She’s Wildewoman #9: The Songs that got us through 2020
By Allison Parssi & DJ Etamame
My music listening this year was atypical. I listened to a number of mixes and playlists, very few full albums, and often wasn’t listening to music at all. All of these patterns offer a different set of challenges when compiling end of year lists. When trying to describe this shift, I was falling short, but a recent NPR Music newsletter knew exactly how to describe it:
“There were many ways to understand this year’s best music. Some of us listened obsessively to albums that transported us away from the stress of the daily grind; others were wowed by songs that spoke truth to power; we kept soothing tracks on repeat; we cranked up albums that express our rage; we sought out bright spots in new musical discoveries.” -Marissa Lorusso and Lyndsey McKenna, NPR Music
For this final installment of She’s Wildewoman, I invited my best friend Eta back to create another pre-recorded episode of the column. In our initial planning phone call, it didn’t come as a surprise to either of us when we discovered that we experienced similar listening tendencies. So instead of doing a top album countdown, we decided to honor how we did listen to music and focus on the songs that really shined through for us in this weird year. To say that there is so much uncertainty right now would be an understatement, but the one thing we know for sure is that we can’t wait for the new music to come in 2021. Until that music arrives, here are the songs that got us through 2020.
You can listen to the conversation here on Drawstring or on Wildewoman’s Mixcloud. A track list and transcription of the conversation are below.
TRACK LIST
“I Think There’s Something You Should Know” - The 1975
“I Just Want to Dance” - Sault
“Fight Like Ida B and Marsha P” - Ric Wilson
“Frequency” - Sylvan Esso
“People, I’ve Been Sad” - Christine & the Queens
“Please Don’t Make Me Cry” - Lianne La Havas
“Holy Water” - Orion Sun
“XS” - Rina Sawayama
“Lifetime” - Romy
“Time and Place” - Moon Bounce
“Bucciarati (featuring Kari Faux)” - Open Mike Eagle
“Surreal”- Dan Croll
“Stronghold” - Habibi
“Back at the Beginning” - Caroline Rose
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TRANSCRIPT
Allison Parssi [AP]: Welcome to She’s Wildewoman! I’m Allison Parssi
Eta [E]: And I’m DJ Etamame
[AP]: You’ll be hearing from us as we take you through the tracks that got us through 2020.
[E]: Starting us off is The 1975 with “I Think There’s Something You Should Know”
[Play “I Think There’s Something You Should Know” by The 1975]
AP: Hi Eta! How are you?
E: I’m great! I’m glad to be joining you on today’s show of She’s Wildewoman, the songs that got us through 2020.
AP: I am so glad that you’re here. There isn’t any other person I could do this with honestly.
E: [laughs] Shucks, I could say the same with you… The track you just heard was from The 1975, “I Think There’s Something You Should Know.”
AP: I absolutely love this song. I definitely listened to it a lot this year - on repeat, ten times in a row. I did lots of walking to this song, lots of dancing to this song, lots of dancing while on a walk to this song. Like it was just on all the time and you know, I started questioning why I resonated with this song and this album so much. You know, like The 1975 is just this huge band. I remember seeing them opening for a band down at a small club in Fort Lauderdale, FL and now as recently as 2019, I saw them in a huge arena. They’ve just blown up… The record and this song specifically made me so incredibly seen. That is super important with music. I think that’s what people look for all the time and just the pairing of these vulnerable lyrics paired with these danceable beats is what made this record one of my tops this year.
E: You’ve been a long time fan of the 1975 as well, right?
AP: I owe a lot of that to my sister. I took her to see them open for another band down in Florida and she fell in love with them. Now that we live together, it’s kind of like we listen to them all the time ‘cause both of us really like them.
E: That’s the perfect scenario - to have a good listening partner.
AP: It is and when the record came out we both sat in our living room and played it front to back with mood lighting and it was just such a beautiful moment.
E: What are your surprises for music? I feel like normally for our top albums of the year we kind of know roughly, which artist are going to pop up and some of those contenders did come up this year, but there were so many surprise albums that came up for us where we just, we zoned in on them once they were released kind of thing.
AP: Oh for sure. This year was filled with, I mean, as you said with lots of surprises. I think not only, in terms of music releases, but also just the way I listened to music kind of surprised me. I don’t know about you, but I wasn’t listening to as many full albums as I typically do. I felt like when I found a track that I loved on a record, that was the only thing I was listening to. I would throw it on a playlist. I was just constantly listening and making playlists and mixes and finding singles, which is abnormal for how I normally listen to music.
E: Oh yeah, I definitely had that experience too. I think I listened to our playlist more - favorite tracks that we had selected from albums and I kept favoriting the albums and reminding myself, “I will go back and listen to this” and it sort of was this meandering journey before I finally gave these albums a good listen to put together a comprehensive list.
AP: Once again, we are on the same page. It became really apparent when all of the top album lists started coming out. You know, Pitchfork, NPR, Consequence, Rough Trade, you know they’re all putting out their “Top Album” lists and I didn’t listen to a lot of the records that were these lists, in full at least. I heard a few tracks from a lot of them, but as far as listening to full records it was not a thing I did.
E: But cha know, I can say our listeners are in for an epic listening experience. What’s so fun about this list that we’ve put together in this show is one, I would say, just the variance. We have different genres that we’ll be featuring - starting us off will be nice and poppy, we’ll get into a couple ballads as well as some electronic type tracks.
AP: Going back to how we were listening - we decided to take y’all through the songs that got us through 2020. There is some overlap between the songs that got us through 2020 and our top albums, but these are just the songs that really stood out to us this year... I feel like one of the things that’s most notable about 2020 is all of the amazing protest music that was made as a result of the 2020 Black Lives Matter Movement. We’re going to listen to two different tracks. The first one is by this mysterious band called Sault. There is not a lot of information known about them other than that they are from the UK and they are incredibly prolific. They’ve had two years in a row where they’ve released two albums. All of them have been unannounced, you know, so they’re all surprises. These records are political, poetic, and just a celebration of Black people and their experiences. Here is “I Just Want to Dance” by Sault. Here on She’s Wildewoman of Drawstring Magazine.
[Play “I Just Want to Dance” by Sault]
[Play “Fight Like Ida B and Marsha P” by Ric Wilson]
AP: You’re tuned in to She’s Wildewoman here on Drawstring Magazine. You just heard from local Chicago artist and activist, Ric Wilson with his track “Fight Like Ida B and Marsha P.” Such a good all time anthem. He released this track this past June in honor of Pride month - it was a very timely release to uplift the Black Lives Matter Movement that’s happening and was happening back in June - honoring the Black women, the queer, trans and non-binary Black folks who have been leading activists throughout history. This track, as a single, just stood out and is so powerful.
E: Both of those tracks, I would agree with you. Very powerful. You had introduced them to me through our playlist. So, thank you for finding those.
AP: I feel like it’s important and they’re just good songs. Ric Wilson’s track was just a perfect summer anthem, a perfect protest anthem, all the time, you know, it was a perfect all the time anthem.
E: In the next track, we’ll hear from an artist that Allison and I have kept on our radar since college radio. It’s Sylvan Esso’s Free Love album.
AP: The track is called “Frequency” and it’s so graceful. That’s how I’m going to describe the track. There is minimal production to really bring focus to Amelia Meath’s vocals and storytelling of a young girl falling in love with a radio DJ despite only ever hearing her voice. It’s just this song of yearning. There’s a beautiful music video that’s directed by Moses Sumney that is, I think, the perfect visualization for the music that Sylvan Esso made.
E: And I found with Free Love it’s kind of a seamless transition between tracks - it’s sort of, upon the first listen, sometimes it’s hard to distinguish the tracks from each other because they really stuck with their theme well. For me at least, it was also hard to pick a favorite track. I kind of just, fell into the album as a whole.
AP: We’ve loved them for such a long time, since their debut record, and I feel like we’ve grown up with them. We see their natural growth through their music. They’re trying new things and aren’t afraid to try new things and I think it’s kind of a perfect metaphor for how we’ve grown.
E: From Sylvan Esso, here is “Frequency” on She’s Wildewoman.
[Play “Frequency” by Sylvan Esso]
[Play “People, I’ve Been Sad” by Christine & the Queens]
AP: That was “People, I’ve Been Sad” by Christine & the Queens, one of my all time favorite songs of this year.
E: I remember you and I had a phone call specifically about this album and the accompanying short film that went with it.
AP: Yes, we did. Of course, we did. I was so obsessed with this song and this EP and the rest of this EP and the short film that accompanied this whole musical endeavor were released as a surprise all at once in February. I love Christine & the Queens for so many reasons. I think she just is able to blend all of her artistic skills with one another so beautifully, so when this EP came out, I flipped out. For this track specifically, she’s speaking from a very personal place. The song is addressing her feelings of immense sadness and owning and admitting that she has been so incredibly sad because she had recently gone through a romantic loss as well as the loss of her mother, but then as the rest of the year continued, the track took on a whole other meaning, which is, I think, the most beautiful part about it.
E: Another album that stood out for us this year was from Lianne La Havas. After a five year hiatus, she’s back with a beautiful self-titled record and the songs on here are spacious, they have this natural meandering, but the focus is always on La Havas’s voice and her intricate guitar work. In this track that we’ve selected, “Please Don’t Make Me Cry” she takes us on a journey of a long term relationship that’s vulnerable and deeply personal. The track was also produced by musician Nick Hakim, which just adds another layer of texture in addition to La Havas’s style. I also find another really cool part of this track is towards the end, you have her voice sort of fading into this prolonged note. And then the instrumentation just comes in and helps you meditate on the message she’s sending. It kind of maybe happens three quarters into the song. It’s truly exceptional. I didn’t hear it coming personally, so it was a nice surprise and something I look forward to every time I listen to this track. So without further ado, we’ll here from Lianne La Havas, “Please Don’t Make Me Cry” on She’s Wildewoman.
[Play “Please Don’t Make Me Cry” by Lianne La Havas]
[Play “Holy Water” by Orion Sun]
E: Welcome back to She’s Wildewoman hosted on Drawstring Magazine. You’re here with DJ Etamame
AP: And I’m Wildewoman.
E: We just heard from Philadelphia based artist Orion Sun, who released this album in late March called Hold Space For Me. It’s a soft R&B/neo-soul album that reflects on raw emotion. Orion Sun has explained the album name as a feeling of acceptance from someone close to you without the feeling like you’re a burden in their life. Which is kind of a powerful thought. When we’re in that type of situation, sometimes it’s easy to fall into that mind trap that you’re burdening others when there are people that do care about us and will go out of their way to make that space.
AP: That whole concept for this record is so incredibly amazing and so important and I feel like now more than ever, it’s important to hold space for the people that we care for in our life. And I think Orion Sun can musically translate those feelings in an amazing way.
E: Yeah, I would agree. Orion Sun is one of those artists who uses poetic writing and these soft acoustics to allow the listener to think deeply about current circumstances in the world, but also a way to process them and recover overall. Truly, this album was a treat to listen to front to back.
AP: Yes, it was and this was one that you brought to my attention… I am just going to take a moment to say that I have really enjoyed going through all this music with you. It’s been a great way to kind of look back at the full year.
E: Another milestone we hit this year was having the most songs on our collaborative playlist than we ever have before, by at least 100 songs. We outpaced ourselves.
AP: Now, I think it is pretty safe to say that we are going to transition into a different vibe and this vibe is going to be more upbeat and potentially a little bit more intense. I don’t know if you would agree with that.
E: I would agree, but I will say it’s a good intensity. It’s like when you’re doing your reps and they tell you to do double time. [laughs] Like, it’s good for you. You’re gonna like it.
[both laugh]
AP: Oh, for sure. As I loved this Rina Sawayama record that I totally slept on! The record came out in April and it took me until this past week to listen to it in full. Rina Sawayama is a Japanese-British artist who is based in the UK. I think it’s funny to note that she’s on the same record label as The 1975 and I’m just putting this out there right now - I want the two of them to tour together. I think it would be this amazing, totally mind blowing show if they were to tour together. She has a lot of pop and dance influences, but also brings in nu-metal into her art. In a very short description of what she sounds like, it’s like a combination of Britney Spears, Evanescence, and FKA Twigs, but in a very, very, very, very good way. [laughs] We are going to hear the track “XS,” from her record SAWAYAMA, that kind of is all encompassing of her sound and it’s also just a banger.
[Play “XS” by Rina Sawayama]
[Play “Lifetime” by Romy]
AP: You are listening to She’s Wildewoman on Drawstring Magazine. I am Wildewoman here with...
E: DJ Etamame.
AP: The track you just heard was “Lifetime” by Romy. This was another one of my most played tracks of 2020. The track has only been out for two and a half months and it ended up in my no. 3 most listened-to spot. I’m just sayin’...
E: That’s impressive. Impressive amount of listening in a short amount of time.
AP: It’s just so happy. I don’t know any other way to describe it. So, Romy is the frontwoman of the xx and this is the first single she’s released on her own as a solo artist.
E: I did not realize she was the frontwoman of the xx. And more from the xx, in my mind, is so much softer and this track is a 180 from that.
AP: Oh, for sure! And I think that is something that she intentionally wanted. A big inspiration for her was dance music and the club scene from the early 90s and 2000s and when she first started DJing at gay clubs in London. Those are the feelings she wanted to bring to the forefront in this track.
E: It definitely worked.
AP: My all time favorite part of the track - there’s this background vocal that almost serves like the chorus of the song where she alternates between saying “I’ll be right beside you, you’ll be right beside me.” I didn’t really notice it until recently, maybe a week and a half ago or so. That alternating lyric is just so beautiful and is such a nice addition and small detail to make this track so inclusive.
E: I’m so glad you noticed that detail, but I’m also not surprised. Yeah, you caught on this little embellishment of an already awesome track… Now that we’ve had our nice, upbeat session we’ll cool things down in the next set. Lined up I have a track from the LA R&B/electronic artist Moon Bounce, who masterfully creates these fun, glitchy tracks and fits his melodic vocals effortlessly into the flow. This album, Time and Place, came out earlier in the year - in February. Compared to his previous albums, I would say this one is a little more down tempo, but nonetheless has some of his signature style of unanticipated drops, overlapping melodies, and too real lyrics. Particularly the closing track, “Parties,” features his exhausted monologue of not wanting to be at a party. It hits too real. It’s wonderful… I chose the title track “Time and Place” to share on the show today and as Moon Bounce reminds us in this track, you don’t have to engage and be tuned in 100% of the time. Time and place allows us to meditate on this idea and teleport to a realm of our choosing.
[Play “Time and Place” by Moon Bounce]
[Play “Bucciarati (featuring Kari Faux)” by Open Mike Eagle]
AP: You are listening to She’s Wildewoman here on Drawstring Magazine. The track you just heard was “Bucciarati” by Open Mike Eagle, who used to live in Chicago. Now he lives in LA, no hard feelings, but you know. [laughs] And I am not going to pretend that I know anything about anime. I’m just going to admit that I did research because this track is based off of an anime character named Bruno Bucciarati from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. This character, Bruno Bucciarati, has the ability to create zippers on any object, so he can zip and unzip literally anything, including himself. It’s an interesting ability, I think.
E: Don’t knock it till you try it! [laughs]
AP: [laughs] But I think that this record that Open Mike Eagle released this past year, it’s called Anime, Trauma, Divorce, was kind of about how he felt like his personal life was falling apart while he was succeeding professionally with his music and other endeavors he was pursuing. So I think that for him, writing with this character in mind was a metaphor for him. Just kind of wishing he could kind of zip and unzip to resolve issues that he was experiencing. It’s a slow burn that is super vulnerable, has Kari Faux featured in it - which she’s a star in her own right and is great on this track. Overall, a standout track from this year for me.
E: Yeah, I would agree. I had a lot of fun listening to this one.
AP: Another fun track we have coming up for y’all is a track from one of our favorite artists, another one that we’ve loved since the beginning, who is Dan Croll.
E: Oh yeah, we can’t have a top albums list without Dan Croll’s latest album release.
AP: You are absolutely correct. We cannot leave him out whatsoever.
E: He released a couple of EPs that kind of all made up the entire album. So fortunately for usit meant we got to have these tracks early in the year. His sound still has the harmonies that we know him for and just the relaxed energy about it.
AP: I would agree with that. It’s definitely more focused sonically, but I think what we’ve observed for Dan Croll over his career is that he’s kind of hard to pin down musically. He’s tried something different with every record and even within each record, which just shows natural growth and that he’s not afraid to experiment and he’s not committed to this one idea of the music he makes. This album is just more consistent in sound. It has a more folk vibe - this country, psych, soul music almost, that’s really beautiful. I really enjoyed the whole record, but it’s definitely calmer I guess.
E: We are going to get into this track “Surreal” from Dan Croll on She’s Wildewoman.
[Play “Surreal” by Dan Croll]
[Play “Stronghold” by Habibi]
AP: That was Habibi with their track “Stronghold” here on She’s Wildewoman of Drawstring Magazine. I am Wildewoman here with...
E: DJ Etamame.
AP: Okay, so Habibi is this awesome all female group from Brooklyn that has a sound, as you just heard, that’s a mix of 60s psych rock with Iranian pop/experimental music. They released their debut back in 2014 and I know I was absolutely obsessed. Six years later, they have given us their second album called Anywhere But Here and it does not disappoint. Aside from this record being amazing, there is a more personal connection to this record, and I think subconsciously with their first record, because a journey that my sister and I have started to slowly go on is learning and reclaiming an Iranian part of our heritage. My dad moved here from Iran when he was 18 and there’s so much to kind of unpack with his experience and our experiences growing up with him and our mom, but discovering this band and that Habibi’s lead singer, Rahill Jamalifard, is a daughter of Iranian immigrants was just so eye opening to me. It was just the first time I had heard of an Iranian woman making music that I loved and connected with. It was this little door to this much bigger world that I am just now starting to uncover.
E: That is so beautiful and just a testament to the ability to grow through music… We are down to the last track of the show. We are going to hear the track “Back to the Beginning” by Caroline Rose. This comes from her album Superstar that was released early this year in March and broke away from the more indie rock style of her album Loner. Superstar starts with indie pop off the bat - it has “Feel the Way I Want,” one of the singles, an instant grab and probably midway through the album, switches to indie alternative sound. So you can easily go from dancing around to decompressing with this album from just one listen. Rose is an excellent storyteller as well - walking the listener through the Chateau Marmont lobby in “Nothing’s Impossible,” or an adobe shack in the track “Pipe Dreams.” Also, she self-directed the music video for “Feel the Way I Want” where she mistakenly starts in Hollywood, CA instead of Hollywood, FL where her audition is located. But she just shakes it off and puts some headphones on and the song starts playing and she travels on foot across the U.S. just unbothered by this misunderstanding while she’s moving through these unique indoor and outdoor settings.
AP: She just embraces the parts of herself and is good humored - like that music video is such a good representation of her. I love it so much, I think it’s so humorous. She brings this wittyness to her music in such a thoughtful way. I love that part of listening to her.
E: This track, “Back at the Beginning,” it’s one of the closing tracks on the album, but hooks you in early with the distorted guitar melody, followed by a steady drum beat just in those first few measures. Once the chorus hits though, it’s game over. Rose’s voice draws you in despite this apocalyptic picture taking form in the lyrics. One of my favorite lyrics in the track is when she kind of fades into the background and says “I am gone…” with not so much as an auditory glance as the music plays on. It’s really well done and I think it makes sense for us to conclude with this track. “Back at the Beginning” by Caroline Rose on She’s Wildewoman.
[Play “Back at the Beginning” by Caroline Rose]
AP: Eta, I want to thank you so much for coming on She’s Wildewoman with me, once again. As always, it is a pleasure talking with you about music and listening to music, especially as we end this weird year.
E: Allison, thank you so much for continually introducing me to the right music, new music, keeping our playlist going and setting a record for the number of tracks we added this year. I know how much music means to you and how much it means to both of us. I’ll never get tired of that experience that we have together - sharing of music.
AP: Well you are the only person I could even think of doing this with. I know we will, you know, see each other in our 2021 playlist.
E: Oh, absolutely. It’s going to go strong.
AP: You have been listening to She’s Wildewoman on Drawstring Magazine.
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