My favourite songs in 2018

Two thousand eighteenth was a hell of a ride and in its last day, when I’m writing this,  still is. This makes me happy and invigorated, makes me realize I definitely own my shit and there is nothing in this world, both inside my skull and outside of it, that would be of any threat whatsoever.

I have here on YouTube put together a small DF Best of 2018 playlist, comprised of the songs that I have encountered in 2018. which have left a lasting impact. They are not all 2018 releases but are sorted out by release date (YouTube release date, that is) and not by any particular preference order. Even though my eclectic taste in music does not startle anyone anymore I feel this year I gravitated more towards pensive works, not so much toward usual relationship dynamics topics but rather to existential works, following more in the path I’m threading last couple of years.

It is always funny to see them, the "songs leaving lasting impact", like this at the end of the year because these are the ones most listened to and I did not actually want/strive to highlight or present them specially while listening was taking place so I almost feel this data mining exercise is teaching me something rather than being just a final piece in image management puzzle we create for our friends and followers :D

Left Boy – Get It Right

I got introduced to works of Ferdinand Sarnitz by my 14yo daughter and this artist kicks ass. He does have an awesome 2018. release in the single "Bitte brich mein Herz nicht Baby..." but I chose to highlight Get It Right because it is a fantastic dance song and an earworm I frequently wake up to playing in my head.

Will Joseph Cook - Girls Like Me

Will Joseph Cook is an indie pop artist that I definitely want to hear more going forward. I love his songwriting, his humor and the millennial lore his pieces seem to be dripping with. I especially love the video for this song as it is a perfect, unassuming representation of what we have come to expect from our partners.

Glass Animals – Life Itself

Life itself, song from second Glass Animals album How To Be A Human Being is a song I just cannot get enough of even with them having quite a selection of awesome songs both on this album and the previous Zaba. Contagious rhythms, catchy hooks, nietzsche-sque quality to the piercing observation style. Just beautiful.

Bo Burnham – Can’t Handle This (Kanye Rant)

Listing Bo onto an actual music list may be somewhat misleading but this masterpiece from Make Happy definitely deserves to be included here as an sign of the time. Even though it is not a recent release it has not lost ANYTHING of its contemporary social commentary appeal and it has stayed a perfect centerpiece fitting to the spread we have in this year of burnout finally gaining its proper place in the spotlight.

The Gated Community – I Wanna Get Drunk Tonight

Maybe a strange sight on this list but a perfect match introduced by one even more perfect. The Gated Community song and their discography fit exquisitely into some crevices of my soul in need of a mariekondo-ing. I love this song especially as it perfectly sums up some of my sarariman pains I already wrote about some time ago.

Mashrou’ Leila – Tayf (Ghost)

I was introduced to Marshou’ Leila music by my new boss after their London performance earlier this year. Immediately after hearing them my heart was completely lost to their beautiful tunes and the beauty of the Arabic language, so soft and so visceral spoken and so enveloping and magical while sung. The more I learned about Hamed Sinno I grew more and more attached to their music and his work and existence.

Jonathan Young – Unravel Cover

Unravel is opening song to awarded anime Tokyo Ghoul, song written by Toru Kitajima and this cover is Jonathan’s rendition of the song – perfect in presentation and representation. As I have spent last 5 months learning Japanese I’m starting to understand and appreciate the beauty of this endeavor and it makes my heart sing even while making my soul break and cry with the weight of the emotion described.

Shawn Mendes ft. Khalid – Youth

I am already a big Shawn Mendes’s fan and am absolutely thrilled to see him grow and progress. Second favourite from this album is awesome Lost in Japan and the album is a perfect successor to everything we came to love and expect from Shawn and his songwriting.

Lewis Capaldi – Tough

Another songwriter with uncanny ability to tap into exactly how I feel  when my heart is broken. This is a song that sounds absolutely beautiful and also one whose lyrics I cannot listen to without crying my eyes out.

Half Alive – Still Feel

I love the chasm between clearly perky, dance rhythm and the solemnity and existential turmoil of the lyrics. Half Alive are a band with just several singles but all of those are impeccable, one better than the next.

Watsky – Welcome To The Family

For an artist already so many years active and yet so young new Watsky’s material is at the same time completely expected and beautifully surprising. I love the “human-ness” of his work, unpretentiousness of his lyrics and thoughts and still sharp cutting edge of his social commentary (see the song Whatever too, for a bit of insight).

21 pilots – Leave The City

Song closing Trench, my favorite album of this year, is a song also perfectly summarizing the existential tiredness of current moment and it is probably my new favorite Tyler Joseph poem, conveniently having its own sound track to follow it.

Not everything has been tiresome this year but it has been a year of me admitting that I’m done with some things…

And moving on.

Letter

I'm writting...

When the earth thawed I came to sit on the mound.

Thick grass carpet sprawled beneath me, soft and squishy and hugging the densly packed ground. It stood in the full sun, far away from the sea, just to the left of the middle of the gorge, beautifuly warm and inviting.

I sat on it and enjoyed the warmth with the soft sun streching across the plain and I listened to the trickle of water over the stones. Heart was fluttering in my chest like a trapped bird but I breathed deeply and drank from my sack and waited for my brain to stop burning the inside of my skull. Last time I was here I sang, with my voice amplifyed by the cliffs into a blinding crescendo of effort and sound,.. blinding crescendo to blind me to the work in front of me.

Somebody Else

People who read my posts about music
always ask things like:" But how dafuq do you remember such details about first hearing the song? Is this all just a dramatization, embellished reality that poses as truth?"

I'm sure sometimes it is, since brain is not a black box
and memories deteriorate and change as the time flows by -
(this can be fought against with some conscious action)
but today, due to browser histories and file properties, we only need a small amount of effort to track
our walk abouts.

Like crumbs Hansel was throwing when venturing into the forest the cookies we accept browsing show us our
way back.
We just need to acknowledge them.

So it happens that 46 days ago, on a Sunday evening, I was watching LivB on YouTube
arrange her weekly meal plan
and in the second part of the video
the music changed
and my mind just slipped out of the visual
and zoned in onto the auditive.

By the end of the video I have already found the song linked in the doobly-doo
traveled to SoundCloud, liked, reposted and downloaded.
In an hour I researched the original, watched official video, listened to the album and researched and
sampled the discography.
By midnight I have already listened to both versions more than a dozen times each
and have pestered a friend with my newly found mega-crush.

Why is this The 1975 song so awesome? Why is Chris Montoya remix so awesome?
Seriously, they feel like two totally different songs.
Original is slower, softer, sounds more expressively sung and fits better into The 1975's retro-sounding pop, and remix is faster, unburdened with emotional expressiveness and more shoegazy.
Love the additional sounds in the remix;
the dopplery loop at the beginning of the song, giving the feel of the revolving door (am I arriving or leaving?)
the chain drop during the duration of the song accentuating the difficulty of getting one's self out of the enthralling personal situation
the dance pull of the rhythm

But the lyrics, once again, completely hit the spot of what has become recurring motif of my interest - lingering in the moment of relationship dissolution (it is funny how I get drawn in by such songs even without listening to lyrics when I fall for them).

So I heard you found somebody else
And at first I thought it was a lie
I took all my things that make sounds
The rest I can do without

I love how absent-minded it sounds and in the same time very personal;
Hearing it through the grapevine.
Taking with you only the stuff you find essentialy yours.
Like a sulking child gathering their toys when not satisfiled with the exchange.

I'm looking through you while you're looking through your phone
And then leaving with somebody else
No, I don't want your body
But I'm picturing your body with somebody else

Come on baby
This ain't the last time that I'll see your face
Come on baby
You said you'd find someone to take my place

Oh I just don't believe that you have got it in you cause
We are just gonna keep "doin' it" and everytime
I start to believe in anything you're saying
I'm reminded that I should be getting over it

Anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of relationship with someone blessed with ambivalent attachment style needs no more explanation than this.

I both love the song
AND love that I feel I can understand the lyrics firsthand.
And most of all I love I can go to my memories and not to my present to understand them :D

Scandalysis

Part 4 of TBD

New year started on an interesting, yet familiar, note
with (two accounts thus far of) young* beautiful men approaching me IRL, rather than my mind feeding me those during my sleep.
This is not a precedent but is nevertheless strange and unexpected,
and was I vain this woud surely be wonderful fodder for my vanity
but in the circumstances as they are this is more of a burden.

Why is this a burden?

Actually, this looks like the best time to think about this out loud, since there's noone that could take offense as my time is my own and I'm in no fault with any allegiance or commitment.

Of course, I cannot be completely sure, but few traceable facts and educated guesses are that:
- I'm very often told I look quite younger than my age (by people of both genders and many ages)
- young people approach me because they are deceived by my looks (and probably drawn by my openness)
- they did not approach me before just because there was no opportunity since I was usually accompanied by friends (which acted like a barrier both due to socializing constraint and also because it was probably easier not to mis-assess my age in the reference group),
- and now that I usually go out alone the comparison is lacking so I appear as an potential mate

It is a burden because my wish for transparency dictates I should reveal the disproportion
(and there is one, even if it proves irrelevant AFTER informed consent is given)
but it nevertheless feels like going from conflict to conflict
(as it trims short their flirting opportunity by revealing waay too early potential resolutions of the interpersonal situation).

One more interesting bit:
not only young MEN approach me
but young women do not care of the age gap since it is not so strictly socioculturaly penalized in LGBT community like it is in hetero community.


I may be biased but it looks to me that liking someone means more in LGBT community, since it obeys no convention. And I'm not saying this because it would be more beneficial to me in this situation but rather because I think hetero convention could (and ultimately will have to) learn from this approach.

*and when I say young I mean 15 years my junior so at this time this would be 25 as I will be 40 in a month and a half. So I'm not old enough yet for 15 years junior to be truly irrelevant :D