Vibes 2021 Playlist - Song Selections 2

And we’re back for more discussions about how I chose songs for the Vibes playlist. For the general rules of the playlist check out my rules post here. We will look at five artists and the two songs from each of them that I chose. This week we’ll be looking at two of my all time favorite musicians and then three newcomers to the list. Let’s get into it.

1) Porter Robinson - Returning Artist

In case you hadn’t heard, the legend himself, North Carolina native, Porter Robinson released his first album in 7 years, the follow-up to his LEGENDARY album Worlds, with the release of Nurture in April. And it was certainly worth the wait. Nurture is phenomenal and you could make a case for any of the songs to be on the Vibes playlist. A few of the tracks were released last year in the run up to the album being dropped, and two of them did make last year’s Vibes playlist: Something Comforting and Mirror. Since they were on last year’s playlist, I decided to take them out of the running for this year, just to change it up. I legitimately looked at every song on the album because I could make a strong argument for any of them. I have a rule, where for the Vibes Playlist, I don’t just pick my favorite tracks from the artist, I try to actually go with the “vibiest” sounding songs from them so I didn’t pick my favorite two tracks from Nurture which would be Unfold or Mother because those two songs are my favorite. I could make a case for both of them, especially Mother because it is a slower tempo than most of the tracks, but they aren’t the best choices. I also looked at Lifelike and Trying to Feel Alive because they are both very pleasant and happy sounding, and the message of Trying to Feel Alive is really great. But honestly, it’s not the only song; every track is some of the most lyrically rich music you will ever hear. Sweet Time and Blossom are beautiful love ballads but they are a little too simplistic to grab my attention for the playlist. A few more that were tossed out: Wind Tempos which is admittedly EXTREMELY beautiful, because it takes a bit too long to get going, dullscythe for being a little to weird (even though I love the beginning that doesn’t have a solid tempo or rhythm, and do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do for not having lyrics that have the same punch of some of the other songs. That leaves us with a few options, which are Look at the Sky, Get Your Wish, and Musician. I ended up going with Look at the Sky and Musician because I found the weight and message of the tracks along with the catchiness of the beats to be overwhelming positive. People need to hear these tracks, as Look at the Sky deals with continuing on and surviving despite all the doubts and hardships a person faces and Musician discusses pursuing your dreams and believing yourself even when others don’t. Both are extremely powerful messages and I had to put them in the playlist. This album is full of extremely beautiful and articulate emotions, please listen to it.

2) San Holo - Returning Artist

We have another sophomore album for San Holo who released his bb u ok? album in June. Much like Porter’s album, any song off of bb u ok? could have made the playlist so I had to listen 9 or 10 times to really sift through the options. Yes, that’s the kind of dedication I put into the playlist, listening to projects a lot of times. Let’s speed through my thoughts on each track from this project real quick. Almost all of the songs have the same general sound: some emotionally expressive/layered guitars, trap-styled percussion/low end, and lyrics that explore some sort of emotion or feeling. I’m a sucker for some “group-sang” lyrics and tracks like IT HURTS!, and you’ve changed, i’ve changed have them, but the songs are a little are a little too hype for the playlist. bb u ok? is the titular track from the album and sounds like some classic San Holo, specifically reminding me of BWU but it gets a little too energetic in the drops for me. black and white is a great track about how situations in general aren’t always a clear cut black or white and there’s a lot of ambiguity and greyness but there is always a “brighter side” that we can end up on. I love the message but the drops are a little too basic. The same can be said about i just wanna fucking cry where it’s a nice message about just letting those tears flow sometimes, but it’s a little too simple sounding for me. lonely in LA is a really powerful track about how San feels alone, not being able to discuss the real things that are haunting him, showing up in the lines “Sun is out every day; Let's not talk about the rain”, which dovetails perfectly into the great clown Pagliacci where San discusses he feels like unfilled despite being such a ray of light for everyone when he performs, where he feels like just a puppet to amuse other people and not like a real and appreciated person. San then shifts into another song about loneliness, this more of an existential loneliness about never feeling understood or accepted when with people in the track i get lonely around people, too. All three of these tracks are extremely relatable and makes me worry about San, but from a musical side, they are pretty simplistic (which is okay, they’re still great). Alright, this is getting long, let’s get to the actual selections. Ultimately, I came down to which songs impacted me the most and had a message that I thought would make it worthy for the playlist. The first selection is new one as I really like the message of making the most of every second that we are afforded in life. It has a very honest message that it’s okay to try new things, make mistakes, and keep moving forward and enjoying life. Bipolar Sunshine performs the lyrics on the track and his voice brings an earnestness that makes the track feel really authentic and encouraging. The other selected track is heal (↑%) because I really admire lyric-less songs that achieve their purpose and heal (↑%) is exactly that. The song starts out on sort of a somber but hopeful note and builds and builds towards a more complete sound. The thing that really sealed it for me is the key-change at about the minute and a half mark, where the new chords become much more full. It really conveys the idea of the song where you distinctly feel the mood shift from a hopeful note to an actual assured note that confirms, yes you have healed. Then around the 3 minute mark is the emotional crescendo with some powerful drumming and horns that then dies down into the quiet assuredness that fades off as you continue onward, knowing that you’ve healed. The song is beautiful and really powerful, especially as it’s just an instrumental. I’ll be honest, I got about halfway through the album and had my selections already and didn’t want to type explanations for every song, cause honestly, look at how long this section is already. Take what you can get.

3) Virtual Riot - New Addition

So I hadn’t really listened to Virtual Riot at all until I listened to his album Simulation this year at the behest of my girlfriend. And I was pretty blown away by the range of sounds VR packed into the album. Now as far as the playlist goes, there is really only one clear option that is super vibey: Get Away. The song starts with some classic ambient nature noises and harp then drops you into a weird sort of bouncy beat with So Loki rapping over the top of it. A total vibe. For the second track, I am definitely bending the rules. I selected the song CHROMA purely for the section from about 2:25-3:20 in the song. When you first listen to it, you’ll be like why this song, it’s pretty upbeat almost synth-pop that then drops into a glitchy dubstep drop. Then there is a second round of that, a very upbeat midsection and another drop. But then, ooooh baby we get to the good stuff. We settle into one of my favorite grooves of the year with a wobbly low end, distorted drums and guitars, and some light marimba. That little section of the song made me choose it, it is that good. The only other track I considered was Logout, but it’s hardly a song and more of an outro to the album. I’m just a sucker for some ambient nature noises, as I have stated before. The rest of Simulation is all too aggressive, somewhere in the dubstep/riddim/trap range, so definitely too hype for the Vibes playlist. And like I said, I’m still pushing it with CHROMA, but it’s my playlist, I do what I want. Still the album really impressed me at the skill and range that VR has.

4) SG Lewis - New Addition

SG Lewis is a new addition this year, and I looked at his album Times for considerations for the playlist. To be clear, I have listened to SG Lewis in the past, it’s just been a few years. The album is super great, it sounds like some classic disco music from top to bottom. Almost every track has some great basslines, some powerful piano chords and some catchy-ass lyrics. So once again, we had a case of an album where I could make an argument for every song. Going to speed through these quickly, Back to Earth, Impact, All We Have, and Fall are all on the slower side of things and don’t have that much development throughout the tracks that really stood out to me or pushed them over the top. They are all great songs, but none had that extra little pizzazz to me. Heartbreak On The Dancefloor is super catchy, but it straight up sounds like an old Giraffage song and I just could not get past it. I am definitely going to mix this song with a Giraffage song at some point, or not, we’ll see. One More and Time are both great tracks that really lean into the bassline and the catchy lyrics, but like the other tracks, they were missing that x-factor to me. So now we are into the actual picks. I reserved the right to do this in the original rules post, and I am doing it here: I am picking three songs for SG Lewis, with one of the three being an interlude that ties directly into the next track. That being said, two of the choices are Rosner’s Interlude into Chemicals. Rosner’s Interlude has a nice ethereal little beat to it with a monologue about disco music that leads perfectly into Chemicals. The end line of “Here we go” drops directly into the groove of Chemicals and my god is it perfect. I couldn’t put one track on here without the other. Then Chemicals has a lot of the elements I talked about already, a great bass groove, some powerful synth chords, catchy lyrics and an unmatched disco vibe. Like the Interlude sets up, it’s a song that just makes you want to dance, plain and simple. The final choice from SG Lewis is Feed The Fire, which has a CLASSIC disco sounding “pew pew pew” that really grabbed me along with, again, the great bass grooves, dreamy lyrics and punchy piano chords. In the back half of the song there are also some sweeping strings that reminds me of an ABBA track or something.

5) RÜFÜS DU SOL - New Addition

Just like SG Lewis, RÜFÜS DU SOL is an artist that I have listened to before, but just sort of forgot about for the vibes playlist last year. Luckily, I didn’t forget this year and looked at their album Surrender, which is one of my favorite albums of the year, for sure. Again, as is the trend on this post, the album has too many vibey songs to count, but I cut it down to two. This post is getting pretty damn lengthy, so I’m just going to cut to the chase with the two songs I selected from Surrender, but I can’t emphasize enough to go check out the entire album for yourself. Like I said in the section about the selections for San Holo, I really love some group chants in songs and Make It Happen uses it expertly. I love the yearning nature of the lyrics about wanting to know someone earlier in life to change their life for the better even sooner than reality. The group lyrics take on almost childlike/young sound to reflect that idea of earlier in life. The bass line has a great groove, you can really hear the passion in the lyrical performance, and I love the tinkling bells. Next up, I chose the titular track Surrender because it just crescendos with the repeating lines “Rain begins to fall; Dust fills the air; Life begins to form; Water healing” until it drops into this big and spacious drop with the punch of the lyrics saying “Shower me in love”. Then it does it all again with the repeating lyrics “Let the rain come down; Open up the sky; Let the rain come down; Shower me in love” into another powerful drop. It just builds the sense of being surrounded, almost overwhelmed and flooded with love, in a way that is immensely moving and comforting. On the placement of the album after the song Wildfire, it is perfect.

Ok, that does it for this post. I got a little too wordy on this one, so I’m going to try and cut the thought processes down on the next one. I don’t really want to devolve into explaining every song from an album, as I nearly did here. Oh well, we’ll see what happens next time. Again, I’m not a professional musician or critic, this is just my opinion. Let me know your thoughts on these artists and projects and if you thing I missed a track that is definitively more of a vibe than my selections. Thanks for reading, give me more suggestions and hit me up on twitter!

Much love.