Playlists

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

Children

• Back to School. Music about education.
• Go! Songs about traveling. Suitable for children & the adults in their lives.
• Home, vol. 1. Recreation of a mix for children, limited by what Spotify has.
• Home, vol. 2. Another recreated mix, within Spotify’s limitations.
• 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

• 1980s: over 200 covers of songs from the 1980s
• Beatles covers. Over 300 cover versions of songs by the Beatles.
• Bowie covers. Over 70 cover versions of songs by David Bowie.
• Clash covers. Over 30 cover versions of songs by the Clash.
• Dylan covers. Over 100 cover versions of songs by Bob Dylan. (And, yes, I know there are many more…)
• Hendrix covers. Over 50 cover versions of songs by Jimi Hendrix.
• The National covers. Over 30 cover versions of songs by the National.
• R.E.M. covers. Over 50 cover versions of songs by R.E.M.
• Rolling Stones covers. Over 50 cover versions of songs by the Stones.
• Paul Simon covers. Over 65 cover versions of songs by Paul Simon.
• Bruce Springsteen covers. Over 60 cover versions of songs by Springsteen.
• Talking Heads covers. Over 30 cover versions of songs by Talking Heads.
• TMBG covers. Over 30 covers of songs by They Might Be Giants.
• “Weird Al” Yankovic Polka Mega-Mix. All 14 of Yankovic’s polka medleys, from “Polkas on 45” (1984) to “Polkamania!” (2024).
• uptempo downtempo. Downtempo covers of uptempo songs.
• Xerox. Great pop is not original. It just sounds original. This is a playlist of songs that influence other songs, side-by-side with the songs they influenced.

Exercise

• Exercise!!! 46-hour playlist. Many genres, no repeats. Also available in ten separate playlists (each of 4.5 to 5 hours in length): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10.  I also created a YouTube Exercise Music playlist version: over 500 songs, all of which have a video, ranging from live performance to something more conceptual. (No static images.)
• Exercise! 12” from the 1980s and 1990s. 3 hours of dance mixes, mostly from the ’80s. AC/DC, a-ha, Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock, David Bowie, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Echo & The Bunnymen, Eurythmics, Hall & Oates, INXS, Janet Jackson, New Order, Prince, Public Enemy, Simple Minds, Tears for Fears, & more!
• Exercise: Meditative Instrumental. 4 hours. Good for yoga or indoor cycling.

Fight Songs

• Feminist Fight Songs: Oh Bondage, Up Yours! Compiled in response to the US Supreme Court’s fascist majority revoking women’s bodily autonomy.
• Harris-Walz 2024!
• It’s a good day to fight fascism… and white supremacy, the patriarchy, etc. A joyous playlist for the resistance, created in November 2024.
• Radical Songs. “Radical” is fairly broadly defined here. Over 300 songs presented roughly in chronological order. When I couldn’t find a version of the song from its original time period, I substituted a later recording.
• RESIST 2017: Sand in the Gears
• RESIST 2018: Uprising
• RESIST 2019: Rise Up
• RESIST 2020: This Mix Kills Fascists.
• The World is Falling Down. This is partly “fighting music” and partly an acknowledgment of the dire state of the world — more of the latter than the former.

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).
• Laurie Anderson: Favorites. An introduction to the genius of Laurie Anderson.
• Atomic Cocktails. Some favorite uptempo lounge, exotica, and space-age bachelor pad music.
• The B-52s: Greatest Hits. Caffeinated confections from outer space (by way of Athens, GA). A brief — and chronological — introduction to the music of the B-52’s.
• Carsie Blanton’s Greatest Hits. An Introduction to Carsie Blanton, a superb singer-songwriter you should know.
• Billy Bragg: Best of the Bard of Barking. From Life’s a Riot with Spy vs. Spy to his latest (as of this writing), Ten Million Things That Never Happened.
• Boswell Sisters: Best Of. Martha, Connie, and Vet! Before the Andrews Sisters, there were the Boswell Sisters. Enjoy the melodies and their close-harmony singing.
• 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.
• Leonard Cohen: Popular Favorites. 20 songs. A brief (& necessarily selective) introduction to the genius of Leonard Cohen, presented almost entirely in chronological order.
• 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.
• The Cure: Greatest Hits 1979-2008. The best of Robert Smith & co. from the band’s heyday (1979-1992), plus four songs from later years. Presented in chronological order.
• Depeche Mode: 30 Singles. The band’s greatest hits, via selected singles covering the band’s career, 1981-2023.
• 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.
• Fountains of Wayne: favorites 1996-2011. Led by the late songwriting genius Adam Schlesinger, the band is best known for its hit “Stacy’s Mom,” but has a much richer catalogue. Here’s a 90-minute introduction.
• 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.
• Gang of Youths’ Greatest. Great original songs by Gang of Youths plus 3 covers: Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Wilco.
• J. Geils Band: Greatest Hits. Popular songs from one of the greatest bands ever to come out of Boston. If you don’t know their decade of work prior to the massive success of Freeze-Frame, this will give you a good introduction!
• Daryl Hall & John Oates: 25 Greatest Hits. Spanning the full length of the duo’s popular period, from 1973 to 1990.
• 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.”
• Hamish Hawk: An Introduction. A selection of songs by the Scots singer-songwriter.
• 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.
• Robyn Hitchcock: Greatest Hits. An introduction to the unique genius of Robyn Hitchcock.
• Billie Holiday: 52 Essential Songs. A greatest hits for Billie Holiday, covering 1935 (the recordings with Teddy Wilson) to 1956 (Lady Sings the Blues).
• Curtis Mayfield / The Impressions: Greatest Hits and Other Favorites. Presented in chronological order, all the popular songs plus more.
• Michael McDonald: The Voice. 15 popular tracks sung (including as backing vocalist) by Michael McDonald.
• Metric: Selections. My favorite songs & an introduction to the band.
• Morphine: Best of. The greatest songs from the trio fronted by the late Mark Sandman.
• Ennio Morricone: Favorites. Ennio Morricone’s greatest hits — or, at least, this is my subjective rendering of that idea.
• The National: Greatest Hits and The National: 10 Songs (a quick intro). A longer and a shorter 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.
• The Genius of Caroline Polachek. Based on the Switched on Pop episode “This Generation’s Caroline Polachek.”
• Cole Porter: An Introduction. In which I presume to introduce the prolific genius via 20 of his songs.
• John Prine: Greatest Hits. From “Illegal Smile” (1971) to “I Remember Everything” (2020).
• Ramones: Singles & Other Favorites 1976-1995. All Ramones’ singles (A-sides), non-singles on the collection Ramones Mania (1988), plus a few others. Presented in chronological order.
• 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.
• Gil Scott-Heron: Greatest Hits on Spotify. A “best of,” drawing on what’s available on Spotify… which has many gaps in Scott-Heron’s catalogue.
• Paul Simon’s Greatest Hits. From Simon & Garfunkel (“The Sound of Silence”) up to his final new album with singles, Stranger to Stranger (featuring “Wristband”).
• Sloan: The Singles. The best of the Canadian power-pop quartet, 1992-2022 (as of this writing).
• 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.
• Talking Heads: The Singles. All 31 singles in order, from “Love → Building on Fire” (1977) to “Lifetime Piling Up” (1992).
• The Temptations: Hits 1963-1975. 36 songs, from the group’s “classic 5” era, through the psychedelic era, up to the funk/disco era.
• TMBG: Filibuster Vigilantly [Sampler]. A succinct (well, 90-minute) introduction to the genius of They Might Be Giants – presented thematically.
• Trip-Hop Classics. An admittedly imperfect expression of this idea.
• 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.
• Stevie Wonder’s Greatest Hits. 35 songs, in chronological order — from “Fingertips Pt. 2” (1963) to “That’s What Friends Are For” (1985, with Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Gladys Knight).

Greatest Hits by Year

• 12” Mixes: 1980s & 1990s
• Forgotten 1980s. Songs you remember but the algorithm forgets.
• MTV: 1980s videos. Songs from the earliest days (1981-1983) of MTV.
• Pop Music: 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. After around 1989, the playlists become increasingly less comprehensive and more idiosyncratic.
• 2013: Odds Are. Best of 2013, according to me.
• 2014: Mental Radio. Best of 2014, according to me.
• 2015: Just You Wait! Best of 2015, according to me.
• 2016: Take Us Back. Best of 2016, according to me.
• 2017: Everything Now. Best of 2017, according to me.
• 2018: Now or Never Now. Best of 2018, according to me.
• 2019: The Future Is Here. Best of 2019, according to me.
• 2020: Can’t Tell the Darkness from the Flame. Best of 2020, according to me.
• 2021: We Cannot Resist. Best of 2021, according to me.
• 2022: All Comes Crashing. Best of 2022, according to me.
• 2023: The Balance. Best of 2023, according to me. Also, 2023: Top 10 (Very Best), which is actually 11 songs.
• 2024: Keeping You Back from the Edge. Best of 2024, according to me.

Happy

• 100 Love Songs for Graeme + Carrie. Compiled for my nephew and his fiancée in 2024. One song per artist. I had fun making this.
• Affirmation, Mostly: Songs to Start the Day. Or my day, at any rate.
• Friendship Mix Tape. Over 45 songs of friendship and support.
• Mom’s Favorites: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. Songs that my mother used to sing along to.
• Popular Favorites: Uptempo. An upbeat & mostly cheery playlist, featuring many genres of music. One song per artist.
• You Can Do It!: An Encouraging Mix

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 98% vocal-less.
• Beethoven: The Late Piano Sonatas performed by Richard Goode, Claudio Arrau, Wilhelm Kempff, Alfred Brendel, Igor Levit, and Emil Gilels.
• Beethoven: Popular Piano Sonatas. As performed by Richard Goode, the Pathetique, Moonlight, Pastoral, Waldstein, Appassionata, Les Adieux, Hammerklavier, and no. 32 (his final one).
• 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.
• Morricone! Mostly instrumental favorites from Ennio Morricone soundtracks, plus a few covers at the end.
• Haruka Nakamura: Still Life I & II +. Still Life I and Still Life II, plus other 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.
• Django Reinhardt: quieter songs.
• Sax Solo. Unaccompanied sax solos. Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy, Lee Konitz, Hamiet Bluett & others.
• Take Four: Afternoon Coffee Break Instrumentals. All uptempo instrumentals, many genres (jazz, ’80s synth pop, surf/rockabilly, soul, funk, electronica). Some familiar tunes. Some not.
• Fats Waller: Instrumental Favorites. Thomas “Fats” Waller (1904-1943) on piano — and sometimes on organ.

Location, Location

• Berlin. Compiled with assistance from Ada Bieber.
• Boston
• L.A.
• New York, New York
• Seattle
• Songs of the 50 States. One song for each of the fifty US states, preceded by Allan Sherman’s “Holiday for States.”

Mix Tapes (Recreations of actual mix tapes!)

• A Mostly Mellow Mix. Recreation of a cassette mix from 1987.
• songs to listen to on the road to & from GRADUATION PARTIES Vol. I. Recreation of a cassette mix from 1988. There was a Vol. II and III. I gave those away to friends back in 1988.
• Phil Nel’s Eclectic Mix… 1989. Recreation of a cassette mix from 1989.
• Shiny, happy, apropos of nothing. Recreation of a cassette mix from 1995.

On the Shortness of Life

• Funerals / Celebrations of Life
  • Gloria: Celebration of Life. Music played in the background during the September 2023 meeting of the Gloria Hardman Fan Club.
  • Terry’s Mood: Music for the Funeral of Terrence Dudley Webb. Music played at my Uncle Terry’s funeral.
• Mortality
  • 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.
  • Grief; or, You in Everything. Assembled a few days after my mother’s passing.
  • 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.
  • Paul Simon Sings Songs About Aging and Death. The themed Paul Simon compilation you have been waiting for! (Or possibly not.)

Seasons & Weather

• Autumn, Leaves: Fall Playlist. Songs for September, October, November.
• Halloween Mega-Mix. Over 160 songs with a Halloween theme.
• Rain. Over 90 songs about rain.
• Summertime. Over 160 songs about summer.

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

• It’s Only a Paper Moon (E.Y. Harburg, Billy Rose, and Harold Arlen)
• Jitterbug Waltz (Fats Waller)
• Look for the Silver Lining (Jerome Kern and Buddy DeSylva)
• My Funny Valentine (Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart)
• Night and Day (Cole Porter)
• Pennies from Heaven (Johnny Burke and Arthur Johnston)
• Run on for a Long Time / God’s Gonna Cut You Down (traditional)
• Sing (Joe Raposo)
• Smile (Charlie Chaplin, John Turner, and Geoffrey Parsons)
• Spiegel im Spiegel (Arvo Pärt)
• St. James Infirmary Blues (composer unknown)
• Under Pressure (David Bowie and Queen)
• You Go to My Head (J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie)
• 4’33” (John Cage)

Sleep

• abstract quiet
• Almost Blue. A quiet and sometimes melancholic playlist. 75 songs.
• Classical: Sleep. Brahms, Beethoven, Chopin, Satie, John Cage, Philip Glass, Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson, others.
• R.E.M. at night: quieter songs
• Sleepiest Mix. Songs that induce slumber.
• Sounds of the Sea: 6 hours.

Soundtracks

• Lynda Barry’s One! Hundred! Demons! soundtrack. All of the songs in Lynda Barry’s One! Hundred! Demons!
• Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: A Mix. Recreation of a CD mix I made to celebrate the publication of the double-biography, Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature (2012).
• Helvetica: Soundtrack. The soundtrack to the documentary film by Gary Hustwit. Featuring El Ten Eleven, Motohiro Nakashima, and others.
• Italian Cinema, 1965-c.1976. Umiliani! Morricone! Piccioni! Film music by Italian composers, 1965-c. 1976. Inspired by — and much of its playlist drawn from — a mixtape created by Bill DeMain in the late 1990s.
• Robert Irwin: A Desert of Pure Feeling. Soundrrack to the 2022 film directed by Jennifer Lane.
• Soul: All Music by Jon Batiste. All of Jon Batiste’s music from the film Soul.
• Stop Making Sense (original version, 1984). The soundtrack to the Jonathan Demme concert film of Talking Heads has since been released in expanded versions. This is the original 1984 version, with only songs on that release (and in the same order as that release). So, if you want to hear the soundtrack as originally released, this is it!
• Tove: Soundtrack. Original soundtrack and other music played in Zaida Bergroth’s Tove (2020, starring Alma Pöysti as Tove Jansson).
• Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming: All the songs. All the songs in Jacqueline Woodson’s memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming. Presented in the order they appear in the book.

Themes!

• Airplanes! Songs about modern air travel.
• Art. Songs about art and artists.
• Band Theme Songs: Hey, hey, we’re the…. Theme songs for bands. All name the band in the lyrics, and are about the band.
• Cats: Everybody Wants to Be a Cat. Songs about cats – not cats as metaphor, but actual cats.
• Coffee Break! Over 60 songs about coffee.
• Corporate Melancholy: Everything Must Go. Version of a mix created for Andrew Burke’s “Abandoned Targets of Canada” Tumblr, documenting the 133 Target stores that opened — and then, within 2 years — all closed. (“Version” because Dragonette’s cover of “Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” isn’t on Spotify; so, that’s been cut.)
• Days. Over 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!
• Elvis Is Everywhere. Over 40 songs about Elvis Presley, including: Dire Straits, Living Colour, Colorblind James Experience, Proclaimers, Waterboys, Wynonna, Patty Loveless, Kirsty MacColl, Kacey Musgraves, Alannah Myles, Emmylou Harris, Jarvis Cocker, Steve Goodman, Roy Orbison, Paul Simon, Greg Brown, John Hiatt, Scouting for Girls, Belle and Sebastian, Was (Not Was) with Leonard Cohen, and others!
• Fast lyrics. Gift of Gab, Jaz-O, R.E.M., Daveed Diggs, Ana Gasteyer, Robert Preston, Lambert, Hendrix, & Ross — and others who can sing quickly!
• 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.
• In These Shoes? “I said: ‘In these shoes? I doubt you’d survive.’ I said: ‘Honey, let’s do it.'” This is not a mix about footwear.
• JFK, 22 Nov. 1963. Songs that reference (directly or more obliquely) the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963).
• Let There Be Drums. Songs with prominent drums.
• Money. Songs about work, money and the lack of it.
• The Moon: Songs About the Moon. Includes some songs on the “Night” mix (below) and many not.
• 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 12+ hour playlist’s nostalgia is reflective & slightly ambivalent. Graham Parker, Paul Simon, Steely Dan, Stevie Wonder, Aimee Mann, Joni Mitchell, Death Cab for Cutie, David Bowie, Weakerthans, Persuasions, Bleachers, Connells, Eels, Regina Spektor, Bruce Springsteen, Bill Withers, B-52s, Kinks, Clash, Cure, Beatles, R.E.M., Al Green, Peggy Lee, many others.
• Numbers. Songs featuring numbers. Over 250 of them! Ah, but who’s counting? Oh, that’s right: I am!
• Pressure. Songs about feeling under pressure.
• Purple. Songs that feature the color purple.
• Radio, Radio. Over 80 songs about the radio. Beyonce, Kinks, Smiths, Stray Cats, Bruce Springsteen, Ramones, R.E.M., OK Go, Sylvan Esso, Elvis Costello, Tom Petty, Steely Dan, David Bowie, John Hiatt, Aretha Franklin, Regina Spektor, Roxy Music, Weezer, Replacements, Roots, more.
• Songs About US Presidents. Songs about US Presidents from George Washington up to Trümp & his co-president Putin.
• Title of the Mix. Over 40 songs about songs – a meta playlist.
• uptempo melancholic pop
• Weekend! “It’s Friday again. It’s Saturday, Sunday. What?” A playlist made for my sister, niece, brother-in-law & all who like to head out of town for the weekend.

Xmas

• 1980s Christmas
• Blue Christmas. Melancholic holiday music.
• Cool Yule. Christmas Music: swing, big band jazz, and lounge.
• Thank God It Isn’t Christmas Every Day. Off-beat holiday selections named for a Mitch Benn song not on Spotify.
• A Very Jazzy Christmas. Christmas: No vocals. Real jazz.  (No Kenny G. or other ersatz jazz.)  Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Rashaan Roland Kirk, Terrence Blanchard, Bill Evans, Chet Baker, Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Earl Hines, Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Haden, Hank Jones, Dexter Gordon, Stanley Jordan, MJQ, & more. By far, my most popular Xmas playlist.
• Yule Get Through the Holidays: Xmas Megamix. Over 10 hours of Christmas / Holiday music of many varieties.
• Xmas Mash-ups (on YouTube… because these aren’t on Spotify).