Andy Gapin

Great show this week, definitely a huge bounce back from last week‘s disaster. I felt completely on top of it all and it was a return to more of the randomness that normally makes up The Playlist. For the past month or so, I’ve been picking out my entire playlist ahead of time instead of merely grabbing about fifty CDs to work from and then just flying by the seat of my pants during the show. I finally returned to the unplanned style last night and, even though it’s a bit harder to do a show that way, it’s a ton more fun and comes with a greater connection to the listener.

My only low points of the show were the Erik Hassle and Twilight Hours songs that I played. I’d never heard either before and thought they would fit in well based on the reviews on the albums. I was wrong. Definitely not a fan of either, but that’s one of my favorite things about the way I do The Playlist. It’s not only an adventure for the listener, but it is for me as well. I play a lot of music that I haven’t listened to yet on the show. To sound overly cheesy, I feel like it makes every week a journey that the listener and I take together.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from those two are the albums by Dawn Landes, Thomas Function, and Spoon. Spoon’s Transference is an excellent follow up to Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. While not quite as good, it gets very close. And before next week, I want to spend some time with the Taylor Hollingsworth and Curtis Harvey albums as well. I liked the songs I played a lot so I’m anxious to give the rest of each album a listen.

On a final note, last night was actually the first time I’ve ever heard Vampire Weekend. It’s not like I haven’t heard of them seemingly incessantly for quite some time now, but I just never actually heard their music. I guess it had something to do with the people who were obsessing over them? I mean, nothing against them, but the people that always talked about Vampire Weekend seemed to be people that had different tastes than I do. So I always figured it was something I wouldn’t be into. I was kind of impressed though.

Alright, that’s all I have to blabber about this week so I’ll just give you the playlist, but remember, if you’re reading on Facebook, you’ll have to click the link to the original or it will just be a jumbled mess.

Source: 90.3 The Core