There’s a reason I ask you guys in chat or Discord most Fridays what new music releases you’re most excited about, and it’s not (just) because I’m trying to make conversation. Usually I’m using you to find out what actually came out that week and what’s worth the bother.

Did I start a newsletter and build a 19,000 person reader base just to help myself keep up with new music? Possibly. It’s working, isn’t it?

You know what doesn’t work, though? Release calendars. Not unless your preferred method of music discovery is throwing a dart at a wall.1

I am so wholly out of touch with how sane people keep up with new music that I have no earthly idea what role release calendars play, if they enter the equation at all.

What I do know is that as somebody who has to pay attention to new releases every Friday (semi-)professionally, I find them almost entirely useless. And if I were a casual listener — a civilian, if you will — I would be really fucking annoyed.

My Kingdom for a Genre Tag!

Raise your hand if you’ve actually discovered a new band thanks to a release calendar.2

Release calendars could easily double as new artist discovery tools, but they give us nothing.

Realistically, you’re only scanning them for recognizable names, and you’re only recognizing most of the names if you’re already “in the biz” or otherwise hyper locked in to new music. If only industry insiders recognize most of those names, then what are those calendars but smug gatekeepers? They’re serving half of their potential purpose.

I’ll grudgingly forgive the lack of standardization or completeness — it’s not like there’s a single source that announces to media outlets on January 1st when all of the year’s records will be released. And even if they did, every magazine has a different niche and different audience to cater to.

What I can’t forgive is the almost complete lack of context.

Part of the release calendar’s inherent smugness is the assumption that everyone knows the artists on the list. Not just that, but because there’s rarely a priority signal of any kind, there’s also an assumption that everyone knows which albums are most highly anticipated and why.

I reject that notion outright. My brand of anti-gatekeeping accepts that some people have, in fact, been living under rocks (and like it that way).

“Tracking new release calendars can be a slog and is useful only up to a point. Sure, it’s nice to know what’s coming out soon, but if your biggest issue is that you haven’t heard of most of these artists in the first place, it might be better to wait on the other end of this particular production line, where everything has already been sorted, digested, processed, and tabulated by the Pitchforks and Stereogums of the world to let you know what’s what.” -New Music Discovery 101

Invariably, the music topping all my lists at the end of the year comes from bands that I knew absolutely fuck all about at the beginning of the year. Not to toot my own horn, but I’m pretty plugged in and I’ve likely heard of more obscure, pre-debut, up and coming artists than the average person. A sizable percentage of you are probably reading this newsletter precisely because you rely on me to tell you about those kinds of artists. And I’m still hearing crickets when I read these new release announcements.

Who, then, is the release calendar for? At least as a prognostic tool?

People who don’t actually need to discover any music, that’s who.

The lack of context extends beyond the missing genre labels. It’s helpful to see the occasional notation that an release is actually an EP, and there are a few outlets who will notate live albums and reissues, too. But that’s as far as it goes. How nice would it be to have debuts highlighted? Or a quick “for fans of”?

No Ripcord’s release schedule is the best I’ve encountered, and I’m only partially saying that because I had input into its design. If you read New Bands for Old Heads via e-mail, you’ve already seen it (and potentially use it?) for yourselves. It comes closest to the idealized calendar in my imagination — I may not agree with all of the genre labels, but at least it has them! The flag stickers are also a cute touch, even though they’re mostly just reminding us how anglocentric the average curatorial focus continues to be.

Still, it’s not enough.3

Maybe I’m inventing problems where there aren’t any. Maybe this is a complete non-issue for you. So what if release calendars are inscrutable? That’s what music critics are here for. That’s what curators are here for. That’s what I’m here for! Maybe the whole point of release calendars is to scan for the artists you already know about and move on.

But damn, what a wasted opportunity. There’s a staggering amount of new music being released every day, and I could use all the help I can get filtering the signal from the noise.

Let me show you what I came up with.

The Release Calendar of My Dreams

As long as I’m wishing for a metaphorical pony here, I might as well give you everything I desperately want in one place when I’m scanning for new music every week. This is truly the context motherlode.

My mockup ended up looking like a very Glossier-coded little app. I have no idea what to call it.

Imagine a site filled with cards like this one. Somewhere behind the scenes, you can filter and sort by release date, genre, etc.

The cards are split into two parts. The top has the key album info, while the bottom has extras and clickable links.

Here’s what I envision it will include, roughly in order from most to least likely to appear on current release calendars and/or aggregators:

• Artist name

• Album name

• Release date

• Label

• Release Type

  • LP, EP, live album, reissue, single, debut, reunion

• Genre

• Album art

• Country

• Links

  • to Bandcamp, to official sites

• App integration

  • Not just for streaming services, but also for things like email notifications or RSS or Last.fm or whatever else people want to use

• Popularity

• RIYL Comparisons

  • “recommended if you like” or “for fans of” is a context goldmine

• Sorting/filtering

  • Not in my little mockup, but presumably somewhere on the full imaginary website, as already mentioned

• Connections

  • e.g. is it a solo project?

Is creating something like this realistic? I guess not, or it would already exist.4 But if I were doing this music thing full time, you’d better believe I’d be giving you at least half of it.5

What To Use Instead

Honestly, I’ve practically stopped looking at any calendars in advance. I wait until the day before a release day6 and frantically scan all of these websites. I quiz you guys to see what you’re excited about. I ask the Discord. A few days later, I use my weekly go-to outlets to find out what’s already come out. Preparing proactively hasn’t worked out well historically, especially when you factor in surprise drops.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with using release calendars as a catch-up and retroactive discovery tool, but they’re not ideally suited for that purpose, either. While we wait for somebody to capitalize on my rantings, here are a few alternatives I personally use.

MOPS

built one of my favorite and most visually appealing/intuitive new release trackers. It focuses primarily on indie, alternative, and Brazilian music.

Every Monday, she publishes a collection of last Friday’s releases, featuring:

• Album art

• Genre descriptors

• Streaming links for instant listening

• Bandcamp, Wiki, and official website links

• Country of origin flags

• Save-for-later buttons

You can also find her here on Substack.

mops newsletter

Your weekly guide to new music https://www.mopsnews.me/

By Mariana Neri

NEW MUSIC TRACKER

’s sparsely-named tracking tool does exactly what it says on the tin.

The site is still under development and will have more features and integrations in the future, but for now, the sorting and filtering features are what make it stand out for me.

Current functionality/features include:

• Album art

• Popularity ratings

• Genre tags

• Streaming links for instant listening

• Full artist discography

More?

There’s no end to the music catch-up and discovery tools out there. There are almost as many ways to discover new music as there is new music itself.

Obvious picks include AllMusic, Bandcamp, and Rate Your Music.7

There are also the critic aggregators, like Metacritic and AOTY, which I used to use religiously and have now completely given up. If you just want to know which albums the critics are yapping about the most, these are still your best bets.

offline crush

Cool Sites for Real Music Discovery

From vinyl to streaming to whatever TikTok is doing to our brains, every shift in technology has reshaped how we find and experience music. The tools evolve constantly, and so do the ways we stumble across new songs…

Read more

a year ago · 22808 likes · 339 comments · ✧ brooklyn 𓆏

I trust you’ll also fill me in on your favorites.

Every month, I round up nine of my favorite releases to make it easier for you to catch up on what you might have missed.

I knew going in that April wasn’t going to go to plan. I spent half of the month traveling, and no matter how much I tell myself that I can totally, definitely keep my usual routine while I’m several time zones away, the fact is that I don’t even have a usual routine at home.

I did briefly consider cramming everything in at the last minute, but then I remembered ’s sage words:

…doubly so if I ask for it directly, I hope.

So, I’m doing something slightly different this month.

Instead of a clean, tidy, alphabetized “best of,” I’m essentially giving you a peek at the mess inside my brain before I’m ready to curate. Since I haven’t listened to as much as I normally would have, I’m still sorting through it all: what’s getting the most hype, what I was most excited for, what I keep coming back to, what seems to be flying under the radar, what I haven’t had enough time with yet, etc. You get it.

I’m also going to need your help to fill in some gaps, so I’m leaving the last section for you to write in the comments.

Click around as you please!

• Most Hyped

• Most Anticipated

• Most Underrated

• Most Listened

• Most Potential

• Community Favorites

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Psst — you can find all previous Best Ofs here.

Most Hyped:

Angine de Poitrine - Vol.II

I knew that this mysterious, masked Quebecois two piece had really made it when my boyfriend — the same guy who told me it was a silly idea to start this newsletter because nobody would ever read it — sent me their KEXP performance and told me to “check out this band.” I really had to restrain myself that day.

They even briefly impressed my cousin when we met up in Bologna last week. He has a degree in bass performance and we have exactly zero overlap in our musical tastes. When we (inevitably) heard the album start playing at a bar, it piqued his curiosity. “This is polyrhythmic. Interesting.” I told him it was just two guys and showed him a video of their polka-dotted costumes and multi-necked guitars. He lost interest after that, but I’m certain that this record will top just about every indie publication’s end of year list.

Most Anticipated:

Friko - Something Worth Waiting For

Longtime readers might remember that Friko’s debut, Where we’ve been, Where we go from here was one of my absolute favorite records of 2024. I’m always a little nervous about sophomore releases from promising new bands, but this is a truly astonishing album. Everything I loved about the first — the raw emotion, the continuation of the early 2000s orchestral indie rock sound, especially Arcade Fire — is back, sharper and more dramatic than before. Placeholder album name aside, this is another AOTY contender.

Doesn’t look awesome in her New Bands for Old Heads tee? Don’t you wish you could be as cool and amazing as she is? Well GUESS WHAT SUCKER, YOU CAN!

Most Underrated:

Melanie Baker - Somebody Help Me, I’m Being Spontaneous!

I have no recollection now of how I came across this debut, but I’m determined to get her brand of polished slacker rock in front of more ears. Her music is a sugar rush, a Saturday morning cartoon. I find myself craving it even though it might not be entirely good for me. Is it right for grunge music to be produced in such a crystalline way? Arguably not at all. But the album’s conceit seems to be a caricature of ‘90s nostalgia (did you catch the Truman Show reference in the album title?), and it works. The style seems to pull more from other artists inspired by ‘90s alt than by ‘90s alt itself (Wet Leg, Courtney Barnett), and somehow I’m still overjoyed to be listening. Just try it.

Most Listened:

These are the four albums I obsessed over and listened to the most last month, regardless of “objective” quality.

Read more

Ciao, ragazzi! This week and the next, I’m in Bologna taking Italian lessons for no particular reason except that life is short. While I’m away, I’m trying to slow everything down. No set plans outside of class. No eating on the run. No compulsive new album listening. I even thought briefly about not publishing. Instead, I asked one of my favorite music writers, , to tap in while I’m tapped out. It just so happens that she wrote about exactly the kind of unhurried enjoyment I want to channel. Kismet, perhaps? But also an extension of the homework assignment I set for all of us back in January.

Enjoy. A presto.

-Gabbie

P.S. All footnotes are mine ;)

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When I was young, in middle school and high school, my friends and I made a lot of mix CDs for each other. Receiving a mix felt like receiving love, for blank CDs were finite resources that could only be replenished with trips to a Wal-Mart in the next town over, and money was something we rarely had.

This was also one of the few ways to discover new music. A friend or older sibling might’ve gotten new CDs you hadn’t listened to yet, or they discovered a song on someone else’s mix, or they had good internet access and could download albums or rogue playlists from Limewire or Napster. No one bought music from iTunes unless it was around Christmas when gift cards turned up in stockings.

Everything was either the real deal — a physical CD — or completely illegal, which meant that there were stakes in what we listened to. One did not imbibe music glibly. Listening to a soon-to-be favorite song on a mix CD for the first time transcended earthliness and lifted you into an other-worldly euphoria; a high I chase to this day.

Listening to a song that hits you is like locating the center of the self in a way that words can’t adequately describe. Writers like to say that writing is about trying (and often failing) to evoke the deep feelings of life. But music can succeed where words must necessarily fail. Music takes those feelings and lifts them into a new plane. I’ve already used the word transcendental, but that’s the best one the English language has to describe what good music can do.

There’s a reason church begins and ends with music. Karl Ove Knausgaard, in a press release for a Lord Huron album, wrote that

“music [once] belonged to everyone and no one. It was collective. That seems an alien thought now, when all music created is tied to the person making or performing it, but also a compelling one, because it says something about the nature of music, what music is: it is everyone’s and no one’s. It flows between us, and it anchors us to the moment, because it is always heard here and now.”

I listen to this song at least once a day. Usually when I listen to it, I’ll start it over again. I’ve also been learning the dance in the music video.

Discovering new music used to happen as life happened. I would buy a CD when I had money and went to the store. A friend would give me a mix CD at school. Now, a person can discover new music at any moment of any day, and there are no limits to the amount of music they can discover. It’s endless. Sometimes, it feels like I’ve forgotten how to do anything else other than discover, so that I don’t actually hear anything that I’m listening to, but I’m already thinking of what I’ll hear next.

I form fanatical attachments to particular albums or songs every few weeks, which naturally taps the breaks on obsessive discovery. Last year, I went through a phase of listening to Jess Williamson’s Time Ain’t Accidental over and over and over again. The album wasn’t new to me, but I was going through a period of feeling painfully romantic about Austin and my younger days in the city, getting my heart broken and prancing around in a bikini all the time. Emotionally, I didn’t have space for anything else but that album. I needed the feeling of it like I needed air or water.

When I exhausted the indulgence of my feelings, weeks had passed. I didn’t have the will or the time to go back to everything I’d missed, and I didn’t feel particularly compelled to. I have a day job (writer at a tech company), a night job (DJing as ½ of Horse Opera), and am writing a novel or picking up freelance work in between. So, I’ve developed this belief that the music I need to hear is going to find its way to me. That feeling releases the pressure to listen to everything.

Maybe I’m getting woo-woo as I get older, too, which is true of everyone I know. Or maybe I’m just a little bit lazy and I’m justifying it by spiritualizing my shortcomings. Probably the truth lies somewhere in between.

I have a burgeoning theory that the compulsion to listen to everything (and to have an opinion about everything) new could be connected to our hyper-individualized society. Do we not trust that someone else could direct us to something we’ve missed? Do we have to do it ourselves? What do we gain by knowing all we can know?

Byung Chul-Han, a Korean-German philosopher, talks about how we’re living in an era of hyper-achievement and are obsessed with “doing it all.” By trying to do it all, we’re giving up the freedom to shape our own lives — our taste, our capacity, our time. An essential part of shaping something is cutting or editing or chiseling. It seems like no one, including myself, is really willing to do that, at least when it comes to consuming. Maybe we’re trying to square objective thinking into the round hole that is art. And there are gradations of objectivity. Some things are just bad or good — I really do believe that. But once we get into the good, objectivity breaks down.

I absolutely did not vibe with the Geese album last year. Does that mean that there is something fundamentally flawed in my own taste? I don’t think so. But I am interested in how it ended up at the top of so many other people’s lists.1 I have a hard time believing our disparate tastes could converge so cleanly, but who knows, maybe I’m wrong. There’s this thing called “psychological reactance,” which is “a defensive response that occurs when someone thinks their freedom of choice is being constrained,” which Anna Holmes expounds upon in a great piece in the Atlantic on the writer’s aversion to popular culture. It’s possible that I also couldn’t listen to or appreciate Geese and because I just so desperately didn’t want to engage in the conversation around them.

“Perhaps shrugging off culture is a form of self-preservation to those of us who are easily overwhelmed by the way social media algorithms accelerate consumption, and push individuals to engage in public conversation.” -Anna Holmes

I don’t want to be ruled by anything. I don’t want to be ruled by new releases. I don’t want to be ruled by schedules. I don’t want to be ruled by the pressures of other people’s tastes. My taste is mine, cultivated over a lifetime. Some people’s are similar and some aren’t. It’s important to me to honor the heritage of my own taste, which is not sophisticated in any way. I grew up on pop, classic rock, country, emo, and Methodist hymns. For years when I was young, I claimed my favorite album was Straylight Run’s self-titled album. For years. I think that lasted until college.

Maybe what it comes down to is not giving a fuck about what the internet thinks, which I’ve been trying to impress upon myself as much as possible. The internet is a very stupid place full of very fun and wonderful things. But all of my formative experiences have happened in the real world. The best listens of albums I’ve ever had have been on airplanes, trains, cars, on walks, laying on the couch without a screen reaching for my attention.2

The other day, a friend texted me and said, “you’re a snob (complimentary).” Maybe the best way to slow down is to be snobbish, not only about what you’re listening to or consuming, but with how you spend your time. We should luxuriate more, convalesce more. I’m working hard not to worry about what I might’ve missed and to instead enjoy with intensity the things that I’ve found.

I have a few methods for slowing down. Or for being a snob (complimentary).

Here they are.

1. Get off the internet.3

2. Ignore the internet.

3. Release the need to form An Opinion.

4. Let yourself use an imperfect system.

5. Listen to and find music in the real world.

6. Get off the internet.4

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1. Get off the internet

Go to a record store and listen to records you’ve never heard of before. Take a bunch of pictures of them and listen to them later. Ask the record shop employees what they like. Ask what records they’ve put on in the shop over the last day or week.

Read a book. Read a bunch of books. Write down what you think or what you’re feeling in a notebook. Go for a walk without your phone. Go out for the evening without your phone. Throw your phone into the sea.

The internet will tell you that you need a plan, a process, a system, a curriculum, to learn what you like and to understand what you like. You don’t. Plans, processes, systems, curricula are what arise when a person is avoiding what they actually want to do. It’s easy to make a plan. Much harder to write a book, essay, review. Much harder to sit down in a studio and make the song. Much harder to sit on your couch and listen to an album without checking your phone. Much harder to be bad at something you want to be good at.

The best way to slow down, to think about what you like, is to get off the internet and let your thoughts roam free. Eventually, opinions — or, more importantly, curiosities — will arise. Go toward them with all your might!

Recent things that have come up for me include: the color blue, the concept of divas, Zamrock, music that plays on a plane during boarding, Jeff Buckley, albums made exclusively of cover songs, road trips, when to choose silence over music.

2. Ignore the internet

I’m going to quote something I’ve already said: “the internet is a very stupid place.” There are lots of wonderful things on it and many people with many things to say. But you don’t need to know what those chumps on the internet are saying (including me, you don’t need to know what I have to say). What is useful is to know what you really think when your thoughts aren’t mediated through the discourse of small corners of the internet, a place where you feel shame that you thought a very popular album was capital-B Boring. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read the internet. Read it! Then ignore everything people say afterwards.

3. Release the need to form An Opinion

Sometimes, oftentimes, it’s not necessary to have an opinion about an album. You can just like it or dislike it and leave it at that. The more you abstract your way away from the music via words, the further the music will travel from you. I think this is true of most art. What you gain in understanding, you might lose in feral feeling.

4. Let yourself use an imperfect system

I’m saying this more for myself than anyone. The way I discover music, and subsequently categorize it, is messy. I have three or four playlists with loose themes that are definable only to me in a vague way. I don’t put those playlists on for listening. They are folders only. They are used when I am making other playlists for listening. I have so many archive playlists from the newsletter, but the titles aren’t very descriptive because they aren’t meant to be discovered via the streaming service, but via Substack where they live alongside a description. All of this is to say that I’m drowning in playlists and I’m drowning in album saves. But that’s okay. I’ve given up on trying to organize my life and instead I’m trying to live it.5

5. Listen to and find music in the real world

See some of the activities listed in “get off the internet.” But also Shazam shamelessly. Shazam in the vintage store bathroom at the DJ set, at the wine bar (especially at the wine bar), at the Zara, in the hotel lobby, in your friend-of-a-friend’s car. Shazam songs you already know and forgot the name of. I have Shazam’d some truly embarrassing stuff (a recent one was “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC). Your Shazam playlist will also tell you the date when you’ve Shazam’d a song, which is sort-of like keeping an audio diary.

Last summer, I Shazam’d “On The Beach” by Chris Rea somewhere in London:

Then I Shazam’d this song somewhere in Italy:

Then in September, I Shazam’d this one at a friends wedding:

Then I Shazam’d Celine Dion via a transistor radio in the bathroom of the wine bar Liar, Liar in Brooklyn:

And, look, there’s something even better you could do than Shazam shamelessly. You could ask a person what song is playing and see what they say.

6. Get off the internet

For real. Detach yourself from the expectations the internet may place on you and be free. Cultivate wild and weird taste that has nothing to do with the internet and tend to it with vigor.

Your turn.

1. What’s the best song you found in the real world?

2. Any unexpectedly excellent record store finds that you had no idea about beforehand?

3. What are other ways to discover new music outside of the internet?

Leave a comment

P.S. Here are the songs I found IRL that I have on repeat:

Remarkably, yes. Even after force-feeding you a 10,000 word, 20 year old article (that I didn’t write!), then picking up where that article left off and walking you through about a dozen albums that span all 40+ years of twee’s history, I still have more to say. Sheesh!

This week will be easier though, don’t worry. Yes, there will be more to read if you’re up for it, but mostly you just have to sit back and listen. Let the jangly, chime-y guitars wash over you.

Here’s what I’ve cooked up. Click to skip around. Relax. Enjoy.

Every Song from “Twee as Fuck”

• The original “Twee As Fuck” Pitchfork essay I kept foisting on you name drops A FUCKING TON of music, but expects you to go searching for it yourself. As far as I know, nobody else has compiled all of it before. Until now! You’re welcome.

NME's C-86 Cassette Compilation

• I mentioned “NME’s infamous C-86 cassette comp that brought jangle pop into British indie consciousness” in 1986 — now you can listen to it yourself.

NBfOH’s Twee For All Times Playlist

• My own mix of five decades of twee. Try to figure out what’s old and what’s new!

10 More Records for Twee Converts

• It’s very rare that my friends and fellow No Ripcord writers , Rivers, and Juan Rodriguez are able to agree on a music genre. Somehow, twee/jangle/indie pop unites us. I asked them around to help me share ten more of our favorite albums — from 1981 to 2026.

Psssst — don’t forget you can show off your NBfOH merch to win paid access and free music.

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If this newsletter ever turned you on to a band you wouldn’t have found otherwise, please consider a paid subscription. Support your friendly local (human!) music curator, and help keep the playlists bountiful across all platforms. You can even subscribe without supporting Substack directly (it’s $5 cheaper!)🖤

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At the tail end of 2005 (practically the dark ages1) I came across a shiny new essay on Pitchfork called Twee as Fuck: The Story of Indie Pop. I hadn’t yet become disillusioned with the now controversial publication. It was holy, and I was rapt.

I also had no idea what twee was. 10,000 words later, I became a woman obsessed.

YouTube was brand new in 2005, but streaming wasn’t really a thing yet. I was luckier than most: I had access to my college intranet, and thus a direct line to almost every other student’s iTunes library. That’s how I managed to cobble together most of Nitsuh Abebe’s recommendations, all with questionable metadata and erratic volume levels.2

I took these songs with me everywhere. I listened to them at night when I was trying to fall asleep. I have vivid memories of lying in my hostel bunk in Prague one frigid January3 trying to drown out a very loud snorer sleeping above me with the gentle chimes of Talulah Gosh. Winters were as long in my college town in northeast Ohio as they were in northwest Czechia, and so I came to associate the sound of twee — the jangly guitars, the saccharine vocals — with a sort of pristine, chilly melancholia.

This music opened up a new world for me. I already knew about The Magnetic Fields, but the grandeur of 69 Love Songs now expanded back into the shimmering mist of The Wayward Bus/Distant Plastic Trees. Suddenly, magically, I also became aware of The 6ths (another of ’s projects) and I lost myself into what seemed like days, weeks, years of cheerful anti-love songs.4

Now I want to open that world up for you.

“Twee as Fuck” Revisited (and Updated)

I’ve been handwringing for weeks about how best to (re)introduce you to twee.

I suppose if I want to be glib, I could do it in a few sentences:

Twee is what happened when punk rock kids traded their leather and denim jackets for cardigans and turned their rage into wistful sighing. They had just as much love for DIY, and no more talent for music. But they rejected aggressive egos and (male) posturing in favor of the cute, the charming, and the naive. They loved pop’s catchiness, but not the gloss. They loved punk’s simplicity, but not the anger. Twee became its own adorable beast.

But you need more.

The perfect guide to twee already exists. 21 years later, it’s still on the internet in all its long form glory. Yes, I could give you the crib notes. I could walk you through its origins: how it branched off from punk rock; NME’s infamous C-86 cassette comp that brought jangle pop into British indie consciousness; the parallel evolution of Sarah Records in the UK and K Records in the Pacific Northwest… there’s a lot to uncover.

How sad would it be for all of us if I had to summarize an essay, though? Surely we’re all better than that. Instead, make yourself a cup of coffee, find a free hour, and settle in to read it. All of it. Read it with the same sense of enthusiasm, awe, and delight that I did at 21 years old. In fact, I advise resuscitating your old iPod and downloading each recommended track one by one as you go.5

TWEE AS FUCK

Once you’ve thoroughly immersed yourself — or even if you’ve decided to skip it entirely — you can meet me back here for a slightly different sort of genre guide:

Part 1 - The Twee As Fuck Top Four

• Curating Pitchfork’s curation down to bare bones basics

Part 2 - Tweevolution [2000s & 2010s]

• What’s been going on since 2000ish?

Part 3 - New Bands for Twee Heads [2020s]

• New bands carrying the torch of old twee

What better way to get an appreciation for a genre than to listen your way through it?

All records are listed chronologically.

Part 1: The Twee As Fuck Top Four

Choosing only four records to represent a decade of twee masterpieces was an agonizing exercise. I ended up picking the records that I felt best represented the two most iconic twee record labels of the time (K and Sarah), one record to represent the Scottish contingent, and a slightly more household name that’s still putting out records today.

Beat Happening - Jamboree [1988]

Inside twee are two wolves - one light, represented by Sarah Records, and one dark, represented by K Records, the brainchild of Beat Happening’s frontman Calvin Johnson. Beat Happening is the mascot of the punk-leaning, almost comically under-produced, sardonic, off-kilter, and often off-key path. The xeroxed zine come to life. The stylistic choice was quite intentional (Mark Lanegan co-produced this particular record, in fact). You’ll hear whispers of other eventually influential PNW genres starting to form: riot grrrl and grunge, most notably. For an infinitely rewarding rabbit hole, I highly suggest following all of Calvin Johnson’s threads — off to bands like Tiger Trap his short lived proto-riot grrrl label mates/signees (who would later spin off into The Softies, among others), then Bratmobile, their collaborators who debuted at Johnson’s International Pop Underground Convention in 19916, and off to Bikini Kill who shared the same stage… and on and on. I think you can write the rest.

• Start with: “Indian Summer,” “Bewitched”

• Also try: “Our Secret”

The Field Mice - Snowball [1989]

On the other side of the Atlantic, Sarah Records was releasing a lighter side of twee. Snowball is one of their more important records. If you expected more of the adorable, bedroom sound, here’s where you’ll find it. With their jangly guitars and indelible bass lines, The Field Mice are like a far sweeter version of The Smiths. The low production, DIY aesthetic is still very much present, but here there be sugar and spice and everything nice (in place of Beat Happening’s slime and snails and puppy dog’s tails). Much more palatable and pretty, certainly. They were arguably the progenitors of the (eventually) overused trope of the awkward, bookish boy who pines for the manic pixie dream girl. You may recognize the very first track as St. Etienne’s “Kiss and Make Up”; but theirs is the original, and only one year earlier!7

• Start with: “Couldn’t Feel Safer,” “Let’s Kiss And Make Up”

• Also try: “Emma’s House”

Heavenly - Le Jardin De Heavenly [1992]

If there were ever any “stars” of twee, then perhaps they would be Heavenly. Another of Sarah’s finest, they’ve been around in one form or another for at least 40 years (admittedly with a 30 year gap; they just released a new album barely a month ago), first as the equally infectious Talulah Gosh. Far more chipper and pop-centric than moodier Beat Happening and wistful Field Mice, Heavenly channels ‘60s music more directly: surf rock guitars, yé-yé girls and girl groups, twist and shout. Calvin Johnson released Heavenly’s records on his own label, which brought them modest acclaim beyond their own shores. It’s tough to call any band of the original twee class “big,” but their influence is undeniable: you’ll hear their legacy in Cub, The Cardigans, and Los Campesinos!, to name just a few. A standout of this album is also an example of how it bridged the oceanic twee divide: the K/Sarah crossover episode that is “C Is The Heavenly Option”8, in which Calvin Johnson joins Amelia Fletcher to sing a teen magazine quiz.

• Start with: “C Is The Heavenly Option”, “Our Love Is Heavenly”

• Also try: “P.U.N.K. Girl”

The Pastels - Mobile Safari [1995]

If the Scottish twee scene had a family tree, The Pastels would be at the root. Stephen Pastel’s 53rd & 3rd label hosted the likes of Talulah Gosh, The Shop Assistants, and Kurt Cobain’s favorite: The Vaselines. It’s tempting to describe their “shambling” style as a midpoint between the K/Sarah dark/light divide (and remember, I pulled that distinction out of my ass; I don’t know who else would subscribe to it!). But it’s not so far off from the truth. They have a charming messiness about them, a disconnect between their percussion and vocals that aligns well with the Calvin Johnson spirit. But the upbeat tempo and chiming, catchy melodies are more in tune with the “pristine pop” of Sarah. No need to compare, though. This was the way of the Scottish scene.

• Start with: “Yoga”, “Strategic Gear”

• Also try: “Nothing to Be Done”

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Part 2: Tweevolution

What twee and twee-inspired albums came out after the records lionized by Pitchfork’s primer? Many didn't even hear about Twee until this later era, but there was a lot more going on even at this supposed height than you may have realized.

The Moldy Peaches - S/T [2001]

What would an anti-folk album be doing on a twee retrospective? Well, honestly, how did anti-folk come to be associated with the NYC sleaze of the early 2000s, anyway? (That’s a rhetorical question. We know how.) To the extent that twee was about sparseness, DIY, cutie patooties, crushes, and hand drawn photocopied album covers, Kimya Dawson and Adam Green were keeping it alive. I also maintain that they’re one of the main reasons it eventually developed into its later quirky, “adorkable” ModCloth-clad incarnation. After all, Juno walked so (500) Days of Summer could run.9

• Start with: “Lucky Number Nine,” “Downloading Porn With Davo”

• Also try: The Juno soundtrack, I guess, or Kimya Dawson’s solo work. This was The Moldy Peaches’ only album

Saturday Looks Good To Me - All Your Summer Songs [2003]

I threw this album on again for the first time in over two decades just for the sake of this article, and memories of how I described them to a friend at the time came rushing back to me: they sound like a sock hop played underwater. How could I possibly beat that? In seriousness though, frontman Fred Thomas was a fixture of the Michigan DIY scene, and it makes sense that there’d be a stronger, more audible connection to the Detroit soul music of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Think of this as twee through a more Motown, Phil Spector lens.

• Start with: “Alcohol,” “Ambulance”

• Also try: “The Girl’s Distracted”

The Blow - Poor Aim: Love Songs [2004]

On the one hand, it’s slightly disingenuous to call Khaela Maricich’s minimalist electropop twee. On the other hand, when I was hemming and hawing about whether to keep this album in the mix, I remembered that it was released on — you guessed it! — K Records. In fact, she was embedded in Calvin Johnson’s Olympia world, and even toured with him on Phil Elverum’s (Mt. Eerie/The Microphones) Paper Opera tour in 2001. So. Res ipsa loquitur. Plus, the absolute grip that this album had over me in my early 20s cannot be overstated. In many ways, these songs are even more precious and spare than most twee — just one girl, her synth, her drum machine, and her limerence to keep her company (“Hey boy - why you didn’t call me?/I waited for days, I can’t believe you didn’t call”). It almost feels like an exposed, tongue-out-of-cheek response to 69 Love Songs.

• Start with: “Hey Boy,” “Come On Petunia”

• Also try: “What Tom Said About Girls,” “Parentheses”

Strawberry Whiplash - Hits In The Car [2012]

This Glaswegian duo took their name from Strawberry Switchblade and Meat Whiplash, and their direct musical cues from the rest of C-86 and their descendants. This record stands out from its genre mates for its fuzziness. At times it almost veers into My Bloody Valentine territory (check out “Sleepy Head”), though it might not be approaching the full wall of sound. Dabbling in shoegaze is an interesting take on twee, one that they’ve extended onto last year’s People Like Us.

• Start with: “Picture Perfect”

• Also try: “Who’s In Your Dreams?”

Alvvays - S/T [2014]

After a bit of genre bending, we’re back in some seriously familiar Sarah Records territory with this delightful debut. This is more pristinely polished indie pop than it is twee, per se, which makes sense given their influences (The Smiths, Belle & Sebastian, The Magnetic Fields, and Celtic folk music besides). You’ll no doubt remember the heartrending “Archie, Marry Me” with all its lush reverb. After this retro record10, the band kept increasing the production value in future releases, culminating in 2022’s exceptional Blue Rev; perhaps the best album of the 2020s so far.

• Start with: “Archie, Marry Me”

• Also try: “Belinda Says”

  

Part 3: New Bands for Twee Heads

Another critical record label for indie pop through the decades (that still happens to actually exist!) is Slumberland. Their roster has featured Velocity Girl, Black Tambourine, Stereolab, Boyracer, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, and an endless parade of other indie pop darlings. These days, if you want to find your favorite new twee band, you can throw a dart at their lineup and find one. It’s enough to make me feel like some of my selections are a bit of a gimme.

The Umbrellas - Fairweather Friend [2024]

This is the record that sent me plunging head first back into twee after so much time away. As soon as I heard Matt Ferrera’s voice on the opening of “Three Cheers,” I thought, “this sounds like Beat Happening’s been tuned up.” I can only imagine how appealing that will be to the vast majority of you who can’t understand for a moment why anyone would listen to tuneless vocals. In any event, this is a tight and polished indie pop record that channels the shambling, unpolished twee of its predecessors. Far more like The Magnetic Fields than The Vaselines.

• Start with: “Three Cheers!”, “Games”

• Also try: “Near You”
  

Neutrals - New Town Dream [2024]

Neutrals may be based in the Bay Area, but their lead singer/guitarist’s Glaswegian background is impossible to hide. Both his accent and the particular shambly/jangly style are front and center. There are echoes of Television Personalities, but the cranked up bass and slight disaffection in the vocals belie a strong post-punk influence as well. Not that strange, perhaps, given twee and post-punk’s shared punk roots.

• Start with: “Wish You Were Here”, “That’s Him On The Daft Stuff Again”

• Also try: “Half Shut Knife”
  

Jeanines - How Long Can It Last [2025]

I like my indie pop with a little bit of grit, which Jeanines delivers without damaging any of their sweetness. The more I listen to this duo, the more they remind me of early Belle & Sebastian tracks. I find that much like The Umbrellas, they have the uncanny ability to write songs that feel entirely out of time. If you told me that this album had been recorded in 1966 or 1989, I would have believed you.

• Start with: “Coaxed A Storm”, “Satisfied”

• Also try: “Winter in the Dark”
  

Sharp Pins - Radio DDR [2025]

Outside of the phenomenal Slumberland roster, we have Kai Slater, the phenom/wunderkind behind not one but two of last year’s stellar breakout indie acts: Lifeguard and Sharp Pins. This is the first of two 2025 Sharp Pins releases, and a testament to Slater’s dedication to the spirit behind twee, if not the literal sound. I’ve previously described his records as reminiscent of Guided by Voices covering the Beatles - lo-fi, yes, but perhaps better described as the slacker rock version of twee than the sugary DIY pop of the first wave.

• Start with: “Circle All The Dots”, “When You Know”

• Also try: “Popafangout”

cootie catcher - Something We All Got [2026]

For another departure from the Slumberland roster and a bit more of an experimental option, Cootie Catcher offers up a blend of glitch-pop and indie pop. As and I explained a few weeks ago, they “take that distinctive twee, DIY sound of K Records in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s and make it their own. Their eclectic mix of jangly guitars and twitchy/glitchy ‘twee-tronica’ makes for a very satisfying unpredictability.”

• Start with: “No biggie”, “Puzzle pop"

• Also try: “Friend of a friend”

What did I miss?

Trick question. I missed so, so much. That’s why you’ll have to come back next week. But still, I want to know: what are your favorite twee bands and records?

Leave a comment

More???

Yes. So much more. Playlists and poking deeper into the nooks and crannies of twee. Next week, I said! Next week!

But! Since next week’s post is going to be for paid subscribers, how about a chance to win a few free months of paid access (and some free music)?

Send me a photo of yourself showing off your NBfOH merch; win fabulous prizes.

Until next time.

xo

Gabbie

If you’re new here, you’re joining 19,000+ other people who are getting excited about new music again. Start here if you need to get oriented. You can also check out the playlist guide or the directory for way more.

🌟WHAT’S AHEAD🌟

-Best Albums of March 2026
-Monthly Playlist

Hopefully you didn’t notice, but I took a short break from posting last week. I needed a tiny breather.

While I was out, I finally relented and spent some time plugging the newsletter on (gulp) Facebook, the last remaining viable social medium I hadn’t already tapped, and also the least palatable.

Starting from scratch anywhere is humbling, but I had completely forgotten the kind of commentary that used to plague my videos when I first started New Bands for Old Heads on TikTok four years ago. Facebook reminded me. (And this time, people were using their real names to do it! Smart!1)

“This isn’t music, it’s noise.”

“Why would I listen to a band that sounds like another band? You’re literally saying they’re derivative.”

“How dare you compare this shit to [old untouchable rock band].”

Hot take, but people like this aren’t music lovers.

Tastes vary; you’re not required to like everything (or most things) that you hear. But loving music inherently requires an open mind. It presupposes an understanding that inspiration is intrinsic to the process of creation. It allows room for both imitation and experimentation. It is able to appreciate even when it can’t understand.

Music lovers are able to say “this isn’t for me, but that doesn’t make it fundamentally bad.”

Tell me what being a music lover means to you.

Leave a comment

Now that I’m off my soapbox, let’s cool down with the best of last month.

As usual, I’d like to mention that while March was packed with huge releases, you won’t see them here, no matter how much I may have loved them.

Looking for Courtney Barnett, The New Pornographers, Kim Gordon, Haute & Freddy, The Twilight Sad, Snail Mail, Robyn, or other mega-hyped indie rock and pop that came out in March? That’s lucky for you, because you can read about them pretty much anywhere else. I don’t need to tell you about them, no matter what I thought of them.2

Since we’re so inundated with incredible new albums, I (usually) try to focus on the ones I loved that are a bit less frequently discussed.

• All of the other month-by-month best of lists are here.

• ➡️ Best tracks of ALL of 2026 (so far) can be found here.
  

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The Best Albums of March 2026

9 albums. 1 Playlist. No rankings.

Legend:

🎯 = if you only have time for one…
📼 = most nostalgic/accessible
🧩 = most challenging

Keep scrolling for the March playlist, which features a standout track from 44 albums (eep!). Something for everyone.

Cat Clyde - Mud Blood Bone

This is a different sort of roots rock record, where Clyde explores her Métis (that is, mixed indigenous Canadian and European) heritage. The album’s pacing and stylistic ebbs and flows — from heavier blues to gentler folk rock and even garage rock — reflect the very literal, physical journey she was on while she wrote it. Somewhere between Robert Johnson and Big Thief, you’ll find her.

• Start with: “Man’s World”

Still to come — new adventures in post punk, a strange spin on slacker rock, jazz-forward hip hop, and three very different ways to get your groove on.

Paid subscribers also get access to the full band directory, exclusive playlists, vinyl and ticket giveaways, and the lively Discord community. Join in.

Subscribe now

Read more

This year’s New Colossus festival is all wrapped up, but the music discovery is only just beginning. Good news for anyone feeling some FOMO after Tuesday’s post.

It’s only slightly less overwhelming to flip through a 200-band rolodex now that you’re not working on a deadline. Luckily for you, , and I are back with a quick weekend bonus post and a curated selection of some of our favorites from the 2026 New Colossus Lineup to take all the stress off.

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Are you new here? Amazing. Welcome. You’re joining nearly 19,000 other old heads discovering new music together. If you want to get your bearings, start here. Or head straight to the band directory or playlist guide.

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Jump around, jump around, jump up jump up and get down:
•Giveaways
•Events
•New Releases

Occasionally my cup runneth over with goodies that I don’t know how to artfully tuck into a normal weekly post, so I like to throw a quick weekend digest your way.

Think of it as a little palate cleanser before next week’s colossal New Colossus rundown.

This digest also happens to be on Friday the 13th, so it’s inherently terrifying!

Boo?1

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Giveaways!

We’ve got two: one old, one new.

Vinyl!

The new Brigitte Calls Me Baby is out today. They sound like a mix of Roy Orbison and The Smiths, and they can be yours.

Paid subscribers can win a copy of the new record on vinyl. There will be TWO winners! (Ooo, ahhh.)

brigitte calls YOU baby

Live Music!

If you’re in the Philly area and you missed the window to grab a Heavenly ticket for April 17th, you’re in luck. I’ve got one left.

I wish I could come with you, but alas. You’ll have to tell me about it after. Enter below.

i'm jealous

I’ll keep both giveaways open until March 27 and announce them in the Best of March Albums Post at the end of the month.

Upcoming Events!

March is turning out to be an unusually bustling month over on the Discord server. Let’s formalize the invitations.

Radio Hour

Every month, I pull together a surprise mix of new and old songs for a themed hour of discovery and chat. It’s low key, low pressure, and it’s scheduled to work with most time zones (Sunday, 5pm Eastern). Come hang out!

Book Club

It’s not too late to join the March book club — we’re reading Wylding Hall (easily completed in just a few days) and discussing it together in the Discord. It’s mostly asynchronous; hop in when you like.

here there be discord access

New Music!

I admit I wasn’t particularly excited with the first batch of new March releases, but the rest of the month is about to redeem itself.

I’m highlighting some of my most anticipated picks for the remainder of March (including today!) below. You’ll add yours in the comments, won’t you?

Leave a comment

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I’ve started asking some guests to help me tackle these topics from their perspectives. Today, please welcome , comic writer and author of 20th Century Ambient to New Bands for Old Heads.

xo
Gabbie

Read more

If you’re new here, you’re joining nearly 19,000 readers discovering new music that sounds like their old favorites. Start here if you need to get oriented. You can also check out the playlist guide or the directory for lots more.

🌟WHAT’S AHEAD🌟

-Best Albums of February 26
-Playlist
-Concert ticket giveaway

Now we’re starting to cook with some gas.

February’s slow start gave way to a deluge of phenomenal releases at the final hour. March promises much the same.

Predictably, the analysis paralysis in settling on just nine albums for each of these monthly roundups has been giving me heart palpitations. So I’m going to formalize a practice that up until now I could only categorize as a habit:

If you’ve already been oversaturated with hype about a new release, it’s likely we’ll be skipping it here.

I'm not averse to double-dipping, but I'd rather bring you music recs from real people than regurgitate whatever's making the rounds in the press.

So yes, you might not see some of the heavy hitters below (Mitski, Ratboys, Mandy Indiana, et al.).1 But why do you need me to reinforce opinions you already hold? Aren’t you here to learn about new music you haven’t heard yet?2

I thought so.

What were your February favorites?

Leave a comment

ICYMI…

The Best Albums of February 2026

All of the other month-by-month best of lists are here.

➡️ Best tracks of ALL of 2026 (so far) can be found here.

9 albums. 1 Playlist. No rankings.

Legend:

🎯 = if you only have time for one…
📼 = most nostalgic/accessible
🧩 = most challenging

Keep scrolling for the February playlist.

📼 Station Model Violence - S/T

I believe it was reader who turned me on this fantastic Australian group. If my post-punk primer left you wanting more, or maybe just left you more confused about the boundaries between post-punk and new wave, Station Model Violence is a great blend of those two styles. It certainly won’t help clarify anything, but it’s hard not to enjoy the grit of the Gun Club or Neu! mixed up with the dark danceability of New Order. Start with: “Leisure”

Voka Gentle - Domestic Bliss

What a breath of fresh air this record is. A patchwork of avant-pop styles and influences that pulse and thump together into something truly delightful and unexpected. I want to give you some kind of reference point to help get oriented, but it’s slippery; there are pieces of Kraftwerk and These New Puritans, all with a Mute Records production pedigree. Start with: “Torpedo Mike”

vegas water taxi - long time caller, first time listener

You were expecting Remember Sports to show up on this list. I don’t blame you! It’s a great record, but you’ve heard enough about it already. For more country-soaked indie rock, let’s venture across the pond, where Ben Hambro’s band is (curiously) crafting some earnest Americana with heavily sardonic lyricism. I do love a study in contrasts, and who could possibly resist a track with a name like “ozempic (celebrity weight loss anxiety blues)”? Start with: “chateau photo”

Still to come — a comeback 30 years in the making, even more Australian innovation, mind-bending avant-folk, and a Britpop revival you haven’t heard anywhere else. (Plus, a concert ticket giveaway!)

Paid subscribers also get access to the full band directory, exclusive playlists, vinyl and ticket giveaways (like the one below!), and the Discord community. Join in.

Read more

Pssst… don’t miss the⚡⏩Best Tracks of 2026! ⏪⚡

Not sure which playlist to start with? I made a playlist personality quiz1. It’s stupid. It’s fun. It’s free.

If you’re new, it’ll help orient you with a few playlists picked out just for you.

subscribe to take the quiz!

Navigate:

Genres + Eras | “Best Of”s | Mixtapes | Community Playlists

Most playlists available on: 🍎Apple, ☁️SoundCloud, 💿Qobuz,
🌊Tidal, ▶️YouTube. Find those links in the directory.

Directory!

The directory also includes every single band I’ve ever recommended in the newsletter. It’s pretty sweet.

Ok, on to the playlists —

Genres + Eras

New music that sounds generally like the older stuff listed here.

⭐ = core playlist

• ‘60s (Mod, Motown, Surf, Space Age Pop) - post | playlist

• ⭐ ‘70s (Soul, Disco, R&B) - playlist

• ⭐ ’80s (Synth, New Wave) - playlist

• ⭐ ‘90s (Alt, Riot Grrl, College Rock, Shoegaze) - playlist

• ⭐ Classic Rock - playlist

• Egg Punk2 - playlist

• Hip-Hop - playlist

• Indie Sleaze - post | playlist

• Pop - playlist

• Post-Punk3 - post | playlist

• Soul (reviving Daptone’s golden era) - post | playlist

• Twee - post | playlist

• ⭐ Y2K (reviving 2000-era top 40) - post | playlist

• Yé-yé (French pop) - post

“Best Of”s:

Yearly

• 2026 - Best Tracks

• 20254 - Best Tracks | Midyear | EOY 1 | EOY 2 | EOY 3 | EOY 4

• 2024 - Best Tracks | Midyear | EOY 1 | EOY 2 | EOY 3 | EOY 4

• 2023 - Best Tracks

• 2022 - Best Tracks

Monthly

• April 2026 - post | playlist

• March 2026 - post | playlist

• February 2026 - post | playlist

• January 2026 - post | playlist

• October 2025 - post | playlist

• September 2025 - post | playlist

• August 2025 - post | playlist

• July 2025 - post | playlist

• June 2025 - post | playlist

• May 2025 - post | playlist

• April 2025 - post | playlist

• March 2025 - post

• February 2025 - post

• January 2025 - post

Mixtapes:

Mostly “If You Like [X], Then You’ll Like [Y]” posts + companion playlists (new music that sounds like specific older artists).

🎤 = guest playlist

• If You Like [X] Then You’ll Like [Y]: The OG (Gang of Four, New Order, Veruca Salt, Smashing Pumpkins, Pavement, Radiohead, Lauryn Hill, Elliott Smith)

  • post | playlist

• ‘90s Counterculture (introducing to non-hit genres of the ‘90s: grunge, britpop, shoegaze, big beat, trip hop, twee)

  • post | playlist

• Album Scores Are Meaningless (great albums that only got an average 7/10 meta-rating)

  • post | playlist

• Experimental (a mixtape for Anja Huwe of X-mal Deutschland)

  • post | playlist

• Female-Fronted Bands (“won’t someone think of the men?”)

  • playlist

• 🎤 Folk (New Canadiana, by )

  • post | playlist

• Foreign Language (3 hours of new music, none in English)

  • post | playlist

• Gen X Nostalgia (a mixtape for )

  • post | playlist

• Guilty Pleasures - post | playlist

• 🎤 Lilith Fair (What New Bands Belong on the Lilith Fair Stage in 2025?, by )

  • post | playlist

• New Band/Old Band (the basics of how my brain works; new/old pairings)

  • post | playlist

• Pop-punk (Dragging out of his 2000s rut)

  • post | playlist

• Problematic Artists (Problematic older artists paired with modern non-problematic equivalents)

  • post | playlist

• Romance & Drama (A shimmery mixtape for )

  • post | playlist

• Slutty Summer (All your hot summer jamz)

  • post | playlist

• Teen Movies (reviving the sound of the late ‘90s teen romcom)

  • post | playlist

• “Uncool” Music (a mixtape for Justin McElroy of My Brother My Brother and Me)

  • post | playlist

• Witchy Disco (my take on the Fall playlist)

  • post | playlist

Community Playlists:

• Known Unknowns - Community-generated playlists featuring your favorite unknown & underrated artists.

  • Vol 0

  • Vol 1

  • Vol 2

  • Vol 3

  • Vol 4

  • Vol 5

  • Vol 6

  • Vol 7

• Directory-only extras:

  • The Disco - a multi-era dance party

  • Discord Community Music Recs - old heads share their favorite music of all time

The best way to support New Bands for Old Heads is to become a paid subscriber. If this newsletter ever turned you on to a band you wouldn’t have found otherwise, please consider upgrading. Support your friendly local (human!) music curator, and help keep the playlists bountiful across all platforms. Learn more here.

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If there’s one thing we’re obsessed with on the left, it’s being as ethical as possible.

If there are two things we’re obsessed with, it’s making sure everybody knows just how ethical we’re being.

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That leaves very little room for imperfection.

A year ago, I wrote about my failed attempt to quit Spotify. With every ICE ad and AI-generated track, using the behemoth streaming platform becomes less and less defensible. And yet even as I watch many others (very publicly) cancel their subscriptions, and even as my own guilt accumulates to a fever pitch, I’m still forking over my monthly fee.

How can I – how can anyone – possibly justify it?

Increasingly, the implication1 is that it’s not possible. Either you stop using Spotify (and probably all streaming), or you don’t care about artists, full stop. In other words, divesting has moved from the realm of “preferable” to “morally mandatory”.

I saw a TikTok (stay with me) a while back that questioned the familiar refrain: “I’d be vegan except for the …

Read more

This evening, I’m channeling my inner as I prepare for you a short but satisfying musical meal.

Mustard's Diner

There's nothing finer than a meal at Mustard's diner!

By JustSomeMustard

In between new music music Fridays, I’ve been taking more time to sit with less immediate records, old and new. There are infinite options to choose from, but after extensive consultation and constant reminders to myself that quality is more important than quantity, I find that curating a small listening menu works best.

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This particular menu is prix fixe, and no substitutions will be accepted. But I’ll take your dietary restrictions and other suggestions under advisement for future meals.

Read more

Some say January isn’t a strong month for albums writ large, but that hasn’t been my usual experience.

In fact, I can’t remember a year that didn’t start out with an album that would eventually end up somewhere high up on my Best Of list at the end of that same year.

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• 2021 had shame’s Drunk Tank Pink and Goat Girl’s On All Fours

• 2022 had The Weeknd’s Dawn FM

• 2023 had The Murder Capital’s Gigi’s Recovery and Lil Yachty’s Let’s Start Here

• 2024 had SPRINTS’ Letter to Self and The Smile’s Wall of Eyes

Last year wasn’t too shabby, either.

I admit this year feels different.

Blame the first snowy winter since 2016. Blame turning 42 (today, if you’re keeping track — I’m obviously not! Psh!). Blame the systematic and unrelenting erosion of civil liberties just pummeling our newsfeeds and neighborhoods at every. Fucking. Turn.

I can’t honestly say whether I’m failing to find joy in recent releases because the music is lacking, or because the walls of the pit I have to crawl out of to actually reach that joy are so high right now.

But never mind all that.

On the one hand, nothing immediately stands out to me as an obvious end of year contender. I also struggled to fill out my monthly playlist with as many exciting picks as I usually do, which is a shame.

On the other hand, having less that (immediately) excited me meant I had more time with everything else. This is a rare treat.

Why is quantity always the goal?

Unwittingly, I’d been sticking to the spirit of listening with more purpose. I veered into a few genres I wouldn’t normally explore. I poked and prodded around more music submissions and reader recommendations. More time meant more indepth engagement. It was rewarding. In retrospect, I wish more months were like this.

I hope the albums in this roundup reflect the care that went into their selection. But first…

What were your favorites this month?

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The Best Albums of January 2026

All of the other month-by-month best of lists are here.

The playlist of the month is at the very bottom of the post.

By next month, the Best Tracks of 2026 playlist will be ready to go (and free for all). It just needs a little more time to brew.

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9 albums.

First 3 free.
No rankings.
Not even alphabetical order anymore! Gasp!

Legend:

🎯 = if you only have time for one…
📼 = most nostalgic/accessible
🧩 = most challenging

📼 Home Star - A Binding Life

The first record to truly charm me this month, perhaps unsurprisingly, is a hidden Philadelphia gem. Marietta’s frontman debuts a solo act of sunny, high-octane nostalgia to relieve us from our agonizing winter doldrums. To channel our beloved - “Is it power pop?” Yes, oh yes. ‘90s power pop specifically, like Weezer and Fountains of Wayne, will come rushing back to you as you listen. It’s sometimes difficult for straightforward albums like this one to draw me in, because their simplicity has to be overcome with pristine pacing and well-crafted hooks. This one delivers. Start with: “Beam”

Sargent Baker - Loose Ends

Some of the best new music is coming out of Australia, and my most recent discovery absolutely rips. I try to keep a small arsenal of music to convert the die-hard classic rock aficionados who refuse to give new music a chance, and this is my latest weapon. If you’re a fan of arena rock, AC/DC, Iggy Pop, and the oft-neglected guitar solo, get ready to rumble. Start with: “On The Burn”

Annabelle Chairlegs - Waking Up

Ty Segall’s production makes perfect sense for this fuzzy, psychedelia-infused album. I can feel a bit of Velvet Underground and Janis Joplin creeping in, but in the end it’s far more of a nod to the ‘90s reviving the ‘60s than straight up Haight-Ashbury. With vocals more akin to Juliana Hatfield and desert swagger that Beck could get on board with, there’s whole eras to sink your teeth into. Start with: “Patty Get Your Gun”

Still to come — dark pop, proto-punk revival, soulful hip-hop, genre-defying anti-fascism, and much more.

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Within, I explained in brief what post-punk was, what it sounded like, and what new artists to check out who are reviving that sound now.

Today, I’ll dig deeper into those recommendations and hand over a playlist of everything we’ve discussed and much more.

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First, a few announcements

Both of these take place in the New Bands for Old Heads Discord Server. If you need an invite, become a paid subscriber the usual way above, or subscribe outside of Substack.

1. Radio Hour - Every month I host a radio hour. The next one is on February 15th. The theme is a surprise (last month’s was post-punk, which gave birth to the playlist below!). Treat it as background music, treat is as a chat, treat it is a dance party, whatever you want. 5pm Eastern/2pm Pacific.

2. Book Club - I threatened to start a book club, and now we’re actually doing it. Our first book is Roddy Doyle’s “The Commitments”. This is going to be very chill, low pressure, and at your pace. Pop in to chat any time in February as your schedule permits.

An Extra Taste of Post-Punk’s New Wave

To recap, last week you learned about Italia 90, Sweeping Promises, The Cool Greenhouse, Drahla, La Sécurité, and Gustaf.

I feel like there’s almost an infinite repository of excellent post-punk revival to get through. Shall we dip into the surplus? Shall we dive into the playlist?

It Thing - Spirit Level (Marthouse Records, 2024)

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What type of music do you default to listening to when you’re not sure what you’re in the mood for?

For me, it’s post-punk. But you knew that already. Maybe you’re one of the people who’s been clamoring for a genre deep dive about it. I’ve got bad news for you.

I love post-punk, but I also can’t do it justice. It keeps sucking me down into its gaping maw. It’s the quicksand we were all so terrified of falling into when we watched Saturday morning cartoons as children.

I fear if I speak its name three times, the Real Music Critics will emerge from their lairs (from under my floorboards, I have to imagine?) and start tearing me limb from limb for my failures:

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For miscategorizing a seminal post-punk1 album as new wave. For not tracing influences properly. For… not mentioning Pere Ubu, maybe? It’s a minefield, and I’d rather not play in it at all.

The problem (and it’s a good one to have) is that

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If you used any social media in recent weeks, you’ve probably noticed that a whole lot of people have time traveled back to 2016.

2016 is trending. A calendar year. Is trending. I didn’t think that a specific year in the relatively recent past was a creative enough meme prompt, but perhaps I’ve lost some whimsy in my grumpy dotage.

In any event, this mostly means we’re seeing a surfeit of quirky selfies dipped in the Valencia filter, massive plaid scarves and block eyebrows, and a lot of wistful reminiscing.1

Again, perhaps odd to romanticize so much when it’s only been ten years, but it allows the youths to participate. Setting aside all the overbearing thinkpieces with titles like “IS NOSTALGIA GEN Z’S COPING MECHANISM?!,” I’m all for it. In theory.

Normally, I’d even join in. But it so happens that 2016 was one of the worst years of my life. I lost two jobs and two relationships in quick succes…

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Earlier this week, we talked about all the different ways that we tackle the question of how to separate art from artist.

In that post, I also gave you a list of new artists that correspond to some problematic old favorites. That list was a little buried, and also a little incomplete.

Hopefully you’ve had some time to dig into the modern analogues for Kanye West, Morrissey, Arcade Fire, Prince, M.I.A., and John Lydon.

Now, it’s time to add David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Gwen Stefani, and Thurston Moore to the list.

I’ve also made a playlist of all of the new music picks I’ve matched to them, for your enjoyment and convenience.

10 questionable old artists. 25 new bands to check out. 1.5 hours of music to dig into.

David Bowie

Maybe not surprising, but definitely a tough pill to swallow that our very own Thin White Duke allegedly had sex with minors. Plenty are fine leaving this fact alone as just a product of the times he lived in. Maybe you’re not one of them.

If what you’re looking for is strutting, confident glam, try:

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In 1606, Caravaggio killed a man over a tennis bet. Or maybe it was over a prostitute. Regardless, he killed a man by trying to castrate him, lived on to achieve even greater fame for his art and notoriety for his violence, and earned a place in art history’s canon.

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I’ll take a shot in the dark and say that you’re probably against murder.1 I also have a feeling you’re not in any sudden rush to call up the Uffizi and demand that they rethink their 17th century installations.

When we are far removed from an artist, we have no problem separating them from their art.

But Caravaggio can’t disappoint us anymore. Many other artists can and do.

My dee…

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