Winter 2014 Playlist

It's time again to post another playlist -- this one about wraps up what my favorite songs were this last winter. Again, these aren't *new* songs per se, just songs that I tended to have on repeat for whatever reason.

I definitely had a major Phantogram moment, as evidenced by the inclusion of two songs here. I'd seen them back in September when they opened for m83 at the Hollywood Bowl, but though I enjoyed their set, I hadn't actually heard of them before at the time! Since I liked their show, I kept intending to go back and check out their stuff, but it wasn't until "Fall in Love" popped up on Spotify radio that I actually went back and did it. "Fall in Love" is probably still my favorite song of theirs (thanks Spotify!) but I had basically all of their albums on repeat listen for most of January. I was finally then able to see them again in February at the Palladium, which was a whole new experience then being familiar with their music. I danced my face off.

In other music news, Coachella (aka my mind palace) is next weekend. I can't even type out in words how I feel about this so I'll just leave this here:

My Top 10 Albums of 2013

So, new year, right? I didn't blog much other than my book reviews in 2013, but I have to say overall it was a fantastic year -- probably the best year I've had in a long time. I met a ton of new people, tried new things, and finally was able to lose some weight that was sticking on my body since about my senior year of college.

So that is my fast update about me. But I'm actually posting because I felt like since the only productive things I did on this blog in the past year were to post books and music, I should do some kind of top 10 wrap up of those things. I'm not a music critic or someone with any objectivity, so obviously my top 10 is just my favorites and not meant to be any kind of statement on, like, the state of music or what is objectively 'art' or anything.

10. Icona Pop - This Is... Icona Pop



9. Chvrches - The Bones of What We Believe



8. Classixx - Hanging Gardens



7. St. Lucia - When the Night



6. James Blake - Overgrown



5. Haim - Days Are Gone



4. London Grammar - If You Wait



3. Autre Ne Veut - Autre Ne Veut



2. Daft Punk - Random Access Memories



1. Disclosure - Settle

More songs I like

In keeping with the seasonal playlists I've been putting up, here's the one for summer. These aren't necessarily "summer" songs, but, as with the other lists, they're ones I was particularly tempted to put on repeat for the past few months.

Yes, I cheated, adding "Get Lucky" again, but since it was an official cultural "Song of the Summer" and I didn't love it any less after the spring, I included it again here.

Spring 2013 Playlist

I've been reconnecting with music in a major way lately. This sounds like a weird thing to say, if you've been following me or my blog for awhile, or if you know me in person, because music has always been something I've written about, and I go apeshit over things like Coachella.

But I think it's probably an accurate statement to say that for awhile, my interest in music had become kind of academic, in a way. While my personal emotions were dulled, my emotional connection to music had been dulled as well. There were still songs and artists I appreciated above others, but not because of relate-ability or a personal connection -- it was a purely auditory appreciation. Since I posted my winter playlist back in January, that shallow connection had started to change. I was feeling again, and feeling music again, which is why I was prompted to post that playlist in the first place: I wanted to share it because it actually felt like sharing myself.

So, here I am again, with a group of songs that I viscerally connected to in the group of months I'm loosely calling "spring," from about February though the end of May. These aren't all new songs, but for whatever reason, they were important to me during this time. Some may seem kind of silly ("Get Lucky", "Disappear") but then again, I'm pretty silly myself sometimes, so...

Please enjoy! If you're out there. And if you want to geek out and talk about any of these songs with me, you know I'm down.

Lineup is out. I have notes

That's right, the Coachella lineup was released about 20 minutes ago, so like the good little obsessive fangirl I am, I have THINGS TO SAY

click to make legible

For those of you wondering how my wishlist panned out (aw, thanks!), I made it easy for you:

YES:

• Bat for Lashes
• Yeasayer
• Grizzly Bear
• Grimes
• Janelle Monae
• the xx
• Paul Oakenfold
• Sigur Ros

NO:

• Garbage -- No! This was a serious missed opportunity, I think. They just reunited and released an album; this should have been a no-brainer.
• Friendly Fires
• Glitch Mob
• HAIM -- Another huge missed opportunity. An indie group out of Los Angeles that is starting to get huge buzz should have been an easy get for Coachella.
• Gabriel and Dresden
• Royksopp
• Massive Attack
• School of Seven Bells -- This wouldn't have been an obvious choice, I don't think, but they had a new album out this year...
• Dash Berlin
• The Knife/Fever Ray -- I would have called this a long shot, except that Primavera Sound festival just announced their lineup and The Knife was on it! So I actually started to get my hopes up that this was actually a possibility for Coachella. Bummin' now.
• James Lavelle
• Pendulum
• Monst
• Burial
• The Antlers -- I also think this should have happened, since they had a new album too.
• Ladytron
• and, of course, though it will never happen... Daft Punk -- It didn't happen, so no shit

Also excited about: Bassnectar, Metric, Four Tet, Phoenix, New Order, Moby (!!), Tame Impala, Dead Can Dance, La Roux, Adrian Lux.

Where are you, Coachella lineup?

In years past, before Coachella released their lineup, I wrote up a quick wishlist of bands I hoped would be there. The lineup should be out by now, but since it's not, I'm going to sneak in my list and revisit it when the lineup is released.

• Garbage
• Bat for Lashes
• Friendly Fires
• Yeasayer
• Glitch Mob
• HAIM
• Grizzly Bear
• Grimes
• Janelle Monae
• James Lavelle
• Pendulum
• the xx
• Gabriel and Dresden
• Royksopp
• Massive Attack
• School of Seven Bells
• Dash Berlin
• The Knife/Fever Ray
• Paul Oakenfold
• Monsta
• Burial
• The Antlers
• Sigur Ros
• Ladytron
• and, of course, though it will never happen... Daft Punk

My winter 2012-2013 playlist

It's been awhile since I've done a music post, since I relegated all of the songs of the day over to Tumblr, which is much more suited for short brain queefs than Blogger is.

But lest you think I'm all books and angst all the time, fear not; I'm still equal parts books and angst and music, and as such I decided to put together a little playlist that encompasses the songs I've been pretty obsessed with for the last few months. And when I say obsessed, I mean obsessed -- like, play it again I'm not sick of it yet obsessed.



A bit more about this playlist -- it's mostly electronic, and mostly, hm, introspective? The energy level definitely changes, since realistically it's more of just a collection of songs I really like lately than a cohesive playlist. But yeah, if you want in my mind recently, here you go.

According to someone every day, music dies

Hey guys, did you hear? Indie is dead! I don't usually follow HIPSTER RUNOFF, which is basically what it sounds like. It covers hipster music and "culture" (have we defined what hipster culture actually is yet?), usually in tiresome and off-putting ironic lolspeak and hyperbole. If hipsterism is, at least in part, trolling earnestness, i.e. desperately pretending not to care about something you really care about and doing everything in the name of irony, then HRO exists to troll hipsters by being hipster at hipsters. Have I lost you yet? Good. You just, like, don't get it, man. Appropriately, then, the site has heralded the end of indie, and the article was brought to my attention by Yeasayer's facebook page, with the caption "Someone telling it like it is -- how do we make a change?"

Here we are in the content farm era where Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, SPIN, HIPSTER RUNOFF, Brooklyn Vegan, AbsoluteIndieMag.biz, Stereogum, Buzzfeed Music, Shitty McBlogBlogMagazine.com/Music, GVB, FADER, Complex, [other random ass blog/dumb website/magazine] all generally post the same stuff. It’s just a matter of creating brand loyalty via aesthetics and the perception of premium content to lemming ass internet users.

Maybe just make something that people can share on Facebook to controversially discuss amongst their friends.

The demand for ‘innovative’ content has formed a buzz bubble. Chillwave and sponsored-content-wave artists were the main beneficiary of this bubble (post2k.5-2k11), but now, so many bands are getting a taste of alleged buzz ‘before they are ready’/before it even means anything in a legitimate context. The buzz machine is broken because there is no trusted, fail proof mechanism to create pure buzz.

There is truth in this. Bigger emerging 'indie' artists don't stay 'indie' for very long anymore, and there is no discernible delineation between 'mainstream' press like Rolling Stone and 'hipster' press like Pitchfork or HRO. So you get bands that, by and large, should be indie bands, but they're suddenly already famous before they've even really done anything noteworthy. This article namedrops Lana Del Rey, Purity Ring, and Grimes as examples of this.

I’m not sure if I have unreasonable expectations. There just has to be a new way that bands can ‘become bands’ other than ‘getting on the same set of websites that will issue predictable opinions on them.’ Or maybe a website can offer a new way of presenting bands without standardized commentary. Perhaps ‘streaming services’ like Spotify and Pandora have become those to some extent. Those appeal to the people who ‘just want the music’ without needing to know the context.

I guess what all this means, really, that what is happening is an acceleration of the cycle that we already knew existed: sometimes indie bands outgrow indie and enter the mainstream. But HRO's argument, I guess, is that bands used to have to actually prove themselves before that happened, and it was a critical mass of fan-generated buzz that elevated them, not prematurely fawning articles from music publications desperate to discover the next big thing. So indie bands now are less about the music they produce and more about their capacity to generate interesting content for the press that covers them.


ALL THAT SAID. They haven't really convinced me that this is a thing that has broken indie beyond repair. Theorem:

1. Music speaks for itself
2. Taste is subjective

That is, if a band sucks, then we are in agreement: it sucks! And life goes on. Unless it doesn't actually suck that bad, and a lot of people end up liking it, even if the critics don't (which happens all the time. And life goes on.)

And here is kind of the main point. Purely as a consumer of music, I have very little motivation, outside of the impetus to maybe appear 'cool' or 'scene,' to double-check the credible indieness of whatever group I've just become interested in. Like, what does this even mean?:

Maybe the indie experiment only existed to create Grimes, the ultimate internet content producer who makes content directly aimed at internet viewers. She is the best example of ‘not being a band/musician’, but instead a ‘playing by the rules’ content generation machine that resonates with humans wasting time on the internet.

 I'm not sure I even really care to understand. This is fun:

What I want from music is to like the sound, and (ideally, but not always) for it to speak to me personally in some way. The fact that the artist didn't burst out of a cocoon of spiritual enlightenment with this song on her self-actualized lips means nothing to me if it can still manage to evoke something in me. Sometimes artists write songs for themselves, and sometimes they write them for the people who are listening. Am I being manipulated because I like songs by someone who is "not a band/musician" but rather a "content generation machine"? I don't know, and I don't care. I've passed that point in my life where I need to measure the music I like by anyone's coolness barometer other than my own, thank god.

Ultimately, I'm not too concerned about this article. Like I said in the first paragraph, HRO is a meta hipster troll site, and though there has been a noticeable shift in the way that indie buzz is created and distributed, I am pretty sure life will go on, music will be made, and I'll find something to like. I kind of wonder why Yeasayer felt like they needed to signal boost the article, but trying to analyze the intentions of a band as frequently oblique as Yeasayer is a fruitless endeavor.

Stuff my neighbors listen to

I don't live, currently, in what one might call a "quiet" neighborhood. It's been the 4th of July here since approximately June 23rd, and I expect the holiday to continue probably until the end of the weekend. Lest you think I'm being obscure, what I mean is that I've had nightly fireworks shows for the past week and a half.

Anyway, one of the other joys of living in a loud neighborhood is never having to turn my music down, because everyone else's is so damn loud. Here is a short list of the recognizable music heard around my building recently:

• Arcade Fire
• Mariachi, assorted
• Nero
• Deadmau5
• T.I.
• Washed Out
• "Call Me Maybe"
• Bob Marley

And that's what's recognizable. That aside, I pretty reliably get people driving down the street in blacked-out Audis and Lexi, reverberating their untz proudly into their surroundings. One of these days, I'm going to Shazam some of the Mariachi, assorted so that I can put together a legit Block Party playlist.

More predictive media gettin' to know me

Spotify Radio seems to think I am Scandinavian as fuck:

I mean, sure, I guess...

Here are some scattered thoughts.

-- Ack! Totally different Blogger format! Deep breaths. Okay. It just looks like the rest of Google now. Freakout averted.

--I made a Mad Men GIF of Peggy's "WTF? ...nm" face

-- So, Coachella. I went. I'm going to do a more in-depth write up later (mostly so that I can remember my life when I'm old) but I wanted to address a lolworthy comment here really quick. So, it's kind of obvious that Coachella is in a bit of a Brochella phase and that, well, there are a lot more douchey people there than in years past. But what's funny is when people say "Coachella got too mainstream. People who are there now only care about the image. I don't want to go any more because I care about the music." Let me make it clear: only people who do, in fact, care about image would choose not to go to a music festival because of the other people who go there.

-- If you're interested in beer write-ups, don't forget about my other blog at http://alwaysanswerbeer.blogspot.com !

Derp

Spotify

Spotify is really cool. It's made listening to music so, so easy.

But their ads (yes! I'm broke and don't want to pay for Spotify Premium, no matter how much they tell me to!) are some of the most discombobulating ads on Internet Radio. I'll just be jamming to whatever it was that I had playing, and then out of nowhere one of their ads will come in blaring some horrid Chris Brown song and telling me to check out their Top 40 playlist. Spotify -- you can probably track what I'm listening to, right? Whatever made you think I would want the Top 40 playlist? If I wanted to listen to Top 40 radio, well, I wouldn't need Spotify. I'd just turn on Top 40 radio. It's really disconcerting when I'm just going about my business, listening to something I like, and out of nowhere you assault my ears with 30 seconds of crap I'd never listen to voluntarily. Cut that out, man!

Obligatory

WHO I WANT TO SEE

Friday, April 13 & 20

The Black Keys, Swedish House Mafia, Pulp, Refused, Arctic Monkeys, Mazzy Star, Afrojack, Explosions in the Sky, M83, Amon Tobin, Cat Power, Madness, Jimmy Cliff; Tim Armstrong, GIRLS, The Rapture, Madeon, M. Ward, The Horrors, Frank Ocean, James Alesso, Sebastien, Yuck, Neon Indian, Dawes, Black Angels, Deathgrips, Wu Lyf, Breakbot, Atari Teenage Riot, Feed Me, Givers, Other Lives, Band of Skulls, R3hab, Wolfgang, Midnight Beast, EMA, Ximena Sarinana, Kendrick Lamar, The Dear Hunter, Honeyhoney, Hello Seahorse!, Sheepdogs, LA Riots

Saturday, April 14 and 21

Radiohead, Bon Iver, The Shins, David Guetta, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, Kaskade, Miike Snow, Jeff Mangum, Sebastian Ingrosso, Andrew Bird, Feist, Firehose, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, St. Vincent, Martin Solveig, Subfocus, SBTRKT, Flying Lotus, Manchester Orchestra, Kasabian, AWOL Nation, Azealia Banks, Squeeze, A$AP Rocky, Buzzcocks, Kaiser Chiefs, Destroyer, The Head and the Heart, Laura Marling, Tuneyards, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Black Lips, The Big Pink, Childish Gambino, The Vaccines, Zed's Dead, Grouplove, Jacques Lu Cont, We Were Promised, Jetpacks, Gary Clark Jr., Borgore, Dragonette, We Are Augustines, Mt. Eden, Destructo, Suedehead, Keep Shelley in Athens, Pure Filth Sound

Sunday, April 15 and 22

Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, At the Drive-In, Justice, Florence and the Machine, AVICII, La Roux, Beirut, The Weeknd, Girl Talk, The Hives, DJ Shadow, Calvin Harris, Nero, Wild Flag, Modeselektor, Dada Life, Porter Robinson, Santigold, Flux Pavilion, Dr. P, Gotye, Seun Keti, Egypt 80, Beats Antique, Fitz and the Tantrums, Araabmuzik, Company Flow, Real Estate, Zed, Le Bucherettes, Greg Ginn, The Growlers, Noisia, Morgan Page, Gaslamp Killer, First Aid Kit, Oberhofer, Lissie, Thundercat, Metronomy, Wild Beasts, Housse de Racket, Fanfarlo, Spector, Gardens; Villa, Airplane Boys, Sleeper Agent

Anyone else I'm missing?

Sometimes raves are creepy

First things first -- the word "rave." I don't like it. Using it today makes people sound like they're equating the massives today with the underground shit from back in the day. And I am not even coming at this from the "it was so much better back then!" angle per se, because I wasn't around back then. I just think that the kind of event a "rave" referred to is not the same as what we're doing today in the EDM scene. I use the word "rave" sometimes because it's a lot less clunky than, say, "DJ show" or "Electronic music event" or "EDM massive" or whatever other overly-descriptive substitutes have been offered. So there's that. "Rave" it is. (Sometimes.)

When I first started going to these things, whatever they were, I went with Casper. We were kind of the only people who liked this stuff, and we liked doing it together. It wasn't until much later that I started going with other (female) friends and couldn't help but notice a slight difference in the way that my presence was received when I went without Casper. It was different, and it was a little creepy.

At first, for awhile, as someone who hadn't ever done the whole ecstasy thing and really couldn't put myself in the shoes of someone who was on it, I just accepted all of the touchy-feelyness as "what just happens." It's PLUR, man! It's love! It's love through music! We're connected through beats and synths!

But then I realized more and more that it wasn't like guys were walking up to other guys and just touching them. No, guys were only walking (dancing?) up to girls and touching them.

I can't speak for anyone else, but as a girl, this is what makes it hard to have hobbies. Seriously. My enjoyment of music has to stop at me listening to it at home, because when I go out and my boyfriend isn't around, I have to accept being arbitrarily fondled. And that's something I don't really want to accept.

Some people will say, "Hello, do you see what girls WEAR at raves?" I direct those people to all of my prior photos of what I've worn to raves. I've gotten groped wearing jeans, a tank top, and chucks. So have a lot of other people. Women who wear burkas get groped. I got groped when I was thirteen years old, wearing braces, a t-shirt, and jean shorts, the first time I ever went to a "discotech" in Italy, while I was on a school trip, with my teacher chaperones standing not but 10 feet away. So no, I don't accept any variant of the "she was inviting it" as a good argument, reason, or explanation why this shit happens.

Groping happens. It blows. So why am I talking about raves again? Well, I guess it has to do with what I mentioned above -- the PLUR effect. The idea that if you still want your personal space, you're missing out on the "experience" of lovingly touching and being touched by other people. Sorry, it's not for me. Sometimes I just want to listen to music because I like the music, not because I want to buy into whatever bizarre counter-culture springs up around it.

Eagle Rock Brewery - Women's Beer Forum

One of my local beer spots, Eagle Rock Brewery, has started holding "Women's Beer Forums" every third Wednesday of each month. For $10, you can show up and try a tasting flight of four different beers that so far have been themed for the evening.

The first theme in March was affectionately called "Fru Fru" and highlighted fruit beers -- the idea was partly a play on how women seem to be directed and/or gravitate toward fruity drinks, but none of these beers were sickly sweet. The first was Ephemere Apple, a white ale brewed with apple as an adjunct (apple was actually added separately to the brewing process, as compared with notes that are present simply because the particular strain of yeast adds that flavor to the beer.) As someone with a soft spot for white ales, I enjoyed this beer and thought it was a nice way to open the flight. The second beer was Eagle Rock's own Limbo, a summer saison brewed with citrahops and Brettanomyces. This beer was freaking delicious. The citrahops gave essences of tropical fruits, and the Brettanomyces contributed a piney, earthy funk (in a good way) that gave a dry twist to the finish of the beer. The third of the flight was an old favorite of mine, Dogfish Head Aprihop, an apricot IPA. As I'd found apricot ales to be among the first beers I remember enjoying, I am especially fond of the apricot addition to my perennial favorite beer style, the IPA. Lastly, we tried Maui Brewing Company's Coconut Porter. As this was available to go, I bought two cans (yes! it comes in cans!) The coconut is delightfully subtle, but what really drew me to this beer was that it woke my nostalgia up in a major way by reminding me of Double Rainbow Ultra Chocolate Ice Cream , which to this day is the best chocolate ice cream I've ever had. And I'm not really a big ice cream person, but if someone handed me a bowl of this I would eat it happily.

Last week, I attended April's Forum which was themed "Spring Flowers" -- we would be sampling beers with floral notes. The first was Jolly Pumpkin Artisanal Ales' Saison IO, which was brewed with rose hips and rose petals as adjuncts. As I'm increasingly finding myself a bigger and bigger fan of the saison style, I really enjoyed their rose-infused take. Secondly we tried  Williams Brothers Fraoch Heather Ale. It was a very light, mild beer that was (unfortunately) a bit skunky by the time it got to us on its journey over from Scotland. It didn't make  much of an impression compared to the rest of the beers we tried. The third beer was Elysian Brewery's Avatar Jasmine IPA, which was AWESOME. The hops were woodsy and citrusy, but the real star was the jasmine, which was reminiscent of drinking jasmine tea, but in a beer. None of the flavors overpowered each other, and the synergistic product was a truly beautiful beer. The last beer of the evening was Craftsman Brewery's Sour Lavender Ale. Craftsman is located in Pasadena, so we're lucky around here to have access to their beer, as they don't bottle their products. The Sour Lavender ale is a special seasonal beer that I rather liked, for a sour, which is a style I usually don't favor. I liked the lavender element, and I also didn't find it very biting or bitter for a sour, which was nice.

I like the idea of the women's beer forums because it gives women an easy opportunity to learn a bit more about beer vocabulary and try different styles. For some reason, despite the origins of beer being attributed to women, beer has become something of a men's domain in popular culture. It's not as profound in the beer geek / craft brewing world, but there is still something of a disparity in numbers between male and female aficionados, not to mention craft/micro brewery ownership -- again, surprising, since there is at least some evidence to demonstrate that women are at least as good, if not better, than men at detecting certain taste elements in beer.The bottom line is that there is definitely room for women in the beer world, and given the popularity of the two beer forums so far, as well as the alleged eagerness of the participating breweries to provide their brews just for the event (this was the case at least with Craftsman and Elysian, and particularly in the case of the latter, which is based in Washington and doesn't ordinarily ship beers here at all) it seems that the beer world is ready and eager to accept more women into the sausage fest.

It's a nice opportunity for women to first learn the tools to be beer geeks in an accommodating environment, as there is ample research that demonstrates any number of psychological burdens women often experience when trying to participate in male-dominated environments (Impostor syndrome being a particularly common and damaging one.) It's therefore perfect for a woman who is just becoming interested in beer, but might feel intimidated walking into an established "beer bar" and trying to establish some kind of repartee with bartenders and bar owners about which beer she might want to try while having limited experience in the matter. I know I felt that way -- I'd tried beers I know I liked, but other than "It was golden, and Stone made it" I felt very lost at the beginning of my beer journey. I still feel like there are some styles I'm pretty established in, but others I don't have a taste for at all. Slip me into a conversation about the minutiae of which glassware is most appropriate for certain styles, or about the brewing process itself? I'm not really up on all that - yet. I've already learned a lot about brewing from the Forums, for instance the tidbits about adjuncts vs. yeast and hop flavor contributions. I now feel like I can hold my own with a lot of dudes, the majority of whom -- surprise! -- don't actually know jack about beer at all, but are just loud enough to seem like a commanding presence in these types of conversations.

Given all of that text and whole-hearted recommending of the ERB forum, I thought I'd end on a song of the day that I've been playing a lot lately. I love her voice and the particular eccentricity of this song really does it for me right now.

Checking in on some checklists

Here are some lenticular clouds, just because I wanted some colorful-ness up in here.


Two among my most recent posts were checklists - the first being things I wanted to accomplish this year, and the second being acts I hoped might be at Coachella this year. Here's an update on those.

- Finally getting to go to Vail with Casper for New Year's
- Coachella 2011
- Trying lots of new restaurants
- Getting back in shape (working on it! Taking zumba and kickboxing at school. Still not ready for p90X I don't think)
- Beating Super Mario Galaxy
- Staying sober (JUST KIDDING!)
- Passing qualifying exams
- Getting published (ALWAYS working on it)
- Becoming a better cook
- Finishing classes
- Possibly being able to afford a full-frame DSLR camera
- Mobilizing my street gang and forming a motorcycle unit
- Improving my h4x0r skillset (working on this too!)
- Fixing the audio insulation on the right front door of my car
- Learning to drift
- Learning another language

And here's my Coachella wishlist. I bolded the names that are actually going to be there this year! Sweet!

David Bowie
Daft Punk
Duran Duran
Roger Waters
Lady Gaga
Yeasayer
Kode.9
Skream
Sasha / Sasha & Digweed
Gabriel & Dresden
Moby
The Pixies
Grace Jones
Royksopp
Janelle Monae
Flying Lotus (missed him last year, really butthurt about it)
Burial
MSTRKRFT
Fatboy Slim
Pendulum
Goldfrapp
Bjork
Roisin Murphy
Caribou
Alanis Morisette
Santigold
Bat for Lashes
Snoop Dogg
The Roots
PNAU
RJD2
Cut Copy
UNKLE / James Lavelle
Massive Attack
Garbage
Rolling Stones

So actually I didn't do that well this year! HOWEVER. The following is a NEW LIST (omg.) of people who are on the lineup that I am pretty stoked to see:

Magnetic Man (Benga and Skream aren't playing individually, but they are playing as Magnetic Man. Sweet!!)
Ozomatli
Sander Kleinenberg
Robyn
Tame Impala
THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS! (why the f weren't they on my list anyway??)
Scissor Sisters
Empire of the Sun
Animal Collective
Caspa (again, why wasn't he on my list?)
Death from Above 1979
Delorean
DJ Zinc
Kanye (yeah, I'm down to see Yeezy)
Leftfield

Thank you for being so good and reading all of those words. Here is a silly bird for you!

Day 30 - Whatever tickles your fancy

Here's a New Years' Resolution - finally finishing that 30 Day Challenge I began back in, er, July. [facepalm]

In any case, this is the last post of that "challenge," which I obviously failed, and it's an open post. The last thing I wrote about before starting the challenge was Coachella, so it seems only fitting that the last post of the challenge might be a wishlist of acts I would love to see at Coachella this (or any) year.

I feel like I need to mention that I know one of my favorite groups ever, Incubus, would not be asked to perform (at least not in the near future, but they may eventually if they prove to have any staying power, at which point they'd be a "throwback" invite) since they have zero indie cred. (Sorry boys, I love you, but you're not a Pitchfork darling.)

So I decided to put on my list acts that I think would feasibly be asked to come to Coachella, even if they wouldn't per se choose to perform. I also didn't include acts that I already saw at Coachella - not because I wouldn't want to see them again, but because it's redundant - however, because I'm not super up on knowing everyone who's ever played Coachella, there may be people on my wishlist who have already played the festival.

David Bowie
Daft Punk
Duran Duran
Roger Waters
Lady Gaga
Yeasayer (this is a cheat, since I saw part of their set last year, but now that I'm much more familiar with their music I'd love to see them again)
Kode.9
Skream
Sasha / Sasha & Digweed
Gabriel & Dresden
Moby
The Pixies
Grace Jones
Royksopp
Janelle Monae
Flying Lotus (missed him last year, really butthurt about it)
Burial
MSTRKRFT
Fatboy Slim
Pendulum
Goldfrapp
Bjork
Roisin Murphy
Caribou
Alanis Morisette
Santigold
Bat for Lashes
Snoop Dogg
The Roots
PNAU
RJD2
Cut Copy

...and this list is probably incomplete. But my brain hurts good enough for me to think I wrung all of the ideas out of it, at least for now.

ADDED!:

UNKLE / James Lavelle
Massive Attack (I can't believe I forgot this one, DUH)
Garbage (another duh, obvious one)
Rolling Stones (rumored this year for some reason? That would be sick.)

Royksopp - Vision One

I want to have this album's babies right now.



Repeat repeat repeat

Royksopp - Were You Ever Wanted

The whole Royksopp album, Junior, is pretty much too beautiful for life right now for me, but I particularly love this song.



I like my music longing and breathtaking.