Holiday Playlist
/There are two things that make any party, big or small: food and music. After that, almost nothing else really matters. Guests will be pissed if they're hungry cuz the food sucks. If the tunes are terrible, then that's also super irritating. Music is taste dependent, and you certainly aren't expected to know the varied styles and tastes your guests have. Therefore, put together a playlist that feels joyful, memory invoking (positive memories), upbeat, and fun. Choose songs that are relatable to many age groups so everyone has what to connect to. Grandma might not be the biggest Lil Uzi fan, and your ten year old nephew won't enjoy listening only to the Beatles greatest hits. The holidays are a time to come together, and nothing unites people more than music. While each guest may not love each song, they'll feel a consistent burst of good feelings spread across the room, bringing them together. I love to use an eclectic mix of classic artists, maybe with a couple current hits for good measure, just not the annoyingly overplayed ones. Holiday time is a time to feel taken back to those places and spaces in your life where you recall hugs, laughter, and high jinx. Good energy via music is essential for this. You know, like a soundtrack to your life😉. Make memories through music. Make music from memories. Sing with me, sing for the year. Love, the musical 🐝
PS : when you want your company to leave, just put on loud, crappy music and they'll run out the 🚪
Good Times by Sam Cooke
99 Red Balloons by Nena
My Last by Chris Brown featuring Big Sean
Good Life by Kanye West
How Will I Know by Whitney Houston
Kiss by Prince
I Want to Take You Higher by Sly and the Family Stone
Brick House by Lionel Richie and The Commodores
I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys
IZZO by Jay Z
Can't Sleep Love by Pentatonix
Celebrate by MIKA featuring Pharrell Williams
Listen to R.O.C.K IN THE USA
/Listen to R.O.C.K. In the U.S.A. (A Salute to 60's Rock) by John Mellencamp
Listen to "I Want You Back" by Jackson 5
/
My Jackson Five obsession began in the early stages of high school. It continues to this day. Unfortunately, this is how so many relationships seem to work, especially in high school. You love some undeserving douche who treats you poorly. You finally are drawn towards a nicer guy who does. Shocker: the Douche is suddenly interested. Man, how I hope my daughters avoid this! To a young, innocent Michael I say this; you never stood a chance of being normal. I cannot fathom what your childhood was like. You were not done. You would have continued to change the world one song at a time, until you died at a proper old age. I want you back.
Listen to Touch the Sky by Kanye West
/
I don't care what your feelings may be about Yeez. This song is damn uplifting. The horns used here are also in the closing scene of the movie "Bend It Like Beckham", which is so endearing and joyful. It's obvious why I chose this song today; see the Inspire section. I kinda don't want to keep yammering on about the message. Not only would it be redundant, but words can pollute the point of a great song, which is simply to listen and react.
Listen to End of the Road by Boyz II Men
/Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.... This was the ultimate dramatic, heart wrenching breakup song in the 90's. There is no girl who has not dreamed of a guy singing something like this to her. It's so weepy, romantic, and vulnerable. We are constantly hearing about how women are so psychotically emotional/hysterical, and men are unfeeling horn dogs😈🐶.
I once heard Steven Tyler tell Howard Stern during an interview, that singing about love and feelings is cool. How most rock stars, many of them male, usually sing about love and heartache. I never forgot this, and especially now since I'm re entering the dating world, I need to believe this. It's too hard not too. Ladies, stay optimistic. God created everyone with feelings, not just chicks. Men need love and affection just as much as we do, even if many of them can't admit it. I also love this song since I love acapella and doo wop. Boyz was like a modern barbershop quartet, sans those ridiculous straw hats with the flat tops.
My relationship to love will never reach the End of the Road. There's simply no reason to be alive without it. To my female contemporaries, press play and let this take you back to junior year, where if your crush didn't say hi to you en route to math class, you wanted to die 😭🔫
Or if you actually know me from the nunnery I was forced to attend for high school, you wanted to 🔫 yourself anyway since that place sucked. #notoverit.
Listen to Ain't No N***a (feat. Foxy Brown) by JAY Z
/This song is decades old, and somehow I just heard it for the first time recently. It is on replay all day. I cannot get enough of it. It's a variation on the Four Tops hit "Ain't No Woman Like the One I Got", a song I've always loved too.
I adore the genre of Motown. I was a Four Tops and Temptations nut from my early teens. Jay Z is so cool here, I want to cry and dance at once. I have such admiration for a badass female rapper. To spit with the guys, and even outshine them, is so monstrously insane. Foxy Brown controls these few minutes, no doubt. She is the crux of the song, no disrespect to anyone else intended. From bar one, I can't stop bouncing. Actually bouncing. In front of a floor length mirror in my home (don't judge me). There is no cooler human on this planet, or any other, than Pharrell. Gwen Stefani once described him that it's as if Oprah and Yoda had a baby. Bullseye!
The sheer level of talent drippingout of his every pore. The wisdom and innovation. The ability to do just every single thing in the music industry. Effortless. He's so hot, too. He looks like an Egyptian cat God. There's an encapsulating elegance to him that adds to my fascination with him. This song is essentially a trifecta of genius, hustle, and flow. Ain't no Jay like the one we got. Even if he just gave his son a crazy name.
Listen to Brooklyn's Finest (feat. The Notorious B.I.G.) by JAY Z
/
I once overheard an elderly lady, whom I know,from Brooklyn say," I don't care for that Jay Z. He was a drug dealer". She was kinda upset when the Barclays center was built and "corrupted" Brooklyn, and Jay at the time was performing there like twice a week.
This is funny for many reasons. But if you think about the sentence "he was a drug dealer", and flip the meaning, yeah, he was indeed a drug dealer. And look at him now. Jay is an example of the ultimate American Dream, specifically the ultimate New York American Dream. To go from being a hustler in the projects, to being an absolute Titan in the entertainment world, is probably something not achievable in most parts of the world. To scratch and claw your way out of improbable circumstances and become a raging force of success, well, that's something we all can learn from. It's the epitome of believing in yourself, at letting no one or nowhere define your future but you. Get em, Jay. He's also a killer interview on Howard Stern. Another reason I love this song is because it features another massive rap god, and against all odds success story: Biggie Smalls. Listeningto the two of them flow here is like an injection of B12. I'm a Jersey girl, but have spent tons of time in Brooklyn my whole life. This song is an ode to Brooklyn. Allow me to feel some New Yawk pride 🙌🏻. I've actually just been discovering the awesome, cool as shit Brooklyn nightlife that I've been enviously hearing about for years. Let me tell you it's no exaggeration. I've had more fun there these past two months than I've had in possibly ever. Brooklyn is rad, that's why it's always been such a rich subject matter for films and music. I wonder if in busting rhymes about the pride of Brooklyn, they inadvertently left out my grandparents...
