A Bunch Of Songs Picked By CJ Marsicano
aka The Apple Playliist from Hell (if your taste in music runs very narrow...)
Welcome to the deep dive of my playlist. Here is the track-by-track breakdown of why each song made the cut.
Rise Above
Black Flag
Back when this playlist wasn't eighty hours long, this was meant to be the opening track because its the opening track of one of the greatest punk albums ever recorded. Robo's sizzling kick-drum-less intro and Greg Ginn's chromatic descending minor third opening riff going from an E3 chord to a C#3 chord launching off this list makes just as much cense as whn it starts off Damaged. It means this isn't your ordinary streaming service playlist.
I Wish I Was Stephen Malkmus
beabadoobee
When I started the original version of this list around 2019 or so, I had already become an invested fan in the music of beabadoobee, something sparked when I read an NME article about her where she was mentioning the influence of the then-recently-depearted Daniel Johnston on her songwriting. That had me intrigued enough to look her up on Shitify (yeah, I was using that service then...) and check out her then-latest mini-album, Loveworm. Before I knew it, I was going on Qobuz and buying the hi-res files of her entirte discography to date, back when this track was only a single and not 1/5 of her then-upcoming EP Space Cadet. By the end of the year, I'd have Loveworm, Space Cadet and her first full EP Patched Up on vinyl as well. TL;DR: discovering beabadoobee made me put what was then her latest single on this playlist when I first started to build it.
Sedan Delivery
Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Because its my favorite Neil Fucking Young song.
Bastard in Love
Black Flag
There's no crime in having songs by the same artist on a mixtape or playlist, even a few songs apart from each other. Now that I've gotten that fact down for the record (so that no jabroni is out there bitching about some imagined rule about "mo more than one song from an artist on a mix"), here's the deal for this song: Black Flag was already my favorite band when the Loose Nut album dropped in the summer of 1985. I was already out of high school and in my first semi-pro band at the time. Hearing Black Flag deliver a radio-friendly rock song on their new album didn't bother me like it did some "fans" that thought every Black Flag album should soound like Damaged. Hearing Henry Rollins' vocals take a melodic turn, Greg Ginn bust out a Chuck Berry/Steve Jones pentatonic guitar solo, and hearing a chorus of backing vocalists (including Milo Auckerman from the Descendents) was a beautiful mmindblow. If Black Flag had been on a major label, this song should have made them the superstar band they deserved to be.
Metal Guru
T.Rex
When Marc Bolan and company followed up Electric Warrior )the album with "Bang A Gong" and "Jeepster" on it) with The Slider (the one with the picture of Bolan in his top hat, taken by Ringo Starr), Bolan had his knack for writing earworms down. I had actually gone onto eBay when this song and "Telegram Sam" had gotten so stuck in my head from buying a double CD of Bolan's post-Electric Warrior single sides on his own EMI-distributed vanity label, and found copies of those two singles to add to my collection. I'm not sure what Bolan was getting at with the song's lyrics, but it doesn't matter. Theglame years of the early seventies were a bit weird, in a good way.
Transformer Man
Neil Young
Trans is probably one of Neil Young's most divisive albums, but that's par for the course for someone that's done whatever he wanted to do from album to album. This highlight from that album is entirely electronic Neil, with hiim working with a vocoder, synclavier and other electronic gear. The elctronic songs on Trans stemmed from Neil's attempts at commmunicating with his con who had cerebal palsy. (Some of the songs on Neil's previous album re·ac·tor are also said to have come from this same period.)
Bull In The Heather
Sonic Youth
The lead single from my favorite Sonic Youth album, in my mind forever tied to the band's appearance on the David Letterman show when Kim was days away from giving birth to her and Thurston's child just as much as the iconic video with a twintailed Kathleen Hanna.
The Future (Asuka)
CFO$
The theme song of my favorite professional wrestler, Asuka (one of my biggest idol crushes, TBH). For years the ringtone of this was the one I assigned to my wife, but anytime this song came up whenever I shuffled this particular playliust, I kept thinking she was calling me.
Do You Love Me
2NE1
One of my favorite 2NE1 songs. I'm torn between CL and Park Bom for my bias.
No Place Like Home
Devo
A highlight of their 2010 comeback album Something for Everybody, and a track Warner Bros. should have pushed as a follow-up single to "Fresh", as this uncharacteristic ballad would have shocked the shit out of people who only know the band for "Whip It".
Like A Hurricane
Neil Young
Classic Uncle Neil from American Stars and Bars.
Square Hammer
Ghost
I've been following Chost since Infestisumum, but to me this is their signature track that encapsulates what they do.