| 1 | Orkhys | "Home" | single | I went to look up Orkhys, because I didn't recognize the name. They are French. As I write this, they have 113 monthly listeners on Spotify, and the #4 playlist from which people have discovered them is this one, before I have even published it. |
| 2 | Solarus | "A Dance With Tragedy" | single | If I had the power to generate beautiful power-metal bands by my own solipsistic will, |
| 3 | Battle Beast | "Eye of the Storm" | Eye of the Storm +1 | presumably I would also have the ability to keep the New England Revolution from losing their first-round playoff game after the best regular season in MLS history. |
| 4 | We Are the Catalyst | "I Will Follow" | Perseverance | Or maybe not. In music, our solipsisms do not have to compete. |
| 5 | Cyan Kicks | "Invincible" | single | I've never felt even remotely as bad, after a song, as I felt after that game, |
| 6 | Secret Rule | "Welcome to Hell" | single | but I've felt more elated after, and in the middle of, thousands of songs |
| 7 | False Memories | "Our Truth" | single | than I have after any sports outcome. |
| 8 | Fallcie | "Hollow" | single | This is either a reason to quit following soccer for mental health, |
| 9 | Reliqa | "The Bearer of Bad News" | single | or a reason to keep following it for emotional strength, |
| 10 | Depressed Mode | "Endless November" | single | but I am suspicious of circular justifications for pain, |
| 11 | Tarja | "Closer to the Sky" | single | of symbolic sacrifice used to sell you more emotional investment in things you can't control. |
| 12 | NEO JAPONISM | "BLACK and WHITE" | single | The next soccer season doesn't begin until February. |
| 13 | Fiore | "Sing it" | single | The next song begins right now. |
| 14 | GRAND FINALE | "Everything Has An End" | Everything Has An End 5 | Maybe we don't actually need pretend gladiators telling us that joy must be redistributed from the many to the few through a process of elimination, |
| 15 | リリスリバース | "Jibun Kaihou Sengen" | LIBERATION 4 | and then insisting that the few are only hoarding it on our behalf. |
| 16 | Reol | "Boy" | single | I cheer for the hopeless, not for victory but just for persistence, |
| 17 | 眩暈SIREN | "紫陽花" | 喪失 | most enthusiastically when even the hopelessness itself is obscure: |
| 18 | yama | "世界は美しいはずなんだ" | Oz. / 世界は美しいはずなんだ / スモーキーヒロイン 4 | for Gibraltar against Belgium, |
| 19 | Hikaru Utada | "君に夢中" | single | for Vanessa Mae skiing, |
| 20 | Regal Lily | "チェインスモーク" | アルケミラ 3 | for smallness amidst colossi. |
| 21 | Lucie,Too | "シワの種" | single | But isn't this a distraction the colossi sell us |
| 22 | BiS | "BASIS" | single | right before they crush it? |
| 23 | On the treat Super Season | "burst" | single | Architecture starts tending towards brutalism |
| 24 | AREINT | "YOU CAN DO IT!" | single | the moment you call it "architecture" instead of how we share the same amount of planet with more humans. |
| 25 | zenbukiminoseida. | "SCAR SIGN" | FlashBack NightMare | We shouldn't have to wait until billionaires are glibly thanking their economic victims for funding their pointless trips to crap at the edge of space |
| 26 | ELFENSJóN | "奈落の魔女" | single | to realize that "economy" is the way to talk about symbolic value |
| 27 | Utsu-P | "切腹 (feat. 鏡音リン)" | UNIQUE | as if its existence is not only independent of actual value |
| 28 | JACKIE EXTREME | "SIREN SONG" | single | but the goal of it. |
| 29 | You Love Her Coz She's Dead | "Be Brave" | single | In the same way we become graphic designers who care passionately about the colors and fonts |
| 30 | Jaguar Jonze | "WHO DIED AND MADE YOU KING? - Feat. Shungudzo" | single | of words we don't understand, |
| 31 | TeZATalks | "Drowning" | single | and eloquent ambassadors of brands we don't have the authority to defend. |
| 32 | CMTEN | "555" | single | Thus rebellion is always available to anyone willing to do a thing |
| 33 | daine | "IDC" | single | for its own sake, |
| 34 | biteki | "when i was suicidal" | single | not to measure some proxy established into meaninglessness. |
| 35 | Age Factory | "Feel like shit today" | Pure Blue | It's tempting to implicate joy in the culture that tries to monetize illusions of it, |
| 36 | Broken my toybox | "かつては少年少女" | single | and this is how we get anti-aesthetics of dissonance, |
| 37 | RADWIMPS | "Togenkyo" | FOREVER DAZE | but joy is impervious to our insidious betrayals |
| 38 | Novelbright | "Designs of Happiness" | seeker / ワンルーム 3 | and unconstrained by our wireframes of how we will make it behave. |
| 39 | SOL | "Keep going on" | single | Break one song, and the next one starts, |
| 40 | STEREO DIVE FOUNDATION | "Closer than friends" | TRISTAR 5 | and the first one is healed and whole again by the time you can remember which arrows |
| 41 | UVERworld | "イーティー" | AVALANCHE 4 | point towards your ineffectual regrets. |
| 42 | Analogfish | "Moonlight" | single | You wrap your logos around it, and we play it in the dark. |
| 43 | The Florist | "Enemy" | IN CVLT | You sync it to your message, and we learn to play it slower, |
| 44 | Esprit D'Air | "出逢い - オーケストラ・ミックス" | single | until you are suspended helplessly among your groundless words. |
| 45 | DRASTIC BOYS | "Intro" | Kyoumei 3 | You call it a soundtrack, and we turn away from the screen. |
| 46 | MAN WITH A MISSION | "Thunderstruck" | Break and Cross the Walls Ⅰ | You declare the year ended for your convenience, |
| 47 | Tony Iommi | "Scent of Dark" | single | and we cheer and then live the rest of it. |
| 48 | Rhapsody Of Fire | "The Kingdom of Ice" | Glory for Salvation | In any single given game, Gibraltar might beat Belgium, |
| 49 | Neverland | "Megkapod" | A holnap markában | but afterwards it will still be a disputed rock at the edge of an ocean, |
| 50 | Corvus Corax | "Sverker - Era Metallum - Single Edit" | single | with its own legends. |
| 51 | Faun | "Galdra" | single | So are we all. |
| 52 | Tdw | "Fountains" | Fountains | This was the #5 playlist from which listeners discovered Tdw before I published it. It's really TDW, a Dutch progressive-rock project by a guy named Tom de Wit, |
| 53 | Cynic | "The Winged Ones" | Ascension Codes | who I'm only 40% sure isn't also a Belgian gum-implant specialist. |
| 54 | World Without | "Walls" | single | All legends are stories of specificity triumphing over, or within, generality. |
| 55 | Hypocrisy | "Worship" | Worship | Corporatism distorts this by portraying corporations as individuals, |
| 56 | Abiotic | "Mutation" | single | and thus distorts collective action by misrepresenting it as soulless, |
| 57 | In Mourning | "Sovereign" | The Bleeding Veil | and thus condones corporate soullessness by making it seem inevitable. |
| 58 | Dwell in Doom | "Eternal Storm" | Eternal Storm +3 | But the communities in which we gather are only us. |
| 59 | Anomalie | "Trance IV: Nemesis" | Tranceformation | The enemies we imagine are only us. |
| 60 | Negură Bunget | "Iarba Fiarelor" | Zău | You put your heart into hating the players on the team that beat yours, |
| 61 | AA= | "Suite #19" | single | and then they're traded to yours and you have to start over with love. |
| 62 | Quiet is the new Loud | "Nothing to See" | single | Music lets you start with love to begin with. |
| 63 | Thisquietarmy | "Alpha 0000 0001" | The Singularity, Phase I | All of these noises are wonderful. |
| 64 | Moonrunner83 | "Long Long Way" | Long Long Way (feat. Sarah Stephenson) | You don't have to defeat the existing listeners to win a song. |
| 65 | Neon Capital | "Open Water" | single | Just hit Play. |
| 66 | The KVB | "World On Fire" | Unity | Water and fire would happily coexist if we just let them, |
| 67 | Zola Simone | "Fall" | single | if we resist the voracious urge to make a company to sell their steam, |
| 68 | Lindy-Fay Hella | "Brising" | Hildring | or to sell fear based on the promise of steam. |
| 69 | Kate Miller-Heidke | "The Healing Tree" | single | Maybe we don't actually need gladiators, but at least the season ends with the final defeat, |
| 70 | Aili Järvelä | "Unituuli tuivertaa" | Unituulia | and leaves us to our music |
| 71 | Kaylee Bell | "A Heart Don't Break Like That" | Silver Linings | and its stories of better ways to organize hope and disappointment: |
| 72 | Bronnie | "Scream" | single | into three-minute periods with no losers; |
| 73 | Gold Bloom | "xoxo" | single | into ebullient performative surrender; |
| 74 | Red Mecca | "Without a House, Without a Door" | single | into ominous marches |
| 75 | Comandante Twin | "Los Días Más Duros" | Sangrar a Borbotones | we undertake together; |
| 76 | Funambulista | "Hasta Que Amaneciera" | single | into eager acceptance of darkness that isn't predicated on how long it is until light returns, |
| 77 | La Maravillosa Orquesta del Alcohol | "Mañana voy a Burgos" | single | or vice versa. |
| 78 | Cara Calma | "Consumarci" | single | You don't need to make or own your joy, |
| 79 | Alison Darwin | "Guerrera" | single | you have only to open your heart. |
| 80 | Thyla | "Flush" | Flush +2 | The year isn't over, but nothing ends when the year does, either. |
| 81 | Vico da sporo | "Mamela" | single | Next year you will fall in love, |
| 82 | Mnqobi Yazo | "Thela Ngiqhabule" | iStiff 6 | and next year can start right now. |
| 83 | Mashudu Nematoka | "Makoti O Swika Nga Tshopa" | single | We don't sing and listen in order to facilitate an economy. |
| 84 | Skweletu | "Wagxumagxuma" | IBORN FREE-Imnyaka yoshuni | We don't sing to delineate ourselves as the natives among scatterlings. |
| 85 | Sgwebo Sentambo | "Alibuyele Ku Zuma - Radio Edit" | single | You don't have to love anything I love, |
| 86 | Donovan Woods | "I Hope You Change Your Mind" | single | but none of these songs exist because I love them, |
| 87 | Yusuf / Cat Stevens | "Bitterblue² - Reimagined 2021" | Teaser And The Firecat | and you can take them without having to hand anything back: |
| 88 | Roxette | "Fading Like a Flower (Every Time You Leave) - Humberto Gatica Mix" | Joyride 30th Anniversary Edition | Zulu guitars, Swedish guitars, Chilean-American remixers, |
| 89 | The Sound | "13 Hours (Demo)" | Will and Testament / Starlight | songs that outlive us, |
| 90 | Sam Tsui | "All Too Well - Vocoder Version" | single | songs that enter into the machines and come out again still alive, |
| 91 | No Resolve | "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" | We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together +2 | machines of delirious destruction |
| 92 | Sershen&Zaritskaya | "Rock You Like A Hurricane" | single | now available in new chrome |
| 93 | Mantra of Morta | "Master Of Puppets" | single | or new matte. |
| 94 | Lauren Babic | "Easy On Me" | single | We give away hope until we run out of it, and then we take a breath and make more. |