Stuff I’ve been listening to over the last 6 months or so
Morning, gang. Took the kids to Legoland this weekend and my feet are absolutely bloody killing me. Question: is there anything better in this world after a solid two days of walking than getting your shoes off, feet up, pint in hand in front of the telly? Not a lot, as it happens.
This week I’ve put together a playlist made up of some of my most-playeds over the last 6 months or so. I commute to work on the train these days, so I’ve usually got an hour or so of quality music time before I get home in the evening. This is the playlist I’ve been putting on to completely zone out and start to unwind. Hope it does the same for you.
Reminder: we’d love your playlist submissions, I know you’ve got ’em in you. Hit the link here and show us what you got.
So, I went out to get some milk 9 years ago and, well, one thing led to another and anyway, we’re (sort of, unofficially, casually) back. But the milk has gone off, sorry.
Happy 2011 one and all! We’re back, feeling refreshed for the new year, and we hope you are too. We’re changing things up slightly for this year, moving our content pacing more towards a blog – we felt your playlists were going by too quickly and that editing the site was taking more time than just fricking loving the music thats out there. We want our content to seem less segmented and more relevent. To help us along with this, please welcome onboard Kev Atkinson, the loving creator of so many playlists and reviews in the past, as a new editor.
Now, for the new year, we’d like to introduce you to a great site that keeps you up-to-date with everything that’s been newly released on Spotify in the UK that week. I personally don’t think Spotify’s ‘What’s New Page’ is much help at all – http://www.spotimy.co.uk fixes this, listing everything added week-by-week. Spotimy also sorts reviews found online from many of the country’s blogs, magazines and newspapers and so is a great tool to enhance your Spotify experience. We like.
Their ‘Best of 2010’ playlist is fantastic and gets us off to a flyer!
James
[Note to Joe and co at Spotimy – used a bit of editorial licence here guys ;D, I know you submitted your November review playlist, but we wanted to feature your site and your Best of 2010 Playlist!]
Another busy week polished off. Dreadzone on Wednesday and New Pornographers on Thursday were both awesome. Dreadzone review should be up next week, look out for that. It’s been a good year for me, Dave and everyone involved with Spotisfaction, thanks for enjoy it with us.
Christmas is rapidly approaching and we are considering wrapping up the site for a while (see what I did there? Cracker of a pun.. OOP, GUILTY AS CHARGED) – we’ve got to go to our families, cook the turkeys, wrap the presents, so don’t be surprised it the site slows down for a while. We’re still alive though, and Spotify will still be here for us in the new year. Hopefully you’re all gearing up for Christmas and looking forward to a long overdue break. We are!
Moggy brings us todays awesome brass-instrument themed playlist. This really is a great playlist, enjoy.
Wednesday Wednesday Wednesday. We skipped a Monday because Mondays generally suck ass, and also because we’re real human beings with Christmas shopping and spare days holiday left.
But we’re back today and straight on it, and I present you with a, if I say so myself, a banger of a playlist. I’ve done a third installment of my Dubisfiction series, and this time I’ve gone for upbeat, high tempo dub, electro and a touch of breakbeat. Hopefully this will get your bloodpumping on this cold, chilly December morning.
‘Ow doos. Dave is busy getting ready to come to Londonium, so I’m taking over the site today. And, shamelessly, I’m putting up one of my own playlists, deal. This one is a list of the best music that, I feel, has come out of Scotland. Being half Scottish (you didn’t know that? I’m sure I mentioned it. No, I definitely mentioned it) I love the personality (some would say I have a bit of it) and the place has generated some really great music (Bagpipe Reggae aside). A couple of these bands I shall be seeing with Davey boy on Thursday, so keep an eye-out for a joint review. Between us we’ll no doubt be updating our Twitterfeeds with our escapades. James
Me Says:
I was late to the Frightened Rabbit party, but vocalist Scott Hutchison is a fantastic example of the humourous cynicism and straight-up ‘don’t mince your words’ vocabulary I love. The Twilight Sad take both bleakness and being in your face to even further extremes, and I have to say that their indie/folk/wall-of-noise sound has been owning my ear drums for the last couple of years. I even met the band after a show once, got them to open their own album with their teeth and then sign the front cover.
Mogwai don’t need any introduction, but for me they are, along with Godspeed You(!) Black Emperor(!) they are at the pinnacle of post-rock.
The overblown Biffy Clyro are brought right back down to earth with the frankness of the hilarious Arab Strap.
Closing the playlist, I know Beck isn’t Scottish, but he feels this Boards Of Canada (who are Scottish) remix of Broken Drum is the best remix he’s ever heard, and I’m inclined to agree with him.
Hope you’re cracking out the Whisky and shortbread after that. Enjoy.
Morning folks. I trust everyone had a lovely weekend? Last night was pretty fun for me – at least 4 streets in my neighbourhood were plunged into darkness for the majority of the night due to a power outage, which was a bit surreal. There’s always some light around, whether that’s streetlights or otherwise, so being able to see stars was a treat… even if I did stub my toe trying to find a torch, and never did manage to heat up my treacle tart…
Today’s playlist is by Rhys, and as themes go it’s a great one. My normal exercise regime involves doing as little as possible as often as possible, but if I were to go running every now and again this’d be the playlist I’d use!
Hope you enjoy, Dave
Rhys Says:
Good Evening one and all. I’ve crafted a playlist to listen to when you go running. Some of these tracks are on my own personal running mix but as that mix tends to be a couple of albums all muddled up it wouldn’t make the most interesting mix for Spotisfaction.
Hit the jump for a talk through of the workout and also some shameless plugging. (If you don’t see any shameless plugging then the editorial gods have come from on high and excised it.)
Good afternoon, folks. You may have noticed that our new logo has gone live today. We like it (obviously), but let us know what you think!
This last couple of weeks have been crazy busy, but it’s all been made worthwhile knowing that we’ve got a whole bunch of new ears for our musical evangelism. We’ve even had a number of playlist submissions from all over the Europe, including today’s by Dan Herlin. This is a fantastic mix, and it’s incredible to be given a glimpse of people’s lives through a playlist – more of this please, interwebs! Thank you Dan.
Before I hand over to him for his explanatory blurb, I just want to mention that if you have a playlist idea of your own we’d love to publish it. Please do check out our submission guide for info on how you can do that.
Have a lovely one, Dave
NB. One or two of the tracks don’t work in the UK. I’ve left them in the playlist for our European listeners, and also to help maintain the flow of the playlist if you happen to have a local version of those tracks.
Dan Says:
I believe in niched playlists, where there is a flow between each song and you remember it just like you remember an album. I composed this one during a train-ride between Stockholm and Copenhagen and its named after the Swedish governmental railroad company, Statens Järnvägar.
Evening all. Couple of quick ones for you this evening.
For those that are new to Spotisfaction since the relaunch, we run playlists on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with news, reviews and features interspersed throughout the week. Check back tomorrow for our next playlist, #101.
We’re currently looking for a few people to join our happy crew and contribute regular pieces of work. To rip off an earlier post of mine:
…If you”™re the kind of person that prioritises buying albums or going to gigs over buying food, then come write a few reviews for us.
…If most of your time is spent in a mammoth Spotify click-through blur, come be one of our playlist crafters.
…If you spend all day on the Internet trawling music sites, then compile that stuff and chuck us some news.
…If you spend more time looking through a camera viewfinder than your own eyeballs, be our lensman/woman.
…If you fancy yourself less grammar Nazi, more grammar Hitler, come help us edit our content.
…If you can view HTML and PHP like Neo views the Matrix, slip in as our resident grouchy coder.
If any of these absurd stereotypes are you, get in touch. If you would rather just submit a one-off playlist, review or article, that’s fine too.
Finally, we’ve started work on a “once every now and again” newsletter, so if you’d like to be kept up-to-date with periodic bulletins, then please do feel free to subscribe.
And you know what that means. Yes, after 99 Spotisfactions and numerous features over the last 6 months, I am leaving the Spotisfaction team.
Since it’s birth back in February, Spotisfaction has grown from two frustrated 20-somethings swapping playlists into, well, what you’re reading right now – A fully featured music blog with news, reviews and a handful of dedicated and enthusiastic contributors. I wish Dave and the rest of the team all the best in the coming months and look forward to seeing the further growth of our little baby.
Right, so without further delay, here is Thom Lavelle, posting a Spotisfaction playlist for the last time.
Thom.
[Dave’s Note: Goodbye Thom, it’s been a massive pleasure my young sir. Stay safe, and keep us updated with your goings on. PEACE and TRUCKING]
Hi guys. Thom and I had the world’s most important debate today. A debate that has the potential to split our nation right down the middle. A debate so fearce and volatile that we’ve both had to have a bit of a sit down and a cup of tea to recover… That’s right, folks, a debate about which Limp Bizkit cover on Spotify was the best one (not including Richard Cheese or Vitamin String Quartet)…
I think it’s Faith, by some dude called George Michael. He’s taken the song and made it his own. Respect.
Anyway, today’s playlist is by Mighty Mike Sheldrick. Friday 13th? Overrated.
Afternoon, all. Things are really kicking into overdrive with the website redesign. I feel like I’ve done nothing but code for the last couple of weeks, but there’s finally light at the end of the tunnel. We think that the new site will be a lot easier to use for you guys, and we can’t wait to unveil it finally! There’ll be an announcement closer to the time so keep your eyes peeled…
Last week I succumbed to the growing trend in our office which is the Graze box. If you’ve not seen these before, they’re a brown box filled with nuts, berries, olives and other such things. I’m not going to lie – it’s tasty and a lot healthier than my normal Tesco-fueled lunch binge, but I feel like a freaking squirrel. I’m campaigning for them to make bacon sandwich flavoured brazil nuts.
Anyway, today’s playlist is by Kev Atkinson and is an eclectic mix of old and new tracks, appropriately entitled “Spotisclectic”. I hope you enjoy.
Afternoon kids. So this week has been pretty exciting. We’re working on the website redesign, and the first few drafts we’ve been privy to have been awesome. I’m sure when it’s unveiled you’ll like it.
Afternoon folks. I”™ve spent a good portion of today listening to two local, home-grown acts – the mighty John Madden and Tom Mitchell, and our very own Ben”™s band Stressechoes. As such, I”™m feeling pretty awesome right now.
After Wednesday”™s call-to-arms, we”™ve added a few new people to our team and you can expect to see the first few posts from them shortly. There”™s still time to get involved with Spotisfaction, so if you”™re interested check out this post and give me a shout via email or Twitter.
Today”™s playlist is by Rhys, and is a lovely, meandering mix perfect for a Friday afternoon.
Morning ladies and gents. Quick one for you – as well as one-off pieces, we”™re still looking for people that can regularly contribute to Spotisfaction to come and join our ever-growing team.
If you”™re the kind of person that prioritises buying albums or going to gigs over buying food, then come write a few reviews for us.
If most of your time is spent in a mammoth Spotify click-through blur, come be one of our playlist crafters.
If you spend all day on the Internet trawling music sites, then compile that stuff and chuck us some news.
If you spend more time looking through a camera viewfinder than your own eyeballs, be our lensman/woman.
If you fancy yourself less grammar Nazi, more grammar Hitler, come help us edit our content.
If you can view HTML and PHP like Neo views the Matrix, slip in as our resident grouchy coder.
If you think you may be able to help us out (even if you don”™t think you”™re much of a writer), please get in touch and we”™ll see if we can work something out. Our aim at the moment is to build a team of music-lovers and really concentrate on creating as much worthwhile content as we can. Whatever your skills, come and help us.
Today”™s playlist is by me, and is a nostalgic trip through some of my favourite albums while I was at Uni. Yes, it”™s a bit emo, but I”™m ok with that – we all go through phases! I”™d like to think that my taste is a lot more eclectic these days ;)
