Jalen Ngonda played a sold-out show at The Swedish American Hall in San Francisco this September. You can tell his voice is more than a 70’s soul knockoff in his recordings alone, but it’s nothing like hearing him live 10 feet away.
Not even one of my favorite musicians over the past 5 years, Aaron Frazer, who had the song at my wedding’s first dance, could showcase live like Ngonda. I saw Frazer a week before, and while his catalog runs deep with fresh new soul, Ngonda’s live performance is best of the year, beside Mon Laferte at Bottle Rock. Ngonda still needs work on building his catalog and moving more into his own sound, but give him 5 years and he’ll be on top.
More than any musician before him, I heard more people tell me Spotify recommended Jalen Ngonda to them. If that’s not an potential sign of major success than take it from me. While I was a part of his Spotify recommended season late last year, I realized I reposted his song “Don’t You Remember” on SoundCloud 5 years ago. Bite it, Spotify recs.
I’ve prepared a few playlists for wedding receptions & dinners over the past few years, so since I just had a wedding of my own, to celebrate I finalized those playlists here. It’s centered around millennials since I’m a millennial but covers at least the last 60 years of mostly American pop music and a few important tangents.
There’s music I intentionally left out. The music doesn’t focus on the stereotypical wedding songs, but there’s still quite a few in there–the same point my first wedding party playlist tried to make, Not UR Typical Wedding DJ. If I missed something send it to me. I’ll try to keep this playlist fresh with some of your selections.
These wedding playlists aren’t meant to be ordered to play through, though they could, but more for you to pull from a comprehensive list that will be a good start to any wedding music. I spent too many hours going through too many other playlists, hopefully this will eventually become a one-stop shop. I’ve already got over 10 hours of music on these two, let along the Bachelorette playlist.
BottleRock had some amazing emerging artists play, but besides going through all 70 or so performers before the festival on Spotify, there wasn’t any easy way to find what performance to go to next. Discovering new artists is a problem I see at all festivals, but I think there is a solution – something I briefly go over in my 2019 SXSW recap.
Unfortunately, I was only able to listen to half of the performers before BottleRock, and of course, by the time I got around to listen to the other half, I missed my top discovery, Watchhouse (but Jessie Reyez was an excellent alternative).
I haven’t made many personal playlists for people, but I’m moving in that direction with technologies making it much easier. Imagine if Spotify or some other music service made it so simple to compare your music taste with someone close to you and serve up suggestions, building something that constantly updates based on each of your moods, new music, new connections, and so much else.
Until then, here’s a static playlist I made for my pops for Father’s day. I actually don’t call him father or pops, so here’s to you dad: a mix of old soul to get familiar with again and new soul that’s already among the greats for me, and hopefully one day for you too. Thanks for introducing me to the music that inspired what I love today!
SG Lewis asked his Twitter followers what were their favourite sad soul songs. Similar to what I did with brokemogul’s “Best Music Documentaries,” I took over 100 responses and compiled it down to 77 songs.
What I love about this list is how deeply personal and eclectic it is. It comes from over 100 different people who have the same purpose in mind and some level of love for SG Lewis but are probably pretty different otherwise. I removed a few songs that didn’t fit and some late 80’s/early 90’s R&B, but I tried to keep too much of my bias out of it.
It was hard to define what’s sad and what’s soul music. Or what’s old for that matter. Some songs may sound happy – Sam Cooke’s “Good Times” is a good example – but can be used just as well for sad times. The Twitter responses pushed the boundaries of what soul music can be defined as, which I can appreciate to a certain point (it’s still a good song.)
My biggest conflict was not including Angie Stone’s “Wish I Didn’t Miss You” and it’s for the most childish reason. Seriously, wait for it. I swear there’s a random fart noise every measure or so. Or am I just making this shit up? First one starts 14 seconds in. It’s an otherwise genuinely beautiful song.
SG Lewis still has yet to post his own sad soul song. Maybe we can get 77 more in the next year with his choice included.
I already touched on Durand Jones and The Indications when I heard them live at Outside Lands, 2018, but let’s try it again. My literal jaw dropped when I first heard Durand Jones and The Indications, but not from Durand’s voice. The group’s drummer and falsetto backup, Aaron Frazer, had me from his first note.
Like Khruangbin, their build-up has taken a few years, but Durand Jones, Aaron Frazer, and The Indications have got a full lineup of classic hits and I don’t say that often enough. How Aaron and Durand’s voices play off each other, from the highs to the lows, is unmatched. At least for this generation.
Not to get too “number-y,” as Aaron likes to say, for how talented this group is, I do not see it reflecting on their social, music services (Spotify seems decent), or from many bloggers (according to the Hype Machine.) So I’ve taken it upon myself to reach out to these bloggers, specifically ones that love soul music, and see what’s up! I’ll keep you up-to-date. You just make sure I do what I say.
I rarely post a single anymore. Usually I save it for a playlist, but if I dive into the artist’s music and come up with a handful then it’s worth featuring alone.
I’ve already featured Jacob Banks when I saw him at Outside Lands – which was one of the best performances of the year, as well as his show at The Independent – but his single with Louis The Child is one of his best and unexpected at that.
Not from Banks, I expect his music to get better with time, but Louis The Child. Not only have they never worked with a singer so good, but they’ve got his sound down. Better than I’ve ever seen it before.
I swear I’ve heard ‘Ditty Bop’ at a Jacob Banks show, but something that sounds so familiar from the start is a good indicator of a track’s longevity.
I saw Kali Uchis late 2017 at The New Parish and my first thought was my girlfriend would love her. I wanted to surprise her with tickets to her show at The Fox just after Valentine’s Day, but it seems like she needs more convincing on how good she is.
I haven’t seen a catalog this deep on SoundCloud ever (Duckwrth is second best). One song after the other, even the shittiest recordings had that whisper in her voice that makes her sound so special. She’s the first artist that’s ever made me appreciate someone singing another language so much.
I think that’s what more Americans need to start appreciating other languages being sung. Bi-lingual singers to show there’s no language line with good music.
We mainly highlight artists over singles now, which has given us different criteria to look for in what to feature. Mainly, more than just a few singles to show off. Something I see more with vocalists over instrumentalists or producers, but Masego does it all.
But like most musicians I pick, I love his voice most. He’s got personality that’s an artist’s dream and it shows through his voice.
He played with Goldlink at Coachella this year and the two are some of the finest record makers, live performers, and make some of the finest sounds with their voices.
We’re starting to break our remix playlists into genres. Our first was relaxing hip hop remixes and now we’ve got soulful R&B, and some just soulful (we did have a tropical remix list in between).
The list of soul started off as general relaxing remixes, but it was pretty much all some sort of soul so we trimmed it down to that. Apparently I only like hip hop and soul now.