goodbye Sunshine, Hello Nightime" (2018). Family Of The Year is considered to have a "feel good summer" sound. Statements around the web have been made such as "Immediately I was overtaken by the Beatles sounding, toe-tapping, move in my seat beat. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam / Rough Going (I Won't Let Up)
One more attempt to get Andy to like these guys. I won't let up.
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Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam is a collaboration between ex-Vampire Weekend's member Rostam Batmanglij and The Walkmen's Hamilton Leithauser. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Joseph / White Flag
Unexpected sound from a band named Joseph. For a few months, I worked out to two songs, on repeat: First, "Formation", and then White Flag."
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Joseph is an American folk/rock band from Portland, Oregon. The band is made up of three sisters, Natalie Allison and Meegan Closner. The sisters took their name from a small town in their home state and in homage to their Grandfather. Their debut album, Native Dreamer Kin was released in 2014 and two years later came the 2nd album I'm Alone, No You're Not" featuring a mixture of folk and rock but all the while highlighting their mesmerizing vocal abilities and harmonies especially on such tracks as Canyon, White Flag and the beautiful SOS. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Devendra Banhart / Baby
So Lou Reed and so good. "Like an everlasting onion" is my favorite line of the year, maybe followed by "Like a bow-tied kangaroo."
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Devendra Obi Banhart (born May 30, 1981) is a Venezuelan American singer-songwriter and visual artist. Banhart was born in Houston, Texas and was raised by his mother in Venezuela, until he moved to California as a teenager. His first few records were released on the Young God Records label from New York City. His most recent CD was released by Nonesuch. He is one of the most popular artists to come out of the "New Weird America" movement, which includes performers such as Faun Fables Read more on Last.fm more...
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Powers / Sunshine
I'm sure you've all heard this song, but I just love it. Especially part when what sounds like a sample comes in as chorus. "Sunshine is going come down, rain down, all over you."
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"POWERS is the duo of Mike Del Rio and Crista Ru. For years the two have weaved in and out of each other’s lives in New York and Los Angeles, but it was an impromptu writing session together in early 2013 where discovered they had found something unique in what they created together. The session has ignited a whole new creative project, soon the two found themselves hole up in the mountains of Lake Arrowhead to refine their sound and the result is POWERS."- kick kick snare Read more on Last.fm more...
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SOHN / The Wheel
A late add, but a good one. I want Sylvan Esso to cover it. I just love that it's a song lyrically about death, or at best, a Sisyphean existence, but musically it builds on itself, and grows.
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SOHN (born Christopher Taylor) is an English musician, songwriter and producer based in Vienna, Austria. Born in South London and taught to play guitar and piano, Taylor relocated to Vienna in 2010. After dissolving his previous project Trouble Over Tokyo in 2012, Taylor began releasing new music (Oscillate and Warnings) via Soundcloud under the pseudonym SOHN. Aesop announced he would release an EP, and released tracks The Wheel and Red Lines which earned critical acclaim for their vocal melodies and precise production. Read more on Last.fm more...
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Hundred Waters / Show Me Love
A good and beautiful song to listen to post-election, to remind us. Minute 3:10 on slays me.
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Hundred Waters is the Los Angeles and Gainesville, United States quartet of Nicole Miglis, Trayer Tryon, Paul Giese and Zach Tetreault. They played together in various formations as far back as middle school, but it took until adulthood and 2012 to become Hundred Waters. Living under one roof meant the band had a communal mentality, yet each maintained their own distinct projects, borrowing here and there from each other. It was in interpreting a friend (Levek)'s music together that they discovered the power of their combination Read more on Last.fm more...
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Ana Tijoux / 1977
So Brydie...you guys remember her, right?...she texted me: You NEED this song. I strangely agree.
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Ana Tijoux (also known as Anita Tijoux, born Anamaría Merino Tijoux on June 12, 1977 in Lille, France) is a Chilean rapper and singer, who became famous in the late 90's as a female MC of hip-hop band Makiza and later as a solo artist. She moved to Santiago, Chile in 1993, where she's stayed. In the 1990's Anita formed a hip-hop band Los Gemelos (The Twins) with a fellow rapper Zaturno (later became famous as a member of Tiro de Gracia). In 1997 she gained first major attention after singing in a Los Tetas' hit single "La Medicina". Read more on Last.fm more...
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Toto / Africa
One of my best moments at work in a while: my friend Eddy, a fifty year old man with special needs, a big heart, and a love for classic rock, visits me often at my store. Sometimes there are long silences. Then I ask him about his day, he asks me about mine. This time, though, I just said, "Eddy, I need a good song. Give me your best one." He didn't miss a beat. And I immediately found the song, turned up the volume, and we listened together. I had to include it. I know you know it, but really turn it up, maybe in a room with a friend, and listen.
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Toto is a Grammy Award winning American rock band that was formed in Los Angeles, California in 1977 by David Paich, Steve Lukather, Bobby Kimball, brothers Jeff Porcaro and Steve Porcaro, and David Hungate. The band members had met in high school and at studio sessions in the 1970s, when they became some of the busiest session musicians in the music business. Composed entirely of seasoned studio musicians, Toto seemed to come out of nowhere. They Read more on Last.fm more...
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Leonard Cohen / Suzanne
I had to. It's my favorite of his. I remember listening to this song for the first time. I was 19 in Oregon, it was secondhand on vinyl, and I thought at the time there was nothing more sexy or exotic than "She feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China." There probably isn't. So long, Leonard.
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Leonard Norman Cohen CC GOQ (September 21, 1934 – November 7, 2016) was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality, and romantic relationships. Cohen was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. In 2011, Cohen received one of the Prince of Asturias Awards for literature and the ninth Glenn Gould Prize. Read more on Last.fm more...