The amount of “personal life” posting I do on this site has dropped sharply for a few reasons. However, one major life change of note is my re-re-location back to New York City. It’s where I was born, where I spent most of my childhood, and where I lived until relocating to Boston in 2007. I’m excited to come back with all that I’ve learned over the past 7 1/2 years. Trust me, I’ve learned a _lot_.
The obsessive in me has a love/hate relationship with playlists. Curating a DJ set (which a playlist essentially is) takes up a lot of brain space for a music geek like me (and I imagine most of you reading this.) In most cases, I’m trying to tell a story or create a mood, so there’s got to be a flow. For me, it’s not as easy as just assembling a handful of songs and throwing them together.
I had the recent brainwave to put a “welcome back to NY” playlist, featuring songs that remind me of the city I call home (hell, even in Boston, I’m a New Yorker). I culled a list of 75 or so songs with the intention of whittling down to 20. I ended up with 50. That means I was successful, right?
I didn’t have any hard and fast rules, but every song featured is either explicitly about NYC or gives me a “New York” feel, or is related to specific memories from my time in the city. I tried to avoid most of the super-obvious songs (no “Empire State Of Mind” and no “New York, New York”-at least not Sinatra’s). I also tried not to repeat artists, even though Simon & Garfunkel appear twice. Biggie technically appears twice as well. Shit, the August Darnell/Kid Creole crew appears twice as well. I was kinda sad to leave off a few artists (Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Public Enemy) but just couldn’t find songs that fit with the mix. One song I really wanted to include (George Michael’s “Crazyman Dance”) is not available on streaming services, and the end result is what you see below. Again, I tried to make it flow (while still making it relatively diverse). The bookend-ish placement of the two “New York State Of Mind”s was intentional. 2Pac and B.I.G. together was intentional. The closing track was legendary NY DJ Frankie Crocker’s sign-off song (and Crocker is probably one of the most influential music tastemakers in my life.) I threw a couple more music geek Easter eggs in there, too. See if you can find ’em! Hope you enjoy the listen!