Planet Home was a three-day conference, festival, and pop-up village inside of San Francisco’s historic Palace of Fine Arts. It got people together to talk about and show the progress of potential solutions to our world’s biggest environmental challenges, along with musical performances to close out each night. Notable speakers & performers included Edward Norton, Bill Nye, Chet Faker, Snoop Dogg, and Wyclef Jean.
The festival and village were open to all, but there was a special track, known as Visions, which opened up panels, workshops, and talks with experts in the future of our planet. However, unlike most festivals that offer VIP upgrades for three-times the ticket price, to get into Visions was a different story.
First off, there was an application process, which appears to gauge if applicants already work on these challenges or simply bring new ideas with a “solutionist” approach. I’m not sure what made up the rest of the process, but based on the people I met at Visions, it was a pleasant change over the VIP bros and made for some meaningful conversations.
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.