Spotify Me Part 7: 20,000 Playlists Under the Sea

Spotify Me Part 7: 20,000 Playlists Under the Sea

Marks Discover Weekly playlist for 10/12/2015

It’s been a long week. Ok, well, I suppose this week hasn’t really been any longer than any other week. A week is 7 days. No more no less. Unless its daylight savings in which case you can give or take an hour. And why do we even still do daylight savings anymore? But for the most part, 7 days that last 24 hours make up a week. S it hasn’t been a longer week, it just feels longer. I’m sure you all needed the explanation.

However, I have still listened to music, and I have another 4 songs to present you with this week. The playlist this week seemed good at first, but I have got to warn you guy. Try at all costs to avoid listening to video game or movie soundtracks on Spotify. They will take over your radio, and your discover function like a virus. Similar to how Cake and Daft punk invaded my radio station on Pandora many moons ago.

Dawn Metropolis
Normative Records

Blackout City – Anamanaguchi

I hard about the band Anamanaguchi through the old show Bleep Bloop on college humor years ago. After a short interview with them about what their music was and how they made it happen I decided to look up the band for myself. I have been listening to them ever since. They have one singular style that they stick to, which is upbeat and cheerful electronic rock music. They create that sound by modifying cartridges to an old Nintendo Entertainment System, manipulating it to just play the music they want it to play. Then they add their guitars and drum over that.  It adds up to a pretty cool sound that is always cheerful. However I do have to say hat with all their songs being cheerful and full of 8-bit noise, many of them tend to sound very similar. Recently they have been playing with newer effects and different moods. They somewhat recently did work on the Scott Pilgrim video game soundtrack. If you are a fan of retro gaming, or electronic music in general, give these guys a listen.

Polka's not Dead
Stomp Records

Sleep is for the Weak – The Dreadnoughts

For a long time in college, all I listened to was Irish punk rock. Although that phase is over for the most part, I do still enjoy bands like Flogging Molly and the Pouges.  This song falls right into that style of music, although it is a bit more of a modern sea shanty than an Irish pub song. But I just finished a play through of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag so I’m all about pirates right now. This song is loud, angry and full of mad energy. They use a full set of instruments to fill the soundscape they are given, and it adds up to a good strong effect. I have always enjoyed music of this style because I feel like there is a certain culture behind it that provides more emotion to the song. I really enjoyed this one, and will certainly be looking more into this band in the future.

The Cage
Asto Records

Eleanor Rigby – Dirt Poor Robins

Keeping with this weeks apparent theme of loud punk music, we move right into a cover of the Beatles classic Eleanor Rigby. This song has always had dark themes, mysterious sounding lyrics, and a moody atmosphere. Sometimes it seems odd that the Beatles should be the ones to first write and play it, with their style typically being more cheery. Since then several bands and singers have played this song putting their own spin on the interesting and remorseful words. The Dirt Poor Robins have taken the song, turned up the volume on their amps, and laid down a hard, dark punk rock attitude that matches the lyrics pretty darn well. The sound that they create manages to be both sad and angry, helping them lay out the emotional struggle that the “lonely people” are going through. There are allusions to the original instrumentation through out if you listen closely enough to catch them. Over all, the Dirt Poor Robins have created a good modern spin on an old classic.

We are the Royals
Supernova Records

Underwear –Royal Republic

This song is loud, fast, and proud. And although high school is never mentioned once in the lyrics, I can’t help but be reminded of all the “teen rebellion anthems” that we used to listen to back in the early 2000’s, even though it was released in the far more recent year of 2010. The song has all the quality of those original songs of angst and anger. It’s loud, rude, unapologetic, and fast. It gets the blood flowing and the body moving.  It reminds me of songs that bands like the offspring would release. If you enjoy garage rock, and rebellious anthems, give this song, and the band as a whole a good look.

(The album artwork in this article is not owned by the authors of this blog, but by the producers of the albums themselves.)