Assignment 23 - Claire Thompson

A Midsummer Night's Dreampop:
Songs for a surrealist, Seaonsal Affective Disorder summertime

https://open.spotify.com/user/spooky-mulder/playlist/7d1SNG3iXZdeKGRQA37m06

(This playlist is actually 80+ songs long, because it's meant to furnish an entire summer's worth of songs that you can just put on whenever. But I'll just list some HIGHLIGHTS here, but I do think that you should listen to that playlist because I think it's pretty good in my honest opinion. It's my actual summertime playlist that I've been working on for almost a year now because I'm that kind of a gal. And this isn't your typical, run of the mill summer playlist! It's genuinely a playlist about summer malaise and the intense feeling of uselessness one gets from sitting around for two months in the largest capitalist country in the world--is that Southern gothic? It's all very much the heavy, humid loss of sanity of A Streetcar Named Desire set on the background of suburban isolation, with a few happy songs thrown in that represent the bliss you get from summer breeze or the knowledge that you don't have to go back to school for a hot second.)

- The Ballad of Keenan Milton - Devendra Banhart
I have a very distinct memory of sweltering heat and listening to this song as I drove past a row of pastel colored houses in southern Florida. The song is so peaceful but there's intentional noise pollution on the track that makes this song transfixing while at the same time reminding you that you're here and present.
- Genius of Love - Tom Tom Club
I just want to say that this song is the best song ever written and I don't want anyone to try and fight me on this because it is. And it's so iconic, and I listen to it most in the summertime but it's really for all year long (if you watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia you'll remember that this was their Thanksgiving dinner song in the s9 finale).
- Fireworks - Animal Collective
There's something  so thrilling about this song yet it seems so still, like the whole song happens in a moment, but you're watching it in slow motion. It's like the moment between when you see the firework and when you hear it. It is the moment of anticipation that reminds us that there is a momentary lapse between light and sound, and all of eternity seems to exist in that fraction of a second.
- Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
Crime rates go up during the summertime because no one likes being hot and everyone's angry and that's all I'm going to say about it. (Also if you don't think Genius of Love is the best song of all time, it's probably this song. Which is funny because Tom Tom Club consisted of two members from Talking Heads.)
- Heaven or Las Vegas - Cocteau Twins
This song is the song that started this playlist because it started as a dreampop playlist back in like June when I was on vacation (and Cocteau Twins is like the mother of dreampop). But the playlist has expanded beyond that so now like Heaven or Las Vegas is the mother of this playlist.
- Oslo in the Summertime - of Montreal
Never has there ever been a more emotionally hollow and heavy song about summertime malaise and I love it.
- Tenderly - Billie Holiday
If there's anything good about summer, it's the evening breeze
- Banshee Beat - Animal Collective
I don't have anything to say this song is so beautiful and mesmerizing and peaceful and it's perfect

I would also just like to add that the album Rainforest by Walter Wanderley is maybe the greatest bossa nova album of all time and would be a great addition to this playlist, but it isn't on Spotify. I also want to add Plantasia by Mort Garson, also not on Spotify. But both are on youtube!