4 Playlists to try when Working from Home
We have all had to make adjustments during this quarantine.
If you are one of the many who jumped into the world of working from home, I’m sure you have familiarized yourself with a few ‘go-to’ music choices to keep the day moving along. I know you have your favourites but I wanted to introduce you to these 4 playlists because I have a feeling they aren’t in your lineup.
So without further adieu, I want to share with you 4 playlists I bet you aren’t listening to right now.
Ahh where do I even begin with dub. Dub is great. Love love love dub music. Now when I say dub music I have to be specific and say NOT dubstep music. While I do fancy the occasional Skrillex song every now and then let me be clear in saying DUB IS NOTHING LIKE DUBSTEP PLEASE DON’T GET IT TWISTED!
Dub is a musical genre that grew out of Jamacia in the 1950s. It is a sound that is so chill and has such a unique method of using instruments that can be better explained here, so I won’t get into it. All I want to say is dub is great music to work to for me because it’s good background music.
When I was younger I heard it a lot in Kensington Market in Toronto, so when I hear this sound I think of long hot summers walking down Kensington Avenue listening to that soap shop blasting this stuff late into the night. It’s such a specific vibe and I know it’s not for everyone but it is definitely for me. I used to try and sneak songs like this into my work coffee shop playlists all the time. What can I say it’s a vibe.
Let me start by saying this, I am not as familiar with early blues standards as I am with jazz standards and The Great American Songbook. What I can say is that I know my dad liked blues when I was growing up so I remember hearing it on and off as a kid. When it came to this type of music it didn’t make its way into my life until I started listening to The Black Keys on a serious level, also listening to Nirvana’s cover of In the Pines way way way too much as a teen.
I’m very stubborn when it comes to music and other types of arts and culture and if something is referencing something else and I am aware of that thing and like it, then I will go back and learn about the thing they are referencing. I’ve really gotten into listening to the blues during this quarantine (go figure), so I had to go and find the oldest blues recordings I could find. Hence this selection.
Oh my god don’t even get me started. Maybe you’re thinking, oh my god what the hell. An Italian opera singer from the 1990s?
Yes. Absolutely.
If you’ve spoken to me personally over the past year you will not be surprised by this entry. I love this man so much it’s ridiculous. Total fan girl for Pavarotti. Not even joking.
To be honest this love has been a lifelong thing. I liked him as a small child from 0-6 I was hooked. Then it fizzled out a bit because I found The Beatles. Then I discovered the whole world of music and ran off with that for a bit. Then I don’t know what happened. It was 2018 or so and I was just mad at work doing my tasks when I decided to listen to Pavarotti again. I put on ‘O Sole Mio; it was like the first day I heard that song all over again.
I’ve been told that my parents have memories of me as a toddler/small child fully giving my heart to two particular songs. The first of which is Iggy Pop’s Real Wild Child and the second being Luciano Pavarotti’s cover of O’ Sole Mio.
My heart skipped a beat. I said oh my goodness why did I spend all this time away from you Luciano. I’ll never do it again. I’m a 27-year-old millennial living my truth ok. I love Luciano Pavarotti and no one can take that away from me.
Oh how do I explain this one…I’m just going to come out and say it… there will always be a part of me that’s a little bit ‘Euro-trash’.
Now let me be clear, I don’t mean that in a derogatory way. I know I have mentioned this before but for those of you that may be new here I, like many other white North American people, have European heritage. I also am from a neighbourhood with a large European immigrant population and had a very German grandfather. I feel incredibly comfortable around people who don’t speak the same language as I do and as a teenager I connected with peers who had other similar upbringings. One thing we always bonded over was a shared love of European techno music.
Now my knowledge dwarfed in comparison to that of my peers. It didn’t matter because we all danced to those tunes with the same passion, often mimicking the moves we saw out of this video. Of course, some of these moves should not be performed in a public setting but in 2008 this was incredible. Can’t go wrong with a good washing machine move every now and then.
Last year in an attempt to learn more about my European roots, I discovered the YouTube channel Radical Living. This Berlin-based content creator has a unique sense of humour and his portrayals of the city are great. I loved his video on techno. It prompted me to go back and listen to as much techno as I could find. It is the main thing that brought be back to this world. I have no regrets!
Now if I could only find that video of me with my shaved head and my German Adidas football jacket dancing to techno in a Walmart…
Music rocks. That’s a pretty lame sentiment I know, but I believe it wholeheartedly. There are a bunch of other great albums and playlists I listen to when I’m working but these are just a few to get the conversation going.
Share this blog with someone you share music with to see what type of music they listen to when they are working. And let me know if any of these would be tunes you would listen to when you’re working.
Chat soon,
Amanda
