Episode 54 - Classic WSOU
It's probably a small group of people to whom it makes sense to follow a playlist of 80s/early 90s Freestyle songs with a playlist of Metal/Thrash. Clearly, I am in that group.
I won't deny that I'm going through a bit of homesickness for the past few weeks and the Freestyle playlist reflects that, but so does this playlist.
I was a metalhead in junior high school and freshman year of high school. And if you lived in NYC in the 80s and you wanted to listen to metal--and not the glam stuff--89.5 WSOU was your station. The station is licensed to Seton Hall University out of New Jersey and the two amazing things about that fact is that a) Seton Hall is a catholic university that was playing Slayer and b) only in hindsight do you realize that for a college station, they had a pretty amazing signal and antenna location. This wasn't a station that you had to mess around with the antennae and hope that the skies were clear in order to listen to it, unlike WLIR/WDRE out of Long Island where I worked for a bit.
To give you some context, from my house to WLIR was 14 miles as the crow flies vs. 22 miles for WSOU and yet, crystal clear. I was a radio major in college and I was about to go into explaining AM and FM signals and how different factors could affect them, but I caught myself and spared you.
Anyway, here are 10 of my favorite songs that I would associate with WSOU.
Blackened - Metallica
Epic - Faith No More
Antisocial - Anthrax
E.vil N.ever D.ies - Overkill
Peace Sells...But Who's Buying - Megadeth
Practice What You Preach - Testament
Cult of Personality - Living Colour
The Toxic Waltz - Exodus
You Can't Bring Me Down - Suicidal Tendencies
Ace of Spades - Motörhead
Episode 53 - Freestyle
I originally was going to do a "new to me" playlist tonight, but as I was going through my collection, I came across an old freestyle playlist I made probably about 5 years ago and thought it would be fun to do that. If you're not familiar with freestyle in this context, it's a genre of dance music that really dominated NYC airwaves in the 1980s and early 1990s and was primarily a component of the Latin community (although guidos loved this shit too). The genre did spread a little bit to other cities, but not enough to really garner national attention, which is a shame because even though the songs all have a very similiar sound that some complain is monotonous, there is still something very fun genre. I can and will totally admit that part of that fun for me may stem from nostalgia, but I still think it's worth sharing.
Plus this is the most times I've wrote out "fun" in a while and we need more of that today.
Dreamboy / Dreamgirl - Johnny O & Cynthia
Louder than Love - TKA
Running - Information Society
Give Me Tonight - Shannon
Because of You - The Cover Girls
Can You Feel the Beat - Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam
Catch Me I'm Falling - Pretty Poison
Fascinated - Company B
Fantasy Girl - Johnny O
Silent Morning - Noel
Episode 52 - Start of Fall
Similar to the seasons, music can be cyclical for me and autumn tends to mean a slower beat with a darker vibe. Trip-hop comes more to the forefront while upbeat or aggressive songs get knocked down a notch. Looking over this playlist, I do have create a Morcheeba playlist eventually, as they're personally underappreciated.
Pabadam - Yonderboi
Truth from Fiction - Supreme Beings of Leisure
Us - Movement
Pink + White - Frank Ocean
Undress Me Now - Morcheeba
The Truth - Handsome Boy Modeling School
Like a Woman - Lady Blackbird
Better Things - Massive Attack
Underwater Love - Smoke City
Archangel - Burial
Episode 51
I'm at a point where I have so many playlists in my head that I want to make, but I do have the concern that they wouldn't be well received. I wanted to do a Drums & Bass mix, but I know it's not a wildly appreciated genre (I was listening to a D&B radio station and even my wife had to pause what she was doing and ask me to turn it off). I imagine how people would feel about a Drum & Bass playlist is how I'd feel about a Trap playlist. I also have a few "best of" playlists that I'm batting around. For now, this episode is just stuff that happened to cross my desk over the past few months that I've been enjoying.
Tearing Me Up - Bob Moses
Fountain - iamamiwhoami
Lights - SOHN
Draw Your Swords - Angus Stone, Julia Stone
Late '88 - Deacon Blue
kisses - Slowdive
Lipstick on the Glass - Wolf Alice
23 - Blonde Redhead
Wolf Like Me - TV on the Radio
Don't Fade Away - Beach Fossils
Episode 50 - Part 2 - The Covers
And now presenting some cover versions of the songs in listed in Episode 49. As mentioned, this came about during a dinner discussion and Disturbed's "The Sound of Silence" was recommended to me. If you keep up to date with music news, I'd say learn to separate the art and the artist when it comes to Disturbed. For "Where is My Mind", I was going to go with an instrumental version but I'll save that for an instrumental cover playlist.
What I find interesting is that on this playlist are two songs that were featured in TV shows. "Cruel Summer" was featured in Cobra Kai and "Another Day in Paradise" was in the show "Paradise" and I recommend both, especially "Paradise".
The Sound of Silence - Disturbed
Where is My Mind? - Nada Surf
Wicked Game - Emika
Cruel Summer - Kari Kimmel
Crucified - Ghost
Another Day in Paradise - Joyner
Nothing Else Matters - Dave Gahan
Bullet with Butterfly Wings - Karen O
Paint it Black - U2
Smells Like Teen Spirit - Tori Amos