Is There Such as Thing as TOO Much New Music?
One of the things that has me absolutely obsessed with Spotify is how it helps me find new music. Yes, I know that services like this put the final nail in the coffin of beloved record stores and may be destroying the music industry in general. But before Spotify, I’d spend my hard earned dollars trying to discover new music only to find that much of what I was buying was, at best, meh.
Enter Spotify. Now I can try anything. If it doesn’t capture my attention, I just don’t listen to it again. No harm, no foul. Add the fact that Spotify constantly provides new mixes tailored to my taste (Discover Weekly, Release Radar, etc.), well I’m hooked. I talk about my love for Spotify so much that my brother-in-law once asked if I work for them (for the record, I don’t).
Despite all that, this summer I felt like I was experiencing a bit of a music drought. None of the new stuff I was listening to was getting under my skin. That all changed this week. My Discover Weekly playlist was seriously on point, and I discovered that Spotify had added something called Daily Mixes to my library. These appear to consist mainly of songs I’ve liked before but organized into a few different mixes that work well together.
So now I have the opposite problem from earlier in the summer. There is SO MUCH great new music, I don’t have time to listen to it all. So much so that I’ve been ruthlessly editing the playlist in which I keep my current rotation of songs, removing anything that I’m not completely in love with.
That makes narrowing down my top picks for the week particularly hard, but I’ve done it. Let me know what you think, and comment with some of your own favorites.
1. White Flag by Joseph
When I first saw the title pop up on my player, I wondered if it was a cover of that Dido song. It’s not. This one is more of a handclappy song in the vein of Ho Hey by Lumineers or the general style of Wind and The Wave, who made last week’s list. I’ll be checking out the rest of this group’s offerings for sure.
2. Do You Think of Me by Caitlyn Smith
I believe I actually found this on a list of top country albums so far for 2016, but of course, I couldn’t find it to link to here. Anyway, this isn’t a groundbreaking song, but the hooks are great and the occasional, but not overdone, growl in the back of her voice make this a top pick for me. The “album” in question, Starfire, is actually an EP, but the whole thing is pretty good and has me looking forward to a full album.
3. I Wish I Didn’t Know What Love Is by Erick Baker
This was one of two Erick’s in my Spotify Discover playlist that caught my attention this week. This is one of those melancholy, soulful ballads with a steady back beat that I’m a sucker for.
4. She Already Knows by Erick Willis
The other Erick from this week’s Discover playlist. The soulfulness of this almost made me think it was by the same Erick as the previous, but this has a much more laid back, happy, country vibe to it.
Despite being happily married and having a happy life overall, many of my favorite songs are just heart wrenching break up songs. This is one of those. Someone who is just so done, she doesn’t even care if she’s cast as the villain in their breakup story. Beautiful.
