I love to dance, but rarely do so at live shows. If any of these tracks are playing though, it’s a different story. Loose Control is the collection of music I love to dance to most. At least contemporarily speaking.
Most of this list is funk-inspired, but we’ve got the best in all of dance here: disco, house, electro, and hip hop. Anything that grooves. And Anderson .Paak and Kaytranada groove most. They’re over-represented here. I just can’t help myself.
Between trap and future bass is something special. Not only is it some of the sexiest music out right now, but pushes the edges of music more than any other. Pop is catching up to it, hip hop is there, but its depth still goes unrecognized. And that’s where the problem with playlisting it comes in.
More than any other, this Up to Nogood playlist is reliant on YouTube Music & SoundCloud. Apple Music and Spotify just don’t have the catalog. Not even half.
One thing Spotify does do best is discovery. Digging through music has changed from listening to thousands of songs on my SoundCloud stream to find something fresh down to hundreds with what Spotify recommends. Automation has a long way to go in really helping me out, but Spotify is leading it.
One thing none of them have are analytics for playlisters. One of the most crucial things in making a better playlist. 8tracks is actually the only one I know that does.
Last year we showed our condolences for the day disco died at Comiskey Park in 1979, but with the burning of disco came the rise of house music. More than any other genre, I’ve gotten criticism for my love of disco house, but that’ll never diminish my love for it. If anything, I like it a little more.
We’ve decided to turn that playlist, BURN DISCO, into something more ongoing and inclusive. We’ve been collecting disco playlists since 2012 and before. From Frisco Disco to Lazer Disco to Horizontal Disco and Disco is to Dance, we’ve wrapped them up into one until we break them in two again.
BURN DISCO is on the four major music services, but as explained better in the previous article, not all music services are made equal. Especially in catalog. YouTube and SoundCloud have a much more expansive catalog than Spotify and Apple, which BURN DISCO exemplifies. Spotify and Apple only have about half the songs YouTube and SoundCloud do and it’s only going to get worse with the next playlist.
Special shout out to Flamingosis and his flamboyance. Y’all keep disco alive.
Back in 2014 Trent Reznor put out a video envisioning Beats Music, now Apple Music, as the game changer in deciding what song comes next. It sure as hell inspired me and helped to get where music discovery is today, but Spotify is leading that now, most famously with RapCaviar.
Tuma Basa – creator of RapCaviar, now at YouTube Music – recently talked at DJ Jazzy Jeff’s Playlist Retreat about how we need to recognize curation as a form of art. Too many music services are hung up on breaking the next big thing. Let the playlisters, djs, and other curators figure that out. Figure out the curators first.
SoundCloud has been my pick for playlisting music ever since they introduced the feature, but they’ve been losing listeners, so I thought it was about time to spread my efforts elsewhere. Spotify’s doing it right when it comes to their product and promotion. They’ve got all the major label music and seem to be winning with playlisting & discovery. But it turns out half the music I love isn’t on Spotify, so it’s gonna have to take more than just that to replace SoundCloud, if at all.
YouTube Music doesn’t have every song SoundCloud has, but I’m sure they have much more. They haven’t quite established themselves yet, but with Lyor Cohen, Tuma Basa, and all the other talent I’ll follow when I find them, my (subscription) money is on YouTube Music. And Spotify too for now.
Apple Music has the same problem as Spotify with catalog, but their potential is in live with retail stores in the most highly trafficked places around the world. Initiatives like “Today at Apple” that are bringing people together around creativity & entrepreneurship can be the game changer Apple Music needs to differentiate themselves from Spotify & YouTube Music. Especially if they utilize a platform like Beats 1 to democratize the global spotlight for all kinds of artists, including playlisters, online and off.
As this bitch of a year comes to a close, there isn’t anything better than soulful singers to give it some grace. I haven’t put together a soul singers playlist for about a year, so there’s a lot of musicians to cover (72!)
In our last Lip Service playlist, it had soul, but no women. I think it’s as important as ever to show appreciation to the women you love, and I love these musician. Or I’m sure I would if I knew them.
This one’s for the woman I do, Lizzzz.
Serious question. Listen to the playlist. Would you consider it rock music? 1-10. Now rate how much you like the tracks. 1-10. I hope at least the second number is higher than the first. Let me know.
It may not be traditional rock, but all the tracks have some tie in, loosely. The list starts with blues & alternative, gets into indie & soul, and ends on electronic. Most of the tracks have a catchy guitar melody and unfortunately all male vocalists, except one. Ninet, the only one I’ve seen live.
We tried to address a similar problem with female producers and currently trying to find women who can rap. If I ever get enough rock on my list, I hope can bring awareness with that too.
Lately I haven’t given myself enough time to sit back and not think. There’s so much to do and it’s fun doing. But you gotta give the mind some time to catch up. Hopefully this will help get me in the mood. Let me know if it does for you. Sometimes I need a reminder, and so do you.
Other listening:
Beats by Day
Late Night Beats
Late Night Jazz
Electro Relaxations
“I’m shy at first, but once you get to know me I do the stupidest, most random shit.”
I saw this quote and thought it was the best description of me in one line. I even got the t-shirt (seriously). My grandfather gave me the nickname Corky when I was little and the sentiment has stuck. I’m a bit odd, as we all should be, and a lot of my favorite music is too.
Originally these series of lists were all about kawaii music, which I dubbed VAPOR + VAPOR 2.0. Eventually the playlists expanded into all sorts of music along the future/trap spectrum, split into three categories – o f f b e a t, Sex trapt, and Future glam fucks. Quirky takes a little from each.
This is our third year celebrating anti-Valentine’s day 2015 | 2016. We didn’t plan on doing one this year, but the house we have is always soulful, which at least half the time is about heartbreak. There were so many classics stored up we had to throw this together.
We also got another house head to whip up her own. Lauren helped me with the first heartbreak playlist about hip hop and has created her own list for house, a few of which I so badly wanted to steal for myself.
We haven’t done a list on hip-hop for years. In 2015: Adam Vida, Anderson .Paak & Goldlink were our hope to revive hip-hop. As much as our love for them have grown more than many, our focus has still been with dance & soul music.
We did collect fifty songs with emcees that got talent. More for their cadence and flow than lyrical depth, but with one usually comes the other (not always). These emcees more than ever before come from different backgrounds with all types of styles and sounds. We’ve even got some from the UK.
I bet the next one in two years will have even more countries.