“Ego to Bear” – Winter 2012/2013
1. Cloud Nothings – Stay Useless
2. Hot Chip – Motion Sickness
3. Ultraista – Bad Insect
4. LCD Soundsystem – Big Ideas
5. Tame Impala – Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
6. The Smiths – Hand in Glove
7. Talking Heads – Making Flippy Floppy
8. Tune-Yards – Riotriot
9. New Order – Age of Consent
10. Pantha du Prince and the Bell Laboratory – Photon
11. Toro y Moi – Harm in Change
12. The Whitest Boy Alive – Burning
13. The Mountain Goats – Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1
14. David Bowie – The Stars (Are Out Tonight)
15. Scott Walker – It’s Raining Today
16. Stevie Wonder – Ordinary Pain
17. My Bloody Valentine – Wonder 2
18. Local Natives – Colombia
Annotations:
-New record for variety: only 2 of the bands from last season’s mix made it on to this one as well. That means my tastes are branching out, right? Or, at least, going backwards. Which I guess is appropriate given this tracklist.
-This mix also probably sets a record for amount of track #1s in a single season. So it’s a little odd that none of them ended up being track #1 here. But “Stay Useless” is just such a perfect anthem for where my head has been at lately, about needing to find time away from everything, and not always to be productive, but sometimes to just let your mind wander because you need that to stay sane. I also think it forms a pretty perfect bookend against “Colombia,” which explores a different area of my headspace lately; it’s no coincidence that the first theme on here is “give me time!”, but the disc ends with the question “am I giving enough?”
-Honorable mentions: “Audience with the Pope” by Elbow; “Gun-Shy” by Grizzly Bear; a fuckton of other Smiths songs
The Daily Friction 