The playlist, like the mixtape before it, is about sharing and discovery. Pretend, for a moment, this playlist is covered with hand-drawn artwork and a sticky label with the advantage that you don’t have to fast-forward or rewind the tape if you want to listen to a song on repeat.
Videos by American Songwriter
Here are seven songs that you need to download (or add) to your playlist.
1. “Cover Me Up – Demo” by Jason Isbell
Southeastern is Jason Isbell’s best solo album. This year marks the 10th anniversary of this fine record. If the lyric below doesn’t raise the hair on your arms you should immediately have your pulse checked. Don’t look past the live tracks on this anniversary edition. Mr. Isbell is one of the best live acts around and you’d do yourself a favor by witnessing him in his prime.
So girl leave your boots by the bed we ain’t leaving this room
Till someone needs medical help or the magnolias bloom
2. “Daysleeper – Remastered 2023” by R.E.M.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Up, R.E.M. is reissuing this strange and beautiful album in an expanded edition featuring live performances, HD video, and 5.1 surround sound. Up was the band carrying on without drummer Bill Berry. On “Daysleeper” Michael Stipe does what he does best: bending grammar to his will. Mr. Stipe has said the band will never reunite. Up is an exquisite piece of experimentalism from a band reinventing in front of an audience—loyal and loving—and may be the peak of their journey from Athens, Georgia.
I see today with a newsprint fray
My night is colored headache gray
Daysleeper
3. “Laugh Track” by The National (featuring Phoebe Bridgers)
The National recently released Laugh Track as a companion album to First Two Pages of Frankenstein. Phoebe Bridgers makes an appearance on the glass-half-full title track. Ms. Bridgers and Matt Berninger do sadness as well as anyone, even on a sunny-side-up song.
So turn on the laugh track
Everyone knows you’re a wreck
You’re never this quiet, your smile is cracking
You just haven’t found what you’re looking for yet
4. “My Love Mine All Mine” by Mitski
Mitski returns with The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, a cozy album where space is left open, then used as an instrument. Think of an open, dusty road in the West, where the desert land is flat and uninhabited. The nothingness is so expansive, it’s breathtaking and it’s the space where nothing becomes everything. Mitski sounds like classic Hollywood on a record that finds commonality between grounded and celestial.
Moon, a hole of light
Through the big top tent up high
Here before and after me
Shinin’ down on me
5. “Space and Time” by Tyler Childers
Tyler Childers thought about the idea of pitching songs to Elvis. This thought experiment led to the creation of his latest album Rustin’ in the Rain. As great as Elvis was, there is a difference listening to someone sing a lyric they wrote. Though Mr. Childers pulls from classic country and gospel with sincerity, this isn’t the sound of a man with a retro fetish. He writes and sings like his life depends on it. What is unfolding in real time is a man creating a body of work of great importance.
I never want to leave this world
Without sayin’ I love you
Without sayin’ what you mean to me
You know you make me happy
Oh, when we share this space and time
6. “Just Let It Go” by Pretenders
Pretenders’ new album is called Relentless. The album’s title is a perfect synonym for Chrissie Hynde. Ms. Hynde sees music as her life’s work and this isn’t a release for the nostalgic. Relentless is the sound of a band pushing forward while pushing retirement away.
How many years? A 20 or more
Dedicated was I
Indebted, indentured
Repairing the roof, washing the floor
I dreamt of the world
But I never ventured
7. “Don’t Even Worry” by Becca Mancari (featuring Brittany Howard)
Brittany Howard joins Nashville singer-songwriter Becca Mancari on “Don’t Even Worry,” a song of solidarity for marginalized communities living in the South. The strings swell triumphantly, then crash like a shock to the system—the sound of a new South being created in real time. Mancari’s voice is soft but assured as the song slips between sparse minimalism and dense textures.
Give, give me all you got
I can handle it
Give, give me all you got
I can handle it
Photo by Rick Diamond/WireImage for Georgia Department of Economic Development
