HIGH FIVE FOR… End Of Year / End Of Decade Blog Task Confluences
When you have a blog that shares music, the approaching years end often comes with even more anxiety and dread than the usual ‘another year of life is gone’ variety that every aging adult starts feeling post-Halloween. And when the end of the year coincides with the end of the decade? Hello darkness, my old friend.
Luckily, because of so many past iterations of putting myself through the ringer of putting together year end posts, I eventually stumbled upon a format that worked better with how I actually enjoy experiencing/sharing music (ie. I like listening to stuff I like & passing that on to others who might appreciate the same, but I don’t really enjoy trying to analyze & communicate why I liked what I liked).
So, maybe around 2014, I came upon the idea of making really big end of year playlists based on the math that happens when multiplying 20 by whatever year it was. Which means, if the year was 2015, 20 X 15 = 300, so my 20X15 playlist would have to contain 300 nice tracks released that year. And just to make things a little challenging, it had to be one track per release/project.
Here is my annual ‘20X Current Year’ feature— which features 400 great tracks from 400 different releases, all from the year 2020. Because 20 x 20 = 400 and I am a crazy music blog person.
Since the year in question is 2012, and since 20X12 = 240, this yearly summary playlist consists of 240 nice tunes released in the year 2012. From 240 different artists. Reshuffled on the regular for repeat shuffles. You can’t argue with that math.
Since the year was 2018, and since 20X18 = 360, this massive end of year playlist consists of 360 ace tunes released in the year 2018 (from 360 different artists/projects). I realize that’s a lot of music to take in, but the math is the math and I’ve been doing this bit too long to stop now.
Since the year in question is 2013, and since 20X13 = 260, this yearly summary playlist consists of 260 nice tunes released in the year 2013. From 260 different artists. Reshuffled on the regular for repeat shuffles. You can’t argue with that math.
Since the year in question is 2015, and since 20X15 = 300, this yearly summary playlist consists of 300 nice tunes released in the year 2015. From 300 different artists. Reshuffled on the regular for repeat shuffles. You can’t argue with that math.
Since the year in question is 2010, and since 20X10 = 200, this yearly summary playlist consists of 200 nice tunes released in the year 2010. From 200 different artists. Reshuffled on the regular for repeat shuffles. You can’t argue with that math.
Now, the first few years of doing these big playlists was still a major pain in the end-of-year ass, but that was more because I wasn’t prepping throughout the rest of the months (also Spotify sucks at sorting by years & organization/functionality in general). So I would end up going blind scouring ‘End Of Year’ lists in search of hitting my increasingly getting higher 20X number before December ends.
But, no matter how many songs short I seemed to be when starting on the playlist, every year, without fail, even when it’d feel like there’d be no way to keep the quality of music good at such a high number, I always got to the point where I had to start making decisions on what tracks to cut.
And, yes, it is still possible for anyone to go through each of the ‘20x YEAR’ HI54 Mix CDs and go…
“how the f*ck does this playlist not include…”
… because how ever much good music you think gets released every year, it is more than that. Like way more.
Here is my annual ‘20X Current Year’ feature— which features 440 great tracks from 440 different releases, all from the year 2022. Because 20 x 22 = 440 and I am a crazy music blog person that has been doing this bit too long to stop now.
Here is my annual ‘20X Current Year’ feature— which features 420 great tracks from 420 different releases, all from the year 2021. Because 20 x 21 = 420 and I am a crazy music blog person.
So, with that in mind, what HI54 has to offer into the end of year hullabaloo is my 20X19 playlist — which features 380 great tracks, from 380 different releases, all from the year 2019. And, as ridiculous as a 380 track playlist sounds, I promise that the real ridiculous part is how good of a listen it is all the way thru.
Since the year in question is 2016, and since 20X16 = 320, this yearly summary playlist consists of 320 nice tunes released in the year 2016. From 320 different artists. Reshuffled on the regular for repeat shuffles. You can’t argue with that math.
“The truth is, putting together an end of year playlist based on the math that happens when you put an X between the 20 and the 17 is a really good (albeit, slightly daunting) way to do a deep dive on the year that was.”
Eventually, I got wise and started an ongoing tracker of every song that caught my ears throughout the year. So now when the ball is getting ready to drop on December 31st, I’ve already got my “short list” of personal faves waiting for me to start whittling down to however many tracks/artists the ‘20 multiplied by current year’ math works out.
And “short list” is in quotations above because my first full year of keeping track of liked songs has resulted in there being over 750 tracks from 750 artists in my ‘EVERYTHING LIKED IN: INSERT CURRENT YEAR’ playlist (as of December 5th, 2019 - so should be no problem hitting my ‘20X19 = 380’ quota of nice songs this year).
OK on EOY, But what about EOD?
I guess what I am getting at is that I feel more ready for this End-Of-Year than any other EOY yet. So of course the universe would throw a curveball by also this an End-Of-Decade too, but you know what? I also feel pretty prepared for that.
Not only am I only one ‘20X19’ playlist away from having the full decade set complete, but if the math I scribbled in my notebook last week is right, those 10 EOY playlists will contain 2900 nice songs from the last decade.
Which means I should have no problem finding 95 tracks to make a 2010s playlist for my “HIGH FIVE FOR… DECADES” series.
The 60s is such a great mix of my favourite stuff from the 50s and my favourite stuff from the 70s, and then you throw in all the uniquely sixties stuff that was going on and, even if you’re not old enough to have ever experienced any of the sixties yourself, you can still close your eyes and get the message. |-> OPEN ON SPOTIFY
Sometimes, the easiest way to go back in time is to just put a time capsule collection of musical vibes in the headphones, close your eyes and let the music drift you away. You might even say that this is the only way to travel back in time (tbh I don’t know much about time travel). So, with that in mind… let’s take the soundtrack back the 1950s! |-> OPEN ON SPOTIFY
I’m not sure if it’s because I grew up in the 90s, so a lot of 70s culture was referenced in the movies I came of age to (aka: Dazed & Confused, Boogie Nights, etc), or if it’s just because there’s so much great timeless music from the 70s that it’ll make anyone nostalgic for the vibes, even for those who don’t have the actual fuzzy memories — this playlist captures some of that. |-> OPEN ON SPOTIFY
Because I was born in the 80s, I feel a more nostalgic connection to the cartoons, movies and video games that come from that era than I do with some of the ‘polished in a uniquely 80s Capitalism/Consumerism way’ music, BUT, just like with any other decade, there’s a whole bunch of interesting gems worth discovering/revisiting — this eighties playlist being an example of that. |-> OPEN ON SPOTIFY
Just because we’re only a few years into the 20/20s, don’t think that doesn’t mean there hasn’t already been way too many nice songs from way too many nice artists to count — AND — we’ve currently got a nice mix of 95 of ‘em over on this MOUN.TOWN/FM mix cd playlist, with “shuffle updates” done on an imprecise timeline. |-> OPEN ON SPOTIFY
This playlist is partially made up of the music I spent countless hours listening intently to in the actual 90s and partially made up of a bunch of “discovered after the nineties” 90s music (ie. things I would have liked if we had the internet in the 90s instead of the local area FM radio stations & Columbia House mail orders for new music discovery). |-> OPEN ON SPOTIFY
I’ve got HI54 ‘decade playlists’ going all the way back to the 1950s, but this 2010s mix is the first one where I actually had some kind of a music blog going for every year in the decade. Which means there’s a whole lot of tracks to choose from whenever I update what’s currently in the 95 track shuffle. -> OPEN ON SPOTIFY
The 2000s is one of those weird transition decades, where we slowly moved out of our pre-internet media consumption, some of us more slowly than others, and then, all of sudden, we started moving exponentially less slowly & suddenly everyone can download/listen/stream ANYTHING online & carry it all around in our own dang pockets! — this playlist is from that era |-> OPEN ON SPOTIFY
Your boy is on the ball.
The only blind spot appears to be my end of year mix tapes, which I only appear to have done for 2018, 2016, 2015, and 2012. But even that blind spot actually aligns perfectly with me starting to make weekly mix tapes based on my Spotify playlists + the amount of weeks left in the year.
Episode 122 of The Mix Tape Radio Show features 8 gems shuffled out of the HI54 end-of-year playlist ‘20X19’ - ft. Palmer T. Lee, Big Thief, Indira Valey, Ryan Pollie + a bunch more 2019-flavoured headphone goodness.
Episode 121 of The Mix Tape Radio Show features 8 gems shuffled out of the HI54 Mix CD ‘HI54… THE 2010s’ - ft. Angelo De Augustine, The Magnetic Fields, Shad and Skratch Bastid, Mount Moriah + a bunch more Twenty-10s-flavoured headphone goodness.
Episode 118 of The Mix Tape Radio Show features 8 gems shuffled out of the HI54 end-of-year playlist ‘20X19’ - ft. Sharon Van Etten, Derek Senn, Hallelujah The Hills, Jordan Moser + a bunch more 2019-flavoured headphone goodness.
Episode 116 of The Mix Tape Radio Show features 8 gems shuffled out of the HI54 end-of-year playlist ‘20X17’ - ft. Angel Olsen, Big Thief, Gold Star, Leif Vollebekk + a bunch more 2017-flavoured headphone goodness.
Episode 115 of The Mix Tape Radio Show features 8 gems shuffled out of the HI54 end-of-year playlist ‘20X14’ - ft. D’angelo, Sean Rowe, Small Wonder, Hallelujah The Hills + a bunch more 2014-flavoured headphone goodness.
Episode 114 of The Mix Tape Radio Show features 8 gems shuffled out of the HI54 end-of-year playlist ‘20X13’ - ft. Radiator Hospital, Waxahatchee, Kevin Morby ,Yo La Tengo + a bunch more 2013-flavoured headphone goodness.
Episode 113 of The Mix Tape Radio Show features 8 gems shuffled out of the HI54 end-of-year playlist ‘20X11’ - ft. Feist, The Cave Singers, Tiny Ruins, Bill Callahan + a bunch more 2011-flavoured headphone goodness.
Episode 112 of The Mix Tape Radio Show features 8 gems shuffled out of the HI54 end-of-year playlist ‘20X10’ - ft. Warpaint, Titus Andronicus, Strand Of Oaks, Sharon Van Etten + a bunch more 2010-flavoured headphone goodness.
So, long story short, start expecting some ‘lost years’ episodes (aka 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014 & 2017) of the Mix Tape Radio show over these last handful of 2019 Mondays, slowly leading our way up to signing off this year AND decade with a 2019 Mix Tape & 20X19 playlist + a 2010s Mix Tape & a HI54… THE 2010s playlist.
That’s right…
