Better in Headphones

Here we are at the end if another year, and I only made 3 mixes of new songs this year (plus 2 Bands editions). My output has fallen off of a cliff, sadly. I have to accept that I am not finding the time nor motivation to produce these as frequently as I'd like. In fact what has been happening more and more is I am not completing mixes before I already have enough new music for another mix, so by the time I go back to finish the first one, it has already gotten a little stale. So I am going to change the way I do this.

Here is the deal from now on: instead of struggling to find time to produce mixes I am going to share an Apple Music playlist (I'll try to get Spotify running as well), and keep that updated throughout the year. Apple Music is the main reason for my drop in productivity, because I am really discovering all my new music through that nowadays. I highly recommend it. Here is a playlist for 2016, organized in a sort of decent-sounding order:

Apple Music: BiH Songs 2016

Spotify: BiH Songs 2016 (Coming soon, hopefully)

I will come back here and provide new links for a 2017 playlist once I get a few tracks there worth hearing.

So my general plan is for BiH to become a playlist each year, and I will still make mixes of bands to serve as a sort of 'best-of' for my favorite artists (I have a bunch of these in progress already) . And I will also do an annual mix of some of my favorite songs from that year. Here is this year's, which only includes a few favorites not heard on BiH mixes previously:

BiH Favoritest Songs of the Year: 2016 feat. Communist Daughter, Animal Collective, pronoun, Seahawks, Morgan Delt, Tallest Man on Earth, David Bowie, Wye Oak, SHELLS, Japandroids

This already feels so confusing, so let's summarize: BiH will now be annual playlists that I add to over time (and maybe subtract from if I get sick of a song or change my mind about it), an annual favorites mix, occasional bands mixes, and perhaps other mixes in between, but I am no longer making any promises on those.

Thanks for listening. I really do love that BetterInHeadphones is a thing. Personally I have been really enjoying the 2016 playlist, and I hope you do as well.

Until next year, all my best to everyone. xoxo

It seems these mixes are highlighting more and more well-known tracks. That's not necessarily  bad thing, but I used to mostly include obscure amazing tracks. I also used to have a lot more free time to listen to music. Alas, this one is still pretty damn great. The new Frank Ocean dropped this last weekend and you'll hear a few of my favorite tracks here. I saw the Church open for the Psychedelic Furs a month ago and their closing song, Miami, was the highlight of the night. Animal Collective remixed Bob Dylan (beautifully) for his birthday. Preoccupations, formerly Viet Cong, have a new album that is seriously soooooo good and the longest track on that also happens to be my favorite. I just heard this Animal Feeling track for the first time today (I try  to do this on every new mix: include a last-minute, great-sounding jam that I hope will stand the test of time, though sometimes I miss on these). Cardiknox has produced one of the best pop songs of 2016 IMO. I've had this Amber Quintero on a playlist for a while. And of course, The Avalanches. Duh. 

Great headphone songs, all. And great commute music.

BiH 54 feat Frank Ocean, Amber Quintero, Bob Dylan (remixed by Animal Collective), Preoccupations, The Church, Cardiknox, Animal Feelings ft. Nomi Ruiz, The Avalanches

This one is a mix of slower electronic tracks that build to a wallop and slowly sort of fades ultimately into a 7 minute, mostly-acoustic little beauty to close it out. But if you listen, you'll hear that for yourself.

Mostly new music, though I somehow missed this Kiln album a few years back and I've been listening to that a bit lately. But the new Holy Fuck, Deakin, the 1975, Rogue Wave and much more is represented here.

I have been looking forward to this one. :-) I hope you enjoy it.

BiH 53 feat. The 1975, Deakin, Kiln, Plastic Flowers, Holy Fuck, Dual Point, Cool Ghouls, Midday Veil, Bear Hands, Rogue Wave, Dustin Tebbutt

I guess this sort plays like more of a greatest hits for these guys really. But it is remarkable that they have so many hits. I never got into their albums overall, and even my favorite albums had lots of tracks I'd skip. But these guys produced more than just a lot of drama in the media. They made some incredible music. 

At least as hated as they are loved, Oasis made it difficult to ignore them. Here they are at what I consider their best.

BiH Bands : Oasis

It's not that I don't want to publish more of these, it's just that I don't have enough time. But whatever. I complain about it every time, so I should just accept the new cadence and roll with it. I have made a few goes at BiH 52 over the last few months and it just never got off the ground. I think starting with this one, I am just going to be a bit less discriminating. We get what we get when we get it, and some will be better than others. Despite my efforts, BiH has always been this way. 5.5 years now. My other recent issue is Painting With, the new Animal Collective album. I haven't really needed to listen to anything else and it has been in steady rotation, daily. Oh and I need 4 of these tickets so hit me up if you have extras. Any at all... NM and I did catch them at the Fox in Oakland and it was pretty incredible. A mix of new and old material, mostly new. But I had never seen them perform Feels-era material before myself. This is a long tour so check them out if you can. Certainly one of the best bands out there right now by a long shot. Onto this mix, which does not include any Painting With songs because you should just listen to that album, and uncharacteristically only includes one song that I heard for the first time today. This is a healthy mix of a lot of different types of music. You'll dance, you'll cry, you'll trip out, you'll get down with your lady or your man (or both). I hope you enjoy it, and hope it was worth the wait. BiH 52 feat. Animal Collective, DIIV, LE, The Foxies, 16 Bit Lolitas, Brett, colourwaves, Memoryhouse, Abelard (remixed by Dream Fiend), Bows, The Album Leaf, Amrit Thanks yet again to Nic C. for the cover. Check out the rest of his work at instagram.com/ncour 

Hello everyone. My apologies for not having any new mixes in so long. But here is a nice mix from one of the best bands ever.

The Smiths were not around for all that long, and I am confident that we will never see a reunion from these guys. Nowadays Coachella and other festivals pay millions of dollars to get bands back together and The Smiths are probably at the top of many most-wanted lists. It isn't ever going to happen. But we can still listen to their records, which are still amazing 30+ years later. 

For me it was The Queen is Dead. I was familiar with other songs before that but when I got that cassette, it didn't leave my player for weeks (and  I used to deliver pizza so I drove a lot). My friend PM and I spent over a week in NH listening to nothing but that album; I had just picked it up before our trip. We listened in the car, took the out tape and listened in the house, took it on the boat and listened there too. 

I made this a few weeks ago and I have listened to it many times. It has been awesome getting back into a band I loved so much when I was younger. I think I may make a few more nostalgic mixes soon. And maybe I'll even finish a mix of new music at some point too. But for now, I am going to let these gents speak for themselves.

2015 was personally a very busy year and I thus made the fewest BiH mixes in my 5+ year tenure as your humble music presenter. I hope to do better in 2016. But as a result there are a handful of songs on this mix that were among my favorites for the year but which never actually made it onto a BiH mix (granted, they are on some unreleased, unfinished mixes). I am not sure at this point if it makes sense to include them in future mixes or not. TBD. 2015 was a pretty great year for music. Sadly I still have a boatload of unheard tracks in my iTunes for the year, but that's okay. I'll get to it eventually. I heard plenty of great new stuff this year. I also had the pleasure of seeing some of my favorite new artists at the Treasure Island Music Festival this year (The National, CHVRCHES, Panda Bear, Run the Jewels, many many more). I'll probably make the TIMF an annual thing. The lineup this year was pretty epic, and they have been in year's past as well. I suspect the future will be no different. I know this mix doesn't include as many unknown artists as last year's Favoritest Songs edition; I guess that has to do with me not hearing as much unknown music this year. I really should try to commit to hearing it all in 2016. We recently lost our dog for a few days, but we found her. That explains why I used the same cover for this edition as I did for 2014. I love this picture. We love our dog and it is great to have her back home, to say the least. BiH Favoritest Songs of the Year: 2015 feat. Deerhunter, Wild Nothing, Tame Impala, Panda Bear, Animal Collective,  Beach House, Gordi, Skylar Spence, Animal House, Transviolet, Tamaryn, Beach Baby, AKIINE (remixed by Niva), Adele

In 1998, Boards of Canada released Music Has the Right to Children, and it was the most original thing I had heard since I couldn't even tell you. And that is really ironic because there was nothing all that original about it. There wasn't anything there that Aphex Twin and many others hadn't touched on before. But somehow with their deeply nostalgic tones, analog synths, field recording samples, and modern beats, they evoked something personal and beautiful deep down within me (for seemingly everyone else who heard it as well). It was a brand new feeling, yet reminiscent of something almost forgotten: childhood. The album is peppered with samples of giggling children at play, and  song titles like Happy Cycling (not to mention the album's title), and even the album's images just brought me back to my childhood in the 1970's. It was like looking at an old photograph. Honestly, what does that? I suppose some books, and hearing songs that we loved when we were young. But this was new!  The EP that followed much later, A Beautiful Place Out in the Country, furthered this. But they were never able to capture that greatness with subsequent albums, though who could possibly expect them to, or why would they have to? MHTRTC is not only the best BoC album, it is still one of the greatest albums ever made. That being said, there are only a few tracks from that album included here. That is one of those albums that really stands on its own and should be listened to start to finish to really understand it (it reminds me a bit of another of my all-time favorite albums, Unknown Pleasures; I love both of these albums but trying to pick out the 'best' songs is futile because it is the way they all fit together and form something greater than the sum the of their parts that makes them both so incredible). But all of the BoC stuff is at least good, and at best is absolutely sublime. Here is a sampler that spans much of their lengthy career. If you even remotely enjoy this, find the time to give Music Has the Right to Children a proper listen (no distractions, just you and that music) from start to finish. BiH Bands: Boards of Canada

It's been a while. My last new mix was published 3 months ago. My apologies. Life is a little hectic and I am not finding the time I used to to make these. I still get tons of new music, I just don't get to hear it. In fact, I still have a ton to sort through. But I am off work this whole week, and my wife is working most days so I hope to tackle the pile (though I just heard the new Adele and that may take up a lot of time...it's so good!).

I feel like I have been working on this one forever. I have been listening to unfinished, rough versions of this for too long. I have another one close to completion which I expect to get to this week. I promise it will not be another 3 months.

In other news, happy 5 year anniversary to BiH! I cannot believe it has been 5 years since I started this. It all started in an Apple Store Genius Room where I once worked and needed a soundtrack. Thanks PM and JB for the encouragement early on. Thanks to all the artists I have featured for the retweets over the years. Thanks to all the artists just for doing what you do, actually.

Finally, a huge thanks to NC for letting me pillage his Instagram feed at instagram.com/ncour for BiH covers. This one also features his amazing work.

BiH 51 feat. Grimes, Perils, Yung, Aaron, Conner Youngblood, Deerhunter, Andrei Eremin, Chad Valley, BARO, The Besnard Lakes, Dr. Quandary, Crescendo

I made a whole series of BiH Love mixes when I met my wife, before she was my wife, and I dismantled all but 1 and 5 for our Wedding Mix. And I published both along with BiH Wedding Day.  Tonight my wife is out at a concert that was supposed to be whatever but now I'm jealous because Spoon and St Vincent and Sheryl Crow and Neil Young are all playing (found that out today). I had an awesome night home alone with the kids so I wouldn't trade that for being at the show and seeing Spoon play 4 songs, but I listened to Love 4 and damn, it's really good. So here it is. I love my wife and love my family and this mix is the 4th in a series chronicling my love for them all. I made this a few years ago but since I am a) slow to finish BiH 51 (I'm working on it, along with 6 other mixes, a few of which will likely never be published) and b) it's really really good and has Billy Squier and New Order and the Psychedelic Furs and Til Tuesday and quite possibly my favorite mix ever (PM Dawn into George Michael), and more awesomeness... this needs to be heard. So here you go. BiH Love 4 feat songs that Shazam will find for you. p.s.: I just went back and looked at the Wedding Day mix and oops, I published BiH Love 4 with that (not 5 as I mention here from memory). My apologies for the redundancy. Worth it.