The Smokler 50 2024 aka Kevin's 50 Favorite Songs from the Past Year
Hello, friends. It's Kevin. Thank you for listening. Much gratitude for your nice words and positive feedback on the year end newsletter I sent last week. I even received a complimentary note from a 10 year old reader who is thinking about doing her own favorite books newsletter.
We should encourage this.
To the business at hand.
Every January since 2012, I have taken all of the songs I first learned of that past year, whittled then organized them them into a 50 song playlist. I gave it the name The Smokler 50 because I had no better idea and after the first year, someone asked me when the next Smokler 50 was coming. How could I let down my stadium of one fan?
The facts of this endeavor are…
I get the 50 final songs from a list of about 400 contenders most years. The biggest group one year was about 900 songs which made the whole whittling and organizing take until about St. Patricks Day.
“New” songs doesn’t mean “Songs that were released that year.” It means “songs that were new to me i.e. I heard them for the first time that year.”
I am a 52 year old white married man originally from Middle America. The contents of each year’s playlist reflect that. If they reflect that too much, I have been musically lazier than I should have been. I work on that very thing throughout the year
If I have done my job it will seem like the songs are kind all over the place (reggae followed by metal followed by brit pop followed by something in Urdu?). That’s because I believe music should be a map to wander by not a comfort food to be removed from cold Tupperware. At least if you’re going to make a years project of exploring it.
I started doing this so I didn’t feel like my mind was falling out of my head at the end of each year when I took quiet breaths and asked “what was my favorite music from this past year?” I have a terrible mid-term memory and a family history of Alzheimer's so the fear of say, forgetting my middle name someday, is real.
So I notate, obsessively. Maybe foolishly too.
The Smokler 50 2024 is available now on Spotify and YouTube. Scatterlings of previous years (2023, 2019, 2015 ,2012)are on those same platforms.
Liner notes for the 2024 edition.
2024 was a dark year in the world, in America. The first eight songs are all about darkness, in, around, between the ribs, aching the soul.
Tracks 16-18 are “The New Orleans Block” as my wife and I were fortunate to attend the French Quarter Festival this past spring. You should too, particularly if New Orleans Jazz Fest strikes to as gargantuan and scary.
Songs 25-28 are together when I realized I had several numbers that were either by Dolly Parton, by her peers and friends or by her musical daughters and nieces.
At position 35 is the theme song for the vastly underrated 90’s children’s television program “The Adventures of Pete and Pete” which has been a pop culture highlight and continues as such.
Song 50 is the concluding song, during the concluding moments of the television series “Cowboy Bebop” which I have never seen but a dear friend introduced me to the song during a formative conversation about series finales.
No need to listen in order unless transitions are important to you. Goal is to find 3-5 artists you were not familiar with heretofore and would like to be now. The most efficient way to accomplish this is listen carefully to the songs that move you then research the artists behind them further and skip fast (like out the door with one shoe on fast)
Enjoy. We gonna be talking about my new book next.
Kevin
Kevin
Written while cold.
Logo by Dave Linabury.