LR7
Featuring Broadcast, Helena Deland, and a Fleetwood Mac cover in an abridged version of my fall2023 playlist.
Welcome back to Melissa Recommends Music! Another month has gone by since my last newsletter, which is a little bit longer than I like to take between installments. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I’m feeling uninspired with my writing and with MRM these past few weeks, for no real reason at all. Call it a slump, but whatever it is, it’s been making the prospect of writing very daunting. My innocent laptop has been on the receiving end of side-eyes and wide berths, gathering dust on my desk while I neglected my newsletterly duties until now.
With so much time gone by since my last Latest Roundup, I had enough material to create both LR7 and LR8 at the same time. Some of those tracks had been set aside in my library for weeks, waiting to be written about, but when the time finally came I felt, well, uninspired; bogged down by expectations that I’d set in place weeks ago for what I wanted the playlist and the writing to look like.
I got through a couple song reviews before I realized I wasn’t having very much fun at all. Perhaps it’s obvious, but I think my writing is at its best when I’m enjoying myself. So not only was I not having fun, but I thought my writing was pretty bad too. I guess enough time had passed that I didn’t feel the same excitement about those tracks that I did when they were fresh in my library. Which speaks a little bit to my listening habits and why I consume so much music — I get bored with what I’m listening to easily.
When I thought about it, what had really been on rotation for me this month was the fall2023 playlist I’d started at the end of September. So, today’s newsletter is an abridged version of that. More importantly, it doesn’t include my usual track-by-track analysis; instead, I wrote a little bit on the playlist at large. I hope you enjoy today’s unique format, and the music of course, which is the real star of the show here.
Thanks for indulging my preamble, and without further ado, read on for a Fleetwood Mac cover, a Daniel Rossen/Grizzly Bear dupe, and a moment of clownery from yours truly.
Track Listing
“Tender Buttons” - Broadcast
“Saturday” - Yo La Tengo
“Dirt” - Horse Jumper of Love
“Dreams” - Mark & Suzann Farmer
“All The Time” - Acetone
“Say My Name” - PACKS
“Diver” - Vundabar
“Upside Down” - Teethe
“Night Soft As Silk” - Helena Deland
“Devotion” - Teen Suicide
Fair warning: today’s playlist is a bit of an angsty one. The transition to fall usually has me leaning into the kind of music that I fear would have me branded as emo (in the general sense, not the Sunny Day Real Estate sense). Hence the caption of my full fall2023 playlist: “am I emo or is it just a little bit chilly.” The change in temperature naturally prompts a change in attitude, and as the weather grows colder and the days shorter, I look for music that’s moody, introspective, and atmospheric. In general, that usually falls into one of two categories: slowcore/lo-fi indie/dark surf rock/pseudo pop-punk/sad shoegaze or dreampop/delicate singer-songwriter/sparse folk/atmospheric electronica. Of course, there’s overlap and outliers, but that’s my best attempt at breaking down my generic fall preferences. And yes, I did feel like a clown listing these hyper-specific genres.
If we were to look at today’s playlist as an example, we would have Acetone, Teethe, Vundabar, and Teen Suicide on one side; Broadcast, Yo La Tengo, Mark & Suzann Farmer, and Helena Deland on the other; and PACKS and Horse Jumper of Love somewhere in the middle. Feel free to fight me on this in the comments section!
I’ve been listening to three albums in particular since the weather turned: Demo Anthology by Horse Jumper of Love, Goodnight Summerland by Helena Deland, and Acetone’s self-titled debut. All three are featured in today’s playlist. As a big Helena Deland fan, I was counting down the days to Goodnight Summerland’s release just a couple weeks ago, and she did not disappoint. Her 2020 album, Someone New, is one of my holy grails and another great fall album.
The Broadcast and Yo La Tengo picks are from two albums that I’d known for years but never listened to in full; shoutout to my friend Jake for sending me Tender Buttons and prompting its long-overdue listen. “Dirt” is not the best song on Demo Anthology, but its resemblance to the Daniel Rossen/Grizzly Bear sound convinced me to put it on today’s playlist, and I also think it sounds really nice between "Saturday” and “Dreams.” If “All The Time” were a person I would fall head over heels for them, but “Devotion” is the true winner of the title of Melissa’s Number One Fall Song.
That’s all I have for today! Happy listening, and happy Halloween. <3
Thank you for reading today’s newsletter! As always, if you care to share your thoughts, reactions, suggestions, etc. I’d love to hear from you in the comments. If you have an idea for a playlist theme, I’d love to hear that too. The next newsletter will be out in a hopefully reasonable amount of time.
that creature at the political table is such a funny meme
my fall transition has been the same thank you good sir