I obsessively compile and curate playlists. Here’s a generous sampling – all are on Spotify (thephilnel).

Children

  • Go! Songs about traveling. Suitable for children & the adults in their lives.
  • Nonsense. Whimsical songs with vocals. The “lyrics” are either entirely or mostly nonsense. Mostly because the Mills Brothers do sing, “Oh, that Tiger,” Lionel Hampton’s band practices spelling, Al Jarreau goes so far as to sing some intelligible sentences, & 2 others here sing in languages I don’t speak.

Covers

Exercise

Fight Songs

Greatest Hits

  • Mose Allison: Top 25. Mose Allison’s Greatest Hits! Well, in a way. An introduction — presented in chronological order — to the dry & tuneful observations of songwriting legend Mose Allison (1927-2016)
  • Atomic Cocktails. Some favorite uptempo lounge, exotica, and space-age bachelor pad music.
  • Carsie Blanton’s Greatest Hits. An Introduction to Carsie Blanton, a superb singer-songwriter you should know.
  • Bowie: Changes 1969-2016. A career retrospective of David Bowie’s work, focused on more popular songs, and presented in chronological order. (This playlist is not limited to the songs included on ChangesONEBowie or ChangesTWOBowie, etc.)
  • The Clash: The Singles. All of the singles released by the Clash, except of course for “This Is England” from the final album (Cut the Crap), which the band disowns.
  • Elvis Costello: The Singles. All 83 singles (of this writing) released from 1977 to the present, plus a baker’s dozen should-have-been-singles.
  • Cowboy Junkies: Greatest Hits. A “greatest hits” for the Cowboy Junkies, a band with (unjustly!) few hits outside of its native Canada.
  • Dessa: The Greatest. An introduction to Dessa, featuring (my) favorite songs – presented in chronological order. She has more critical acclaim than hit singles. But she deserves hits. In a perfect world, these would be her greatest hits. Also recommended: My Own Devices (her memoir), Deeply Human (her podcast).
  • early rock ‘n’ roll 1928-1954. The roots of rock ‘n’ roll, in chronological order. This is rock before Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the rest.
  • Aretha Franklin: 52 Greatest Hits. Starting in 1961, a chronological tour through her earliest singles, her Atlantic heyday (1967-1979), the Arista years (1980-2007), and ending in 2014.
  • Harmony: from ’30s pop to Doo-Wop, Vocalese, and Beyond. Though a few of these are a cappella, all depend on vocal harmonies. Presented in chronological order, this playlist offers a pre-history of doo-wop (close-harmony singing of the 1930s), lots of doo-wop, plus a little vocalese & more. “Asleep in the Deep” is actually “It Don’t Mean a Thing.”
  • Heavy Metal Thunder: The Roots of Hard Rock. Pre-Zeppelin hard rock, 1954-1968.
  • Hem: Meeting Place (Greatest Hits, 2001-2014). Hem is not a band with “hits” as such. But this is a collection of my favorite Hem songs — and a good introduction to the band for any who may not know their work!
  • John Hiatt: Circle Back, 1983-2018. A career retrospective of John Hiatt, featuring some favorite tracks — not necessarily singles.
  • Billie Holiday: 52 Essential Songs. A greatest hits for Billie Holiday, covering 1935 (the recordings with Teddy Wilson) to 1956 (Lady Sings the Blues).
  • Ennio Morricone: Favorites. Ennio Morricone’s greatest hits — or, at least, this is my subjective rendering of that idea.
  • The National: Greatest Hits. An introduction to one of our very best contemporary bands, The National — which is not a band with hit singles. Tracks presented in chronological order. You might also enjoy The National’s Influences: Where Is My Mind? and The National covers.
  • R.E.M.: Singles 1981-2011. All 61 singles — the A-sides released during the band’s 30-year recording career.
  • Cécile McLorin Salvant: An Introduction. One of the greatest contemporary singers. If you don’t know her, you should.
  • Regina Spektor’s greatest! Featuring singles, hits, collaborations, covers, and many other great songs.
  • Squeeze: Greatest, 1978-2022. The best songs by Squeeze, covering their career from early greatness (1978) to brief dissolution (the Difford & Tilbrook album, 1984) to reunion (1985) that lasts until longer break-up (1998-2012) and reformation (2012-present).
  • Staple Singers: Greatest Hits. A dozen songs by the Staple Singers, focusing solely on their hits (1967-1984). Let this serve as an introduction. Their full catalogue is deep and worth exploring. If you’d like to do that exploring, here is a longer playlist of The Staple Singers & Mavis Staples.
  • TMBG: Filibuster Vigilantly [Sampler]. A succinct (well, 90-minute) introduction to the genius of They Might Be Giants – presented thematically.
  • Fats Waller: 22 Favorites. An introduction to the delights of composer, pianist, organist, & performer Thomas “Fats” Waller (1904-1943). All tracks presented roughly in order of recording. Spotify lacks “Blue Eyes,” “The Bells of San Raquel,” & many other great tracks.

Greatest Hits by Year

Happy

Instrumental and Classical

  • 1980s instrumentals. 6 hours of instrumental tracks from the 1980s (&, yes, a few tracks from 1979). Very rarely, a vocal appears (Steven Tyler on “Walk This Way”), but 97% vocal-less.
  • Beethoven: The Late Piano Sonatas performed by Richard Goode, Claudio Arrau, Wilhelm Kempff, Alfred Brendel, Igor Levit, and Emil Gilels
  • Big Lazy. “Guitar Noir.” “Music to drive back to jail by.” “The bastard son of Link Wray and Jim Thompson.” These are but a few of the ways that Big Lazy’s fans have described the band’s music. This playlist includes all of their releases to date.
  • Cinemaphonic: Electro Soul & Soul Punch +. All tracks on Spotify from the compilations Cinemaphonic: Electro Soul & Cinemaphonic: Soul Punch, plus more late-1960s & 1970s film library music.
  • Concentrate: Instrumentals. Music for focusing on the task at hand.
  • GHIBLI meets JAZZ. Both GHIBLI albums from the Kazumi Tateishi Trio: GHIBLI meets JAZZ: Beautiful Songs & GHIBLI meets JAZZ: Memorable Songs. (Imagine, if you will, the Vince Guaraldi Trio performing selections from Miyazaki film soundtracks. That’s what this sounds like.)
  • Instrumentals! An expanding playlist of over 400 uptempo instrumentals.
  • Haruka Nakamura: Still Life I & II +. Solo piano pieces by Nakamura.
  • Overpowered by Funk: (Mostly) Instrumental Grooves, 1967-1975. Over five hours of instrumental funk. The Meters, Parliament, Funkadelic, Commodores, Isaac Hayes, James Brown, Kool & The Gang, Sly & The Family Stone, Earth, Wind & Fire, Kashmere Stage Band, many more. Guaranteed to improve your mood & get you moving.
  • Peace Pieces. Music to calm your mind & help you unwind.
  • Quiet Piano. Ambient and jazz piano. Sometimes solo piano. Sometimes as part of a duo or trio.
  • Sax Solo. Unaccompanied sax solos. Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, Lee Konitz, Hamiet Bluett & others.
  • Fats Waller: Instrumental Favorites. Thomas “Fats” Waller (1904-1943) on piano — and sometimes on organ.

Location, Location

Seasons & Weather

Single Songs. (Each playlist is devoted to many versions of the same song.)

Sleep

Soundtracks

Themes!

  • Cats: Everybody Wants to Be a Cat. Songs about cats – not cats as metaphor, but actual cats.
  • Coffee Break! Over 50 songs about coffee.
  • COVID-19: A Coronavirus Pandemic Playlist. 25 hours of music, many varieties, all thematically connected to the corona era. I began this playlist on March 13, 2020.
  • Days. Nearly 100 songs that reference days of the week.
  • Dogs: Everything Reminds Me of My Dog. 25 songs about dogs.
  • Eat It: Songs About Food. Over 150 songs of food (usually literally but sometimes figuratively): Nat King Cole, Ramones, Weird Al Yankovic, Mills Brothers, B-52’s, Fats Waller, Barenaked Ladies, Cab Calloway, Parry Gripp, Beatles, Ella Fitzgerald, They Might Be Giants, RUN-D.M.C., Cookie Monster, Weezer, many more!
  • Film: Songs About the Movies. Cinema-themed songs, featuring the Beatles, the B-52’s, Anita O’Day, Adam Schlesinger, Public Enemy, Paul Simon, the Kinks, the Muppets, Duran Duran, Dire Straits, Steely Dan, TMBG, John Prine, the Postal Service, Gil Scott-Heron, Laurie Anderson, and many others.
  • Guitar Rocktacular. Electric guitar that rocks. 1 song per artist (guitarists appear more often). Jimi Hendrix, Dick Dale, Angus Young, Chuck Berry, John Frusciante, Vicki Peterson, Kurt Cobain, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jack White, Prince, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Pete Townshend, Joe Perry, Wayne Kramer, Eddie Van Halen, Johnny “Guitar” Watson, many others.
  • Let There Be Drums. Songs with prominent drums.
  • Life’ll Kill Ya; or, This Mortal Playlist. These are songs about reckoning with the inevitability of death. The 1st half is usually more uptempo & funny; the 2nd is more sad & reflective.
  • Night. Songs of the night. Police, Paul Simon, David Bowie, Ray Charles, Frankie Valli, Katy Perry, Madeleine Peyroux, Gladys Knight, Sam Cooke, Bob Seger, James Brown, Art Blakey, Rolling Stones, Pretenders, Morphine, Frank Ocean, Postal Service, Roy Orbison, Patsy Cline, R.E.M., Hem, Echo & The Bunnymen, and many others.
  • Noir. Songs that evoke the feel of film noir, including but not limited to music actually from film noir.
  • Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used to Be. Borrowing its title from Sam Phillips’ “Taking Pictures,” this playlist’s nostalgia is reflective & slightly ambivalent. Graham Parker, Paul Simon, Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, Aimee Mann, Death Cab for Cutie, David Bowie, Weakerthans, Bruce Springsteen, Bill Withers, B-52s, Kinks, Clash, Beatles, R.E.M., many others.
  • Numbers. Nearly 200 songs featuring numbers.
  • Paul Simon Sings Songs About Aging and Death. The themed Paul Simon compilation you have been waiting for! (Or possibly not.)
  • Radio, Radio. Over 75 songs about the radio.
  • Title of the Mix. Songs about songs – a meta playlist.
  • uptempo melancholic pop

Xmas