Editing Update: This was already going to be a week late, and then I hit some surprise last-minute delays, pushing it even further back. I’m just going to run this as soon as it’s ready to prevent any further delays (and ensure that it actually goes up before the last day of summer), but I’m also going to keep the “Music Monday” name, because it’ll make grouping things a little easier. ​
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I feel like this outgoing summer was sort of a weird period for me, as far as music listening habits went. I’m usually pretty regularly poking around for new music and burning through it, and sometimes even regularly jotting down my thoughts and notes about each release as I get to it. But the last few months… I don’t know. I found myself listening to more baseball games and podcasts, or returning to older music when I was in a listening mood. And I very much wasn’t usually taking any notes or making observations about it like I normally do.
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I don’t know, maybe it’s a minor case of burnout? I know I’ve been joking about how I need to make these playlist articles a little less overwhelming, so maybe this is the chance to really try and enforce that. I usually try and dig into as many of the inclusions as I can, which is why these things can reach the word and page counts that I do. But maybe I can ease off a little (in another change, I’m actually writing the intro first this time to get myself into a writing headspace, rather than at the end to try and wrap it all up).
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For all that hedging, I did actually find new stuff that I enjoyed! And I still really do want to make this playlist and write this article about it! I’ve loved making these; they’re great little time capsules of points in my life, and going back to look at what I was listening to and read my thoughts is a fun thing to do from time to time. I still kind of regret the little stretch from 2019-2020 when I wasn’t publishing anything like this*, and I’d like to avoid that happening again.
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​*And I probably won’t put out a make-up list for that era like I once thought I might, but I did at least do my normal preliminary work for them, so I can’t rule it out either. But if nothing else, I have stuff to reference on my end. ​
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We’ll see how that manifests in the writing, maybe just starting the article will spur a whole bunch of thoughts that I’ve been subconsciously holding in. I was feeling lost trying to decide what my favorite albums or songs of the summer were until I started doing my normal playlist plotting and article brainstorming, and then ideas started to click into place. Maybe I’ll have more to say than I realized. No way to know unless I start somewhere, though.
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As per usual, I have both YouTube and Spotify Playlists available for listening along. And a large number of these artists are on Bandcamp, which if you purchase music, remains the best way to support your favorites directly. The site even occasionally waives their cut of sales (we just passed a Bandcamp Friday at the start of September, but there is another one coming up on October 2nd, plus two more left in the year after that for the first Fridays of November and December).
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