Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Drops From The Cloud: March 2014

April 1st. What are you fools up to? I'm excited to introduce a new segment here at Push Up Ya Lighter. Feed your ears with this two hour playlist of various Soundcloud gems that I discovered during March.

Every month, I listen to hours upon hours of music. It's absurd. It's my addiction and my therapy. It feels like work, but there's nothing else I'd rather do. Last year, I tried to abide by the policy of only listening to tracks that had a free download available. Unless a song was really hyped, or I knew we had a hit on our hands, I would pass as soon as I didn't see the download option. I'm also highly skilled at recognizing when the download will cost me a "like" and I didn't play that game (Hint: "FREE DOWNLOAD" is gonna cost you something).

The dawn of 2014 brought a few revelations for me, though. I looked at the past year and learned that I had grabbed over 7,000 songs from the Internet. That's in the neighborhood of 20 straight days of music. That doesn't seem unmanageable over the span of a year, but when you consider time spent replaying good songs, playing songs that weren't from 2013, and sleeping, it becomes obvious that I wasn't hearing every mp3. I therefore resolved to listen to everything I download this year which has caused me to be more selective. That's a good thing because I think more critically about music instead of passively hoarding it.

My other realization was that the ubiquity of Soundcloud has provided a perfect platform for exploring most everything I'd want to hear. Most every up-and-comer will have a Soundcloud account if they're trying to get noticed and adding songs to a playlist couldn't be easier. It made sense, then, that I could use monthly playlists as a way of collecting great tracks and sharing them with you.

PUYL March 2014:


I simply added the songs as I heard them, so there is no specific order. Also, a few tracks may be from earlier than March, but I found them just recently.

A few highlights:

  • Mykki Blanco and Princess Nokia kick things off in raucous style
  • Chromeo express their distress (this song will be massive this year, even if it is essentially a rehash of a lament that Cee Lo Green put more pointedly)
  • Kygo's remix of Seinabo Sey may be a few months old, but I just found out about it and it's fantastic and really serves as a centerpiece to this mix
  • New tracks from Frank Ocean, Little Dragon, and James Fauntleroy
  • That OLD Danny Brown
  • Remixes of Sky Ferreira, Daughter, and London Grammar
  • Covers of Aaliyah, Christina Aguilera, and The XX
  • JERSEY CLUB
Enjoy!

2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Actually, I had the last two songs from his new album on here, but they were pulled from his SC the next day.

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