Get 2 That, Part 1

This playlist is a celebration of funk music from the 1960s and the 1970s. I thank my wife for getting me into the genre of music. During the early years of our marriage, we would host funk parties at our apartment in Baltimore and our flat in Seoul. It always got our friends dancing for hours on end. This playlist doesn't really represent the music played at those parties. I see it as a nice synthesis of influences from my wife's musical tastes, my father's musical tastes, and the popular funk music that bridges those two. When I need to get out of an emotional funk, I whip out this playlist and play it to knock me into a higher groove.

Playlist

1. "Can You Get to That" from Funkadelic's 1971 album Maggot Brain. A great song to kick off a two-part playlist.
2. "Aht Uh Mi Head" from Shuggie Otis' 1974 album Inspiration Information. I discovered Shuggie Otis too late in life, although I have been a big fan of "Strawberry Letter 23" for a long time.
3. "(I Know) I'm Losing You," a 1966 hit single by the Temptations that I first heard covered by Rare Earth on one of my father's favorite albums when I was growing. 
4. "Ain't That a Lot of Love" by Taj Mahal in the Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus, filmed in 1966 and released 30 years later for my generation (pun intended).
5. "Think," a 1968 hit single by Aretha Franklin that I first heard as a kid watching The Blues Brothers film.
6. "Soul Finger" a 1967 hit single by the Bar-Kays, a song I've always liked that I heard in the background and didn't purchase until just a few years ago.
7. "Soul Sound System" from the Freedom Sounds 1968 album Soul Sound System (featuring Wayne Henderson)
8. "Same Beat (Part 1)," a 1973 hit single by Fred Wesley and the JB's, James Brown's backing band.
9. "Doin' It"from Herbie Hancock's 1976 album Secrets. For the past couple years, I've really grown to love music from the 1970s by Herbie Hancock and Quincy Jones. I was exposed to this type of jazz when I was a radio DJ at WBCR at Beloit College, when I liked it sarcastically, but now I genuinely love it. This song is one of the best.
10. "Sweetback's Theme" from the soundtrack to Melvin Van Peeble's 1971 film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.
11.  "Fingertips - Part 2," one of (Little) Stevie Wonder's earliest hits from 1963.
12. "Land of 1000 Dances," a 1966 hit single by Wilson Pickett, which I have heard on the radio and in the background of my life every since I was very little, but I never knew the title of the song until the last few years.
13. "Hip Hug Her" from Booker T. and the MG's 1967 album of the same name. It represents two of my favorite things, music of 1967 and the city of Memphis.
14. "Get Ready" a 1970 hit single by Rare Earth, but not the very long live version I heard a lot when my dad played it on the record player.
15. "What'd I Say" a 1959 hit single by Ray Charles that I first heard covered by Rare Earth on the same live album. I have multiple covers of this popular song, but this is a live one.
16. "Sing a Simple Song" from Sly & the Family Stone's 1969 album Stand! It's one of the best funk albums out there.
17. "Cissy Strut" from the Meters' eponymous 1969 album, which is one of the first gifts I bought my wife when we lived in Japan.
18. "I'm Going to Love You Just a Little More Baby," a 1973 hit single from Barry White, although I first heard it as Kellee Patterson's cover from one of my wife's favorite compilation albums, The Big Payback.
19. "Dazz," a 1976 hit single by Brick, another song that my wife listened to a lot during the early years of our marriage.
20. "Never Can Say Goodbye," a 1971 hit single by the Jackson 5. I never knew it was a Jackson 5 song as I only heard Gloria Gaynor's cover for most of my life. Which is one is more famous, I don't know.

After Midnight

Similar to the previous playlist I blogged about, "Dreamland," this one is also downbeat, but I created this playlist more recently, within the last few months. The first song is from a short-lived Chicago-based group that sampled a lot from the local Chicago stations of the 1970s and early 1980s, so it starts off with a bit a barely remembered nostalgia for me. I assume the same may hold for other GenXers who grew up in Chicagoland. So this playlist represents my childhood's imagination of the mysterious world of sleep deprivation. Obviously, I recommend playing this playlist (with an adblocker) late at night, especially when there's a slight breeze in the summer or early autumn.

Playlist

1. "After Midnight" from Emperor Penguin's 2000 album Mysterious Pony.
2. "Bel Air" from Can's 1973 album Future Days, an album that mostly evokes a mood that I wanted represented in this playlist. "Bel Air" is one of the longer songs here at almost 20 minutes.
3. "Unchanging Window/Chord Simple" from Broadcast's 2006 album The Future Crayon.
4. "No Escape" from Chromatics' 2012 album Kill for Love. Another long song at 14 minutes that brings back some GenX nostalgia.
5. "Intro" and
6. "Midnight City" from M83's 2011 double album Hurry Up, We're Dreaming. Another song with a midnight title
7. "Stop" from Com Truise's 2012 album In Decay, which brings back a strong sense of 1980s futurism is a sleep-deprived sense of way.
8. "Royksopp's Night Out" from Royksopp's 2001 album Melody A.M. Another song referencing staying up past midnight, probably.
9. "Galaxy in Janaki" from Flying Lotus' 2010 album Cosmogramma.
10. "Afterburner" from Panda Beat's 2011 album Tomboy.
11. "Rainbow Collision" from Solar Bears' 2013 album Supermigration, one of my favorite albums from the past few years.

Dreamland

I would like to begin this blog with a post that puts me in a similar mood as Twin Peaks. Although I wasn't thinking about Twin Peaks at the time I made this playlist, which was about 2 or 3 years ago, it certainly evokes many of the emotions I get while I watching the newest season of Twin Peaks (2017). This playlist is the first and a series of three entitled "Dreamland." I believe I made the first when I was drowsy from a fever, and I thought these tunes evoked my feelings well. I often have the most interested sometimes David Lynchian dreams while sleeping with a mild fever. In my youth, I would often make myself mix tapes to stimulate weird dreams to inspire my creative writing. So in a sense this playlist is an homage to those mixtapes I made over twenty years ago.

Playlist

1. "Fur Elise" from Cluster & Eno's eponymous 1977 album -  I love the wooing intro
2. "4:14" from Global Communication's 1994 album 76:14 
3. "The Eleventh Hour" from Chromatics' dreamy 2012 album Kill for Love - incidentally the Chromatics appeared in the last Twin Peaks episode I watched
4. "Andro" from Oneohtrix Point Never's critically acclaimed 2011 album Replica
5. "Of These, Hope (reprise)" from Peter Gabriel's Passion 1989 soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ - I used many songs from this album for my surreal mix tapes I made when I was in high school
6. "Meditation No. 2" from Laraaji's 1980 album Ambient 3: Day of Radiance - This song evokes feelings of entering an exotic temple. I say this as a white male very aware of my orientalist sentiment formed during my youth. 
7.  "Search for Delicious" from Panda Bear's 2007 album Person Pitch
8. "Grown in Shells" from Gary War's 2009 album New Raytheonport
9. "Paul Meets Chani" from Toto's 1984 soundtrack to Dune, a David Lynch film - This is another soundtrack I played heavily to induce fever dreams
10. "Make My Sleep His Song" from Broadcast & The Focus Group's 2009 album Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age, which I believe is a perfect album to play during Halloween. 
11. "Poa Alpina" from Biosphere's 1997 album Substrata -  The accompanying video seems very Lynchian to me.
12. "Nearly Awakened..." from Harold Budd & Zeitgeist's 1994 album She Is a Phantom - This track and the track #10 have titles obviously referring to the playlist theme.
13. "Etude No. 2" by Philip Glass. I'm not sure when this song was first published as I got this song from a sampler album.
14. "Flycatcher" from Kiln's 2007 album Dusker.
15. "A Year and a Day" from Belbury Poly's 2009 album From an Ancient Star. Very British.
16. "Progress (live)" from Orchestral Maneouvers in the Dark's 1980 album Organisation. Also quite British.
17. "Moon Fever" from Air's 2012 album La Voyage Dans la Lune and part of an updated soundtrack to the famous "Trip to the Moon" film. Very French.
18. "Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel" from Atlas Sound's 2008 album of the same name.
19. "Two Against Three" from Brian Eno & David Byrne's critically acclaimed 1981 album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. The playlist bookends with another of Brian Eno's collaborative work.