music

9 Songs That Made My 2024 More Sexy/Fun/Bearable

Kate Sloan

In 2024, every time I became obsessed with a song – wanted to listen to it constantly, to roll around in it, live inside it – I would add it to this playlist.

I do this most years, and it’s one of my favorite traditions, because it always leaves me with an evocative musical diary of my year, one that will catapult me right back to this time in my life when I listen to it again in future years. Not every track on the list was recorded or released this year – they’re all just songs that mattered to me a lot in 2024, no matter when they’re from.

Long-time readers might remember that I used to highlight my favorite songs for you at the end of every year (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022), and I’d like to do the same for you this year. Here are 9 songs that got me through 2024, songs that lit me up, made me think, turned me on, struck a chord. (Why 9, and not 8 or 10? Well, 9 is just how many I loved enough to include here and had something substantial to say about.)

The best way to read this post (IMO) is to hit ‘play’ on each song before you start reading about it. I hope you enjoy these sonic gems as much as I do! 🎶💖

“Sexy to Someone” by Clairo

“[To be] sexy to somebody, it would help me out/ Oh, I need a reason to get out of the house/ And it’s just a little thing I can’t live without”

My uncle Kevan (himself a legend in Canadian punk rock in the ’80s) sent me this one, because he likes the production on it, which is indeed excellent: vibey, groovy, quirky. But it was the song’s lyrics that hooked me immediately. “Sexy to someone is all I really want,” sings the cherubic Clairo; “sometimes sexy to someone is all I really want.” My cousin Sean called this “some of the most unambitious flirting I’ve ever heard,” which made me laugh, because I have the same ambition as Clairo in this regard, and I agree with Sean that it’s not exactly a big ask: I want to feel like someone finds me sexy, at least some of the time.

That feeling, of being wanted and knowing you’re wanted (even if just by one person in the whole entire world), is like a jangly shot of espresso in my veins. It gets me up and gets me out of the house, as Clairo says, and it also gets me creating, smiling, giggling, blushing, and (let’s be honest) jerking off more often.

Like me, Clairo seems to view this sexy energy as a life-sustaining force, “something I see in everything,” which pools and flows throughout your life like “honey sticking to your hands, sugar on the rim.” I’m at my best when I feel wanted and am wanting in return. Despite all the spiritual books I’ve read which decried desire as the root of all misery, I think I’m at my happiest when I’m caught in a hot spiral of want.

“Nasty” by Tinashe

“If you keep up with me, I’ll keep on coming back/ If you do it too good, I’m gonna get attached/ ‘Cause it feels like heaven when it hurts so bad/ Baby, put it on me – I like it just like that”

Speaking of “a reason to get out of the house,” this was my go-to song whenever I had a hard time getting out of bed this year. Even on bad fibro days, I still wanted to dance to this one!

In my line of work, one of the questions I get asked most often is, “I’m into [insert kink or sexual practice here]; am I normal?” I always try to explain to people that sexual ‘normalcy’ is a meaningless construct, and is hardly worth aspiring to anyway (do you really want to have the most average sex life on the block?!). But usually they keep fretting nonetheless – probably because, at their core, they’re afraid that their desires make them undesirable, unloveable, or broken, when in reality, they just need to find partners they’re compatible with.

For that reason, I love this song’s iconic refrain, “Is somebody gonna match my freak?” Tinashe is such a charismatic, captivating performer both dance-wise and vocally that the sentiment comes across confident as hell: no sniveling about wanting to be normal, but rather, wholeheartedly embracing that one is not ‘normal,’ and daring all potential suitors to keep up. We should all be so lucky as to find somebody who ‘matches our freak,’ whatever that happens to mean for us.

“Pessimist” by Julia Michaels

“Made me die, made me melt/ You have changed the way I felt/ With your touch, with your help/ You took a pessimist and turned me into something else”

To me this song sounds like walking home on a winter’s night after a really great fourth or fifth date, thinking, “Jesus, this thing might actually have legs.” It’s that almost-falling-in-love feeling, that oh-shit-what-the-fuck feeling, hands jittering in your mittens. Michaels’ bell-like soprano pings through the curtains of snow like a streetlamp lighting the way forward: “I think I see a lifetime.”

With so much going wrong in the world this year (to say the fucking least), I spent a lot of time thinking about hope. It’s hard to stay optimistic in such a fucked-up time, even though we need some optimism in order to keep going. One thing I have noticed in myself over and over again is that romance is an almost-endless wellspring of optimism for me, able to replenish my hope when it’s run dry. Whatever neurochemical hell is wrought on my system by doomscrolling, the opposite effect is achieved when I get a text from the cutie I’m crushing on, or when I go out for an intimate dinner with my spouse, or even when I obsess about a celebrity I think is hot. It’s that same life force again, the one Clairo was talking about.

I relate to this song deeply, because my spouse indeed “took a pessimist and turned me into something else.” Our love is the biggest, best thing I’ve ever experienced in my life, and because we’re polyamorous, I have the freedom and capacity to experience other big loves in the future – something which only really seems possible to me because of how incredible my love story with my spouse has been and continues to be. If it happened once, something similar could always happen again, albeit in different and unexpected ways. It’s one of the things I treasure about non-monogamy, and it’s one of the many reasons I’m glad I’m not such a pessimist anymore.

“What is a Blouse?” by The Zach & The Jess

“What the hell is a blouse? … Is it dissimilar to a baggy shirt?/ Or a sail too small for a boat to work?/ A pillowcase, but with a place for arms?/ A V-neck with exceptional grace and charms?/ A classic tee that got loose and swollen?/ A button-up with all the buttons stolen?”

And now, for something completely different…

This song made me laugh more than any other this year. I would listen to it when I was sad sometimes, because its silliness cracks me up, like when Zach & Jess refer to blouses as “the apparel enigma, the Stonehenge of clothes.”

At one point this year, I was standing in line waiting to get my book signed at a Casey McQuiston reading, and the people behind me got into an animated discussion of the very question asked by this song: “What is a blouse?!” It took all of my strength not to turn around, whip out my phone, and play them the track!

“Co-Op” by Bess Atwell

“I’ve learned to apologize/ Learned to trust somebody with my body, I/ learned there’s a life outside my eyes”

Atwell has described this song as “a bit of a private joke” with her partner: the two of them lived across from a co-op that was always playing music that would get stuck in their heads when they went there. One day Bess came back humming, and her partner said, “Did you even go to the co-op if you don’t come back singing the pop song that was on?” which later became the refrain of this tune. (“You said I couldn’t fit that in a song,” Atwell adds teasingly on the second repetition.)

It’s a song about domesticity, about living in close quarters and loving it. It reminds me dearly of the time I spent crammed into tiny apartments with my beloved during the early pandemic – six months at their place in New York, four months at mine in Toronto. The soothing familiarity of our routines kept me sane during that wild time.

It’s also a song about finally being able to relax with somebody, after the tumult of trauma. I, too, have “learned to trust somebody with my body.” There are many ways to help that process along, but one of them (for me, at least) is to have these comforting rituals I share with my partner, whether they be devouring Netflix dating shows after work, attending our favorite improv show on Sunday nights, or even going to the co-op.

“Broke Boy” by Malia Civetz

“I love my broke boy/ Not a billionaire baller or dough boy/ Used to give him cash so he could get some gas/ ‘Cause he knows how to give me that O, boy!/ Still-lives-at-home boy/ Ain’t got a house or a plane or a Rolls Royce/ There’s no credit card that’s gonna buy my heart/ ‘Cause I gave it all to a broke boy”

I think this is an… anticapitalist love song?! Fuck yeah! More of this, please!

I’ve been a fan of Malia Civetz’s big bold voice and top-notch songwriting for a few years now, and while her song “Is It You?” was my #1 most-played song this year (it’s a banger), “Broke Boy” is the one I have the most fondness for at the moment.

I just love how plainly Malia lays it out in this song: Being broke doesn’t make you unworthy of love. Romance is commonly depicted as an expensive endeavor – dates, meals, gifts, etc. – but it doesn’t have to be, because human connection itself is free. And as Malia points out, her broke boy may not be able to afford fancy vacations around the world, but it’s okay, ’cause he “took [her] on a trip with just the tip of his tongue.” 😜

“I Said What I Said” by The Softies

“As soon as I had a place to go, I went/ There’s gotta be more to life than paying rent/ I said what I said, so I wouldn’t have to say/ what I wasn’t ready to tell you”

I never thought there would be another Softies album in my lifetime. There hadn’t been any for 24 years. And then, just like magic, they put out a new one. I practically started hyperventilating when I found out.

I’ve loved the Softies’ sweet voices and mellow guitars since I was about 12 years old, when a listener of my podcast (yes, I had a podcast in 2004… it’s a long story) sent me a digital mixtape. In that .zip file were many songs I still adore to this day, like “All the Umbrellas in London” by the Magnetic Fields and “Chick Habit” by April March… but there was also the Softies, and I fell down that rabbit hole hard, begging my mom to let me use her credit card to order their CDs online. I’ve been a fan ever since, and hope to be able to see them play live someday.

This song has stuck with me most from the latest album, for whatever reason. As with many Softies songs, its lyrics are vague enough that it could mean many different things, but for me it evokes a woman who’s ending things with her male partner upon realizing she’s gay (which incidentally I also wrote a song about once). It’s bittersweet in that way – affectionate, but at arm’s length; compassionate, but cutting ties. And because it’s the Softies, it floats and soars like sunshine on clouds, jazz chords as plainspoken as love.

“Want Want” by Maggie Rogers

“Oh, can we take this slow?/ Everybody’s always known/ but I didn’t want to admit/ And when we’re cheek to cheek/ I feel it in my teeth/ and it’s too good to resist”

I first listened to this one because the aforementioned romance author Casey McQuiston cited it as one of their inspirations while writing The Pairing, easily my favorite romance novel I’ve ever read, which also happens to be a very fucking sexy book. Accordingly, as you might expect, this song is overflowing with lust and swagger. It’s about the immutability of desire: “If you want-want what you want-want, then you want it.” It’s as simple as that.

But while lust itself may seem straightforward, it can lead us into situations that are anything but. Rogers’ agile voice flips between airy softness and throaty bravado as she wavers about whether to fuck a long-time friend, first-time lover: “I hold my breath and count the times I walked my feet up to the line…” How exhilarating, then, to finally cross it.

The driving rhythm of this song feels like the locomotive momentum of lust itself, chugging along even when you wish you could throw the brake. But it’s nearly impossible to get off that train; you really “can’t hide what you desire once you’re on it… and I want you.”

“CVS” by Winnetka Bowling League

“I wanna buy you chocolate hearts from CVS/ Kiss you too hard and follow you west/ Sing you sad songs on a Sunday afternoon/ Yeah, I think I’d like to tie you in ways that you can’t undo/ Dinner in bed and Korean food/ Say ‘I love you’ just a little bit too soon”

The lead singer of Winnetka Bowling League (one of my most-played artists this year), Matthew Koma, is married to Hilary Duff, which is why she has a cameo in this music video. And it’s sweet to see the two of them together, because this song is all about love.

In working on this post, I’ve noticed some throughlines in the songs I’ve loved most this year. A lot of them seem to be about new love, and finding hope in the possibility of new connections. This song is such a lovely manifestation of that – it’s about jumping the gun in a new relationship, wanting to get closer and closer, wanting to fall in love, or noticing you’ve already started to. It’s also about the eerie feeling that you might’ve just met the person you’re gonna spend forever with, something I felt a shade of when I first met my spouse: “In a dream, your future had a voice, and he spoke like me…”

I like that this song also draws your attention to the artificiality of romance, at least the type of romance you can buy from a CVS. One of the dumbest things about love is that we can find ourselves performing these cardboard rituals of romance, not because we necessarily believe in them, but just because our feelings are so damn big, we have to let them out any way we can.

 

What songs did you enjoy most this year, my darlings?

Q&A: What It Was Like to Write & Record 52 Songs in 52 Weeks

Kate Sloan

I’ve been having some convos with friends and family lately about the songwriting challenge I did this year, and have enjoyed explaining what made me want to do the challenge, what went into it, and what I took away from it. I found that lots of folks, especially other creatives, were interested in hearing about this – so I thought I’d write a blog post to wrap it all up!

 

Q. Wait. Did you really write and record 52 songs in 52 weeks?

A. Weirdly enough, I did.

 

Q. Why, though?

A. A fair question. A couple things happened within close proximity of each other last December: I wrapped up an educational program called “Meaningful Activity” that I’d been doing at my local chronic pain clinic, which had been leading me through a process of identifying my core values and the things that bring me the most joy, and figuring out how to do more of those things, more often, despite living with chronic pain and chronic fatigue. It came up over and over again in my worksheets and journal entries for that program that I missed music, cared about music, loved making music, and hadn’t been making nearly enough music. At the time that I did this program, I hadn’t written a song in nearly 4 years. In high school I used to crank out multiple songs a month sometimes. I realized I missed that and wanted to be doing significantly more of it.

The other thing that happened was that I spent a solid couple weeks living alone that month because my roommate had gone to stay with her family for the holidays, and I realized that a lot of my reticence to play music lately had been self-consciousness about being heard, but that I didn’t really need to worry about that because my sweet roommate had always expressed supportiveness about my music-making. So I started playing more songs, and even wrote a couple, and then thought, hey, wouldn’t I be happier if I was doing this every single week? So I assigned myself the challenge.

 

Q. Did you really think you’d be able to complete the challenge when you started it?

A. Honestly, no. I thought fatigue, pain, and/or apathy would get the better of me at some point and I’d call it quits. It felt equally possible that I would quit 7 months in or that I would quit after the first week. I think I just don’t believe in myself as much as I should, especially when it comes to professional goals.

 

Q. Where did you get ideas for your songs? Did it ever feel like you were running (or had run) out of ideas?

A. Coming up with conceptual/lyrical ideas is one of the hardest parts of the process for me, which is partly why I sometimes don’t even start with a conceptual/lyrical concept – I’ll start by improvising some lyrics and melodies over a chord progression and kind of just free-associate about what the music reminds me of. This approach can feel more like the song is revealing its theme to me, rather than me coming in with a predetermined theme of my own.

Aside from that – often I would see something in media that would inspire a song: “The Museum” was based on some lines lifted from an Oliver Sacks essay, “Love is Blind” is about the Netflix dating reality show of the same name, “Does He Know?” was inspired by a love triangle on the TV comedy Superstore, “Credit Card” was written soon after I watched The Tinder Swindler, “The Stage” was based on a scene from a documentary about the musical Spring Awakening, “Celia” was an ode to a character from the book The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, “Grandmaster” was a love song for a cult leader inspired by NXIVM’s Keith Raniere, and “Sisyphus” was about Nick Drake and some biographies I’d read of him.

Sometimes songs were inspired by conversations I’d had with people in my life: “Bi Enough” came out of a conversation with my therapist about bisexual impostor syndrome, “Doll” was based on a story a friend told me about his sex doll, and “Amicably” was about a friend’s relatively civil breakup.

Sometimes I would ask my Instagram or Twitter followers to submit a theme, quote, or idea to inspire a song; “Brave Little Girl” was one of those. Sometimes I would pull two tarot cards and ponder their meanings, separately or together, until a song idea appeared; “Mr. Mean” and “What If?” were some of these. Sometimes I would go to RandomWordGenerator.com and have it give me 3 random words to inspire a song; “Notice Me” and “Nobody Likes Me” were some of those. One time, a dream inspired a song; I wrote “Stay” after waking up from a terrible nightmare.

 

Q. What did you learn about songwriting from doing this challenge?

A. A WHOLE LOT. As with any artistic discipline, you definitely get to know your own creative process much more intimately when forced to spend time on it every week. I kept notes on what I learned/observed over the course of the year; here’s a few highlights:

  • I used to have a bad habit of recording and posting new songs immediately after writing them, rather than going through subsequent stages of editing and practicing the song to polish it up. You would think that having to crank out a song every week would’ve made this worse, but it actually made me better at letting songs breathe for a day or more after writing them, and practicing them enough that I could perform them well on camera, because I would always feel like, “Well, I have until Sunday to get this done. Might as well make it as good as I can within that timeframe.” By the end of the challenge, I would pretty much always listen to my initial demo a few times for 1-3 days after writing the song and make changes to anything that started to seem awkward or unpolished. I would also practice the song a lot more before recording it.
  • I quickly realized that it was CRUCIAL for me to have a reliable and searchable repository of ideas that I could pull from when I had writer’s block. I use the Notes app for conceptual ideas and lyrical fragments, and another app called Voice Record Pro to record and organize musical ideas, as well as demos to help me remember a song I’m writing/have already written. Realistically, I won’t always be able to immediately develop an idea that comes to me, because I have a job and stuff. So I had to get very disciplined about documenting even the tiniest snippets of ideas so that they’d be available when I needed them.
  • You’ll make some of your best art when it feels safe to make bad art. And because it was a weekly challenge, I knew that it was fine for some of the songs to be less good than I might otherwise prefer (though I think almost all of them are at least pretty good). Jonathan Mann, who has written a song every day for 14 years running, estimates that “70% are mediocre, 20% suck and 10% are awesome.” Sitting down with my list of 52 songs and ranking them, I did the math and found that I think 33% are great, 37% are good, 19% are mediocre and 11% are bad. I’m pretty happy with those numbers!
  • Whenever I felt stuck, I almost always found that switching things up helped inspire me. I’d play around on different instruments, try writing to loops in GarageBand, go to a different location to write, etc. It really helps.
  • Songwriting boosts my self-esteem! I admire great songwriters and their craft a lot, and it makes me feel so good about myself to write songs that I think are good. All the more reason to do it more often! I think this was also largely the reason I never really “half-assed” a song during this challenge – any time I considered taking the “easy way out” (like writing a song that was really simple, bad, or based on a song I’d written before), I knew I’d be disappointed with myself if I did that, so I didn’t.
  • Creativity requires rest. The resting phase is part of the creative process, not separate from it. After I write a song, I typically need to take at least a few days off from trying to write another one, or it just won’t work. I can use that time to “refill the well” by consuming media on a broad range of topics that might later inspire a song.

 

Q. What are your favorite songs from the challenge?

A. Sorry, they’re my babies; I refuse to pick just one. Instead, I will pick eight.

 

Q. But your whole thing is that you write about sex. What are the sexiest/kinkiest songs from the challenge?

A. If you want sexy and sex-adjacent, you want these:

 

Q. Are you going to keep writing and recording a song a week?

A. I actually have been. I don’t know how long I’ll continue it, but I felt a little sad that the challenge was ending and decided there was no reason I had to stop if I didn’t want to. You can always see the latest ones on my YouTube!

12 Days of Girly Juice 2022: 10 Perfect Songs

Kate Sloan

I love music, as you know if you read this blog regularly. The soundtrack of my year is almost as important to me as the events of that year; the two can even shape each other at times.

So, in no particular order, here are 10 songs that made me happy this year, or helped me revel in my sadness or rage or horniness. Good music has a way of making even the hardest feelings seem not only manageable but vital to the human experience, something that links us inextricably to other people, reminding us we are never alone even when we feel like we are.

(The best way to read this post is to click “play” on each song while you read about it, so you get a sense of the vibe.)

 

“2Drunk” by Nick Jonas (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“What would mama say?/ She’d say ‘Oh, you never know when to stop/ Like every day’s Friday night’/ I’m too drunk and I’m all in my feelings/ Oh well; now I’m high as the ceiling”

This song is the perfect musical embodiment of that moment when you realize you are, in fact, too drunk but in a way that feels like joyful surrender, like embracing the uncertainty of life, like letting the chips fall where they may.

There were many depressed days in January where this song was the only thing that could get me out of bed, so I played it on loop a lot. Nick Jonas has taken on this role in my life in several previous years too. There is something about his voice – smooth, warm, inviting – and his music – catchy, fun, effortless – that translates directly into dopamine for me. I don’t question it anymore; I just use his music as fuel, and love him for it.

One of the things I love most about this song is that it’s both happy and wistful, the way a drunken evening can feel when you’re drinking to distract yourself from heartbreak. (I even covered it as a slow waltz on the ukulele to emphasize its sadder qualities.) While I’ve quoted some lyrics above that I think are most emblematic of the song, I also want to shout out the poignant second verse, which goes, “Should I send that text? Maybe not/ But I miss that sex, quite a lot/ It’s five o’clock somewhere/ Maybe you’re somewhere/ Thinking ’bout me.” These lyrics are, as the kids are saying, a relatable mood.

 

“Daddy” by Brotherkenzie (buy on Bandcamp)

“Nobody calls me daddy, sadly/ And nobody sends me nudes anymore/ But I saw your ass last night when you hung up/ And I wondered what you did that for”

I screamed when I heard this song for the first time.

I’ve written before about the low-key sexuality that occasionally oozes from the music of Brotherkenzie, the solo project of my long-time guitarist crush Nathan Stocker. Not to psychoanalyze a total stranger, but I’ve often thought his most romantic and/or sexy songs seemed to point out his daddy-esque qualities: wanting to nurture, to take care of, to treasure and spoil his loves. So, when I first heard the opening lyrics of this song (quoted above), I screeched: my suspicions had been confirmed, and it felt good to know that my “daddy-dar” is still on point even though I haven’t had to sleuth out a new daddy for several years at this point.

As with all Brotherkenzie songs, there are some parts of this song that I find lyrically inscrutable, but at its core I think it’s a song about feeling romantically bored in singledom, wondering what’s next, and hoping for exciting adventures to arise and distract you from yourself. Again: a relatable fucking mood. And I still love Nathan’s voice, guitar playing, and songwriting in a way that feels visceral and inherent.

 

“Someone to Watch Over Me” by Sarah Vaughan (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“There’s a somebody I’m longing to see/ I hope that he turns out to be/ Someone who’ll watch over me/ I’m a little lamb who’s lost in the wood/ I know I could always be good/ To one who’ll watch over me”

I went through a phase this year where this song was basically all I wanted to listen to for a few weeks. It’s an especially gorgeous rendition of a favorite jazz standard of mine. Sarah Vaughan’s vocal control, power, and range were such that she could easily have focused her career on styles of music that many people consider technically “harder” than jazz, like opera or musical theatre – but instead she mostly focused on jazz, which can be every bit as complex and virtuosic as those other genres, and that prowess is on full display here. Her vibrato is masterful and emotive, her phrasing is exquisite, her range is unbelievable, and she brings warmth and wistfulness galore to the song. It’s a stunning recording.

I find it interesting to listen to these old love songs of yore (this one was composed by the Gershwin brothers in 1926, though this particular recording of it is from the late ’50s), because they lean so hard into old-fashioned gender norms that it almost seems kinky to a modern ear. A lot of the lyrics of this song sound to me more like a D/s relationship (in particular, a DD/lg relationship) than anything vanilla or conventional. I like that this style of helpless femininity is something many of us can deliberately opt into now, instead of being forced into that role by an oppressive society.

 

“I Want to Be Your Boyfriend” by Hot Freaks (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“I wanna be your boyfriend/ I wanna go on walks with you/ I wanna have long talks with you/ You can be my girlfriend/ I’ll compliment you frequently/ I wanna treat you decently”

I stumbled across this song by total coincidence. Several years ago, a boy I was dating sent me the Ramones song “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” as a sweet way of communicating his intentions toward me. (We didn’t end up dating for very long but are still on good terms.) At some point this year I wanted to hear that song but couldn’t remember what band performs it, so I asked Siri to play “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,” and she played me this strange, delightful track instead.

I love how this song buzzes with the energy of a new relationship, the perhaps-foolish optimism you feel at that time (“I’m not gonna make the same mistakes/ I’m not gonna run”), and the self-doubt that can also creep in when your emotions are heightened like that (“All the guys are crowded around/ They’re telling you the same things that I planned to say/ I thought I was unique/ Maybe I’m not that way”). It’s also just got one of the all-time most fun choruses to sing and dance along to, if you ask me.

 

“Rocket Science” by Vaultboy (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“Baby, it isn’t rocket science/ Why are we complicating it?/ We’ve got a chemistry I’m liking/ And I’m feeling good ’bout giving in/ ‘Cause baby, it isn’t rocket science/ Even when it feels like it is/ I know your heart’s beating like mine is/ We don’t gotta hide it/ Baby, it’s not rocket science”

Vaultboy was one of my major musical discoveries this year; I sought out other people who’ve done songwriting challenges, as inspiration while doing my own, and stumbled across his “77-minute songwriting challenge” videos, which are incredible.

I was immediately enthralled by his ability to churn out hooky hits that get stuck in your head for days and punch you right in the heart. “Rocket Science” is one of his best, if you ask me: it’s romantic, fun, and (as with literally every Vaultboy song) criminally catchy.

The gorgeous second verse goes, “You’re telling me secrets nobody else knows/ ‘Cause I wanna know, I wanna know/ Where you might see yourself way down the road/ I wanna know, ’cause I wanna go,” and it feels like falling in love, and wanting more more more of the person you’re falling in love with. But the refrain of the song – “Baby, it’s not rocket science!” – resonates with me because I am so prone to overcomplicating love, psychoanalyzing myself and my partners to try to understand what’s happening, when instead I could (and should) just enjoy what’s happening while it’s happening. “Baby, it isn’t rocket science, even when it feels like it is.”

 

“About Damn Time” by Lizzo (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“I’ve been so down and under pressure/ I’m way too fine to be this stressed, yeah/ I’m not the girl I was or used to be/ Bitch, I might be better”

I love to listen to Lizzo to on days when I feel gloomy and self-critical. So much of her music is about self-love, self-acceptance, and confidence; these things come through not only lyrically but sonically too (not to mention visually in her magnificent music videos). It’s super refreshing, in a world where so much of the capitalistic machine still works daily to make us feel bad about ourselves.

I love how this song points out not just Lizzo’s current confidence and happiness, but also the journey that got her there, and the fact that it’s not always easy or instant. As with so many great songs, I deeply related to this one, especially the idea of rising from the ashes of stress and trauma, transformed into a stronger, brighter and louder version of myself, one who can strap on her “Balenciussys” and strut out into a new adventure.

 

“Cbat” by Hudson Mohawke (buy/stream on Apple Music)

This instrumental track rose to fame this year when a guy on Reddit wrote a thread about how much he likes to fuck to this song, and how much his girlfriend does not like it. Luckily for us, he identified the song in the thread so readers could listen to it – which led to it going viral and being widely mocked and revered – and it’s cringe in a way that makes the girlfriend’s position understandable.

After a lush chordal intro that makes you think the song will actually be pretty, it breaks out into a distinctively grating melody played on a high-pitched electronic instrument of some kind, and sounds a bit like a ghost climaxing, or a creaky door that someone has autotuned.

But I’ve listened to Cbat several times at this point, and weirdly, it has grown on me. Its rhythm does indeed feel appropriately paced for sex, as the original thread-writer argued, and the story behind the song’s sudden viral popularity makes it all the more amusing to listen to. I’m not sure I’ll ever have sex to this song, because I’d probably be laughing too hard to focus if I did, but I’m glad it exists and that I got to hear about it.

 

“Anybody But You” by Malia Civetz (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“I might invite you to my party/ So you can watch me dancing on somebody new/ You probably know who/ Come enjoy the view of me/ Happy with anybody but you”

Being petty after a breakup can feel like kind of a shameful thing, a conversation topic with girlfriends over martinis and fuel for pithy tweets but not something you’d proudly admit to. I love that this song makes post-breakup pettiness into something powerful, a way of reclaiming strength and agency after having it squashed out of you by a shitty partner. Golden-voiced Malia sings about inviting her ex to a party just so they can see how happy she is now, while also acknowledging that she’s not actually happy now, as evidenced by how hard she’s working to create that image.

“Anybody else will do/ Anybody but you/ I would rather spend the night with anybody in this room,” she sings, over a pop beat that makes you want to stand up, dance, and sing along. It’s a perfect post-breakup anthem and I love that it acknowledges the ways recovery from heartbreak can sometimes look like causing more heartbreak – it’s not nice, it’s not ethically good, certainly, but it’s messy and gratifying and real, and I love her for it.

 

“Pink Moon” by Nick Drake (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“Saw it written and I saw it say/ Pink moon is on its way/ None of you stand so tall/ Pink moon is gonna get ye all”

Content note: Discussion of a possible suicide in this one.

So much has been written about this song, and the album of the same name. There’s even an entire book about it, which I read this year. Famously, the album Pink Moon (of which this song is the first track) was the last album ever completed by English singer-songwriter Nick Drake before he died of an antidepressant overdose (accidental or on purpose, we don’t know) at the age of 26. He’d previously recorded a couple of albums which hadn’t sold well at all, on which his intricate fingerpicked guitar parts and ethereal melodies had been backed up by strings, guitars, drums, and various other accompaniments. He evidently wanted to try something different on his third album, and recorded it in its entirety in late-night studio sessions on two consecutive days, just him and his guitar. This title track is the only one on which any other instruments appear at all – Nick added a sweet, spare piano overdub, and that’s all.

While there are hints, in Nick’s earlier records, of romance, optimism, and joy, this last one was recorded after severe depression got its claws into him, and it shows. The album is full of bleak themes like despair, regret, rejection, and isolation – which aligns exactly with what Nick was going through at the time, a gradual-and-then-all-at-once descent into a depression so profound that he could barely speak. Friends and colleagues have suggested that at this time in his life, listening to his songs was likely the only way you could experience Nick’s inner workings: he was monosyllabic or silent most of the time and looked catatonic with bone-heavy depression. But he was still playing guitar like a virtuoso, albeit with fingernails grown long and dirty from depressive neglect.

The song “Pink Moon” alludes mysteriously to the imminent arrival of the pink moon, which no one can run from or escape; his lyrics never make it clear whether the moon symbolizes something we should dread and fear, or something we should rejoice and wait for, vibrating with excitement. Many commentators have argued that the “pink moon” represents Nick’s depression or his ultimate demise. I don’t know the answers to these interpretive questions, and I don’t think anyone ever will, now that Nick’s been gone for nearly fifty years; all I know is that this song is so hauntingly beautiful that it transports you to an alternate reality for a couple short minutes, and that listening to a lot of Nick Drake this year made me feel less alone.

 

“Boys” by Hippo Campus (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“Take off my shirt at your girlfriend’s party/ What’s it to ya?/ Nobody cares about your music/ They see right through ya/ Kissing boys, missing work/ Got hungover from your words/ Same New York, it’s the worst/ All these nights are a blur”

Jake Luppen, the lead singer of my favorite band Hippo Campus, publicly came out as queer late last year, and has spoken about how “Boys” is a song about (among other things) his queer awakening. It captures so well the flavor of excitement you feel when you’re figuring yourself out in real-time at a messy drunken party in your early twenties. To me it sounds like dancing in clubs, my sweaty body so close to some other girl’s glitter-streaked body, and learning to tolerate or satiate the intense tension between our shimmering shapes.

So much of feeling sexy is about feeling comfortable with who you are, and this song feels like the encapsulation of a moment when you get a glimpse of the “you” you want to be. Maybe it’s in a conversation with a stranger who knows nothing about your career or your past (“Nobody cares about your music/ they see right through ya“) and who therefore can serve as a blank canvas onto which you project the version of yourself you hope to become. And you see that projection, stark and inevitable, and want to dive into it the way you’d want to dive into a lake in a Bob Ross painting.

 

What songs did you love most this year?

Why I Love the Ukulele

Kate Sloan

Ukulele, small and fierceful
Ukulele, brave and peaceful
You can play the ukulele too –
It is painfully simple
-Amanda Palmer, “Ukulele Anthem“

I’ve been writing songs since before I knew how to play any instruments; it’s baked into me how yeast is baked into bread. But instruments are a big part of how you bring music into the world, and convey to listeners the way you’re hearing your songs inside your head, and so I always wanted to learn to play an instrument, long before I ever did.

A year or more into piano lessons (which I enjoyed, though I begrudged having to practice my Bach and Chopin), I started listening obsessively to indie folk artists on a website called PureVolume (it was sort of like the MySpace of the music industry at the time) and, in particular, found myself drawn to songs written on acoustic guitars. I had an old violin, inherited from a relative and missing a string, and I would sit in front of the family computer plucking out simple chords on this creaky old instrument and sing over them into a USB microphone. Once, my dad walked by while I was doing this, and he remarked aloud, “We gotta get this girl a guitar.”

Playing my first guitar, circa 2008

He did, and it’s still one of the most meaningful acts of love I can recall in my life. He took me to Long & McQuade, arguably the best music shop in Toronto, and I told the salesman I wanted an acoustic guitar. (Electric guitars weren’t really on my radar; the artists I cared about then were all writing on acoustics.) The salesman asked me if I wanted a steel-stringed guitar or a nylon-stringed one, and I didn’t know, so he grabbed one of each. “Nylon-stringed guitars are usually used for classical music,” he explained, playing a bit of fingerpicked flamenco on the one he’d chosen, “whereas steel-stringed guitars are used in folk music.” He played a few bars of music that sounded like folk-rock to me – like the music I’d been listening to on PureVolume – and I said, “That one, please.” My fate was sealed.

I loved my guitar, and took lessons for a few years from a chill-as-hell Irish hipster named Eoghan (pronounced like “Owen”) who was getting a degree in jazz guitar. One December, my mom sent along a box of cookies for me to give him as a Christmas gift, and he was so surprised and flustered by this that he gave me a huge book of jazz standards he happened to have in his guitar case that day. I treasured that book, and still have it.

No matter how many guitar lessons I took, though, it just never felt as natural to me as singing or playing the piano. My fingers weren’t strong enough to play barre chords, or nimble enough to swap quickly between different chords. True, I could have (and should have) practiced more than I did, but it felt like I was hitting an insurmountable wall, limited by my level of physical ability.

My guitar teacher worked out of a music school on top of a music store, and so I would walk through their rows of instruments every time I went to a lesson. And sometime around age 16, I began to notice the ukuleles hanging adorably in a back corner. One fateful day in 2008, I took a couple friends with me to the shop and picked out a bright green Beaver Creek ukulele, paid approximately $40 for it, and walked out holding my musical future in my hands.

It was just so clear to me, so quickly, that I was meant to play the ukulele. I fell in love with it the way I fall in love with human beings: quickly, obsessively, and all-consumingly.

See what happens when you muzzle a person’s creativity
And do not let them sing and scream
And nowadays, it’s worse, ’cause kids have automatic handguns
It takes about an hour to teach someone to play the ukulele
About the same to teach someone to build a standard pipe bomb
You do the math!
-Amanda Palmer, “Ukulele Anthem“

If you’re not familiar, the ukulele differs from the guitar in a few key ways. It’s smaller, and tuned higher; it’s cheaper, and has a thinner but more playful sound. And, crucially, it has only four strings instead of six, so chord shapes are simpler, requiring less nimbleness and coordination of the player’s fingers. Its strings tend to be made of nylon or similar materials, so it doesn’t require as much strength as pressing down on steel guitar strings, which can bite into your fingertips like knives if you haven’t formed callouses there yet.

I wasn’t diagnosed with fibromyalgia yet at that time, and who knows when I actually developed that illness – but the struggles which led me to prefer ukulele over guitar have only deepened over the years, in large part due to my fibro. My hands are weaker than I’d prefer, and often sore. I’m clumsy and prone to dropping things, stumbling, hitting wrong notes on the fretboard. I’m frequently frustrated by an inability to translate the songs I hear in my head into an audible, tangible result that I can share with others. The ukulele, therefore, is perfect for me.

With the barrier of insufficient hand strength removed from the equation, I’ve gotten much better at ukulele than I ever got at guitar, even though I took guitar lessons for years and am mostly self-taught on the ukulele. I can play complicated chord changes from jazz or musical theatre, and never (okay, almost never) get so frustrated that I want to throw my instrument across the room. I can strum chords or finger-pick, write songs or learn other people’s songs. It feels easy and natural to me in a way that guitar never did.

There’s a term I love, “access intimacy,” which I learned from some kink workshop at a conference long ago. (I can’t recall who introduced me to this concept, or I would credit them.) It refers to the intimacy you can have with people who recognize and meet your access needs – whether those needs are related to physical disabilities, such as requiring ramps and access to handicapped bathrooms, or mental-emotional issues, such as needing to avoid certain PTSD triggers or needing a slow approach to task-switching due to ADHD.

I genuinely feel that I have “access intimacy” with the ukulele. It meets me where I’m at. It enables me to make music, write music, and feel like I’m a part of the music-making community, even though virtuosic guitar-playing is beyond my grasp.

The cheapness and accessibility of ukuleles is also highly democratizing. As singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer points out in her “Ukulele Anthem,” beginner ukuleles are usually pretty affordable (you can find ’em for $20-50, although I’d recommend spending at least $40 if you want a decent-sounding uke), and the chords are simple enough that you can pick up many of them in just an hour or two of practicing, especially if you have some music knowledge under your belt already. I love knowing that even if I suddenly needed to spend a lot of time away from home – as Amanda Palmer did when she got stuck in New Zealand toward the beginning of the pandemic – I could walk to a local music shop and be reunited with my favorite instrument for less money than a meal at a mid-tier restaurant. It makes me feel safe and secure, knowing I can take my music with me anywhere I go. One of the deepest and truest ways I know my spouse really loves me is that they keep a ukulele in the corner of their living room, even though they don’t play any instruments, simply because they know I’m calmer and happier when there’s a ukulele nearby that I can pick up whenever the whim strikes.

Nowadays, even as I’m mired in seasonal depression and fibro pain and general 21st-century millennial malaise, I keep a soprano ukulele on my bed so it’s always there when I feel like reaching for it. Not next to my bed, not near my bed, but on my bed. It’s small enough that I can do that. And many days, having it there is the difference between feeling sad and listless, and playing songs until I find my smile again.

I’ve taught ukulele lessons, I’ve bought ukuleles for friends, I’ve evangelized about ukuleles to all who would listen – and the reason for all this is simple. The ukulele has changed my life, made it brighter and bolder and easier and more fun. It has made music feel delightful instead of soul-sucking and painful. Every time I hold this little instrument in my arms, I feel grateful to be able to pluck its four strings.

So play your favorite Beatles’ song
And make the subway fall in love
They’re only $19.95; that isn’t lots of money
Play until the sun comes up
And play until your fingers suffer
Play LCD Soundsystem songs on your ukulele
Quit the bitching on your blog
And stop pretending art is hard
Just limit yourself to three chords
And do not practice daily
You’ll minimize some stranger’s sadness
With a piece of wood and plastic
Holy fuck, it’s so fantastic, playing ukulele!
-Amanda Palmer, “Ukulele Anthem“

All the Hardware & Software I Use for Blogging, Journalism, Podcasting & Music

Kate Sloan

I get questions sometimes about the equipment I use to do the various things I do, so I thought I’d compile it all in one big master post! (Last updated: 10/08/2024)

 

General hardware

  • My computer is a 2022 M2 MacBook Air. I added more storage space and RAM than the base model offers, so it can keep up with the most taxing tasks I do (usually video or audio editing).
  • When I’m at my desk, my MacBook is hooked up to my 24-inch ViewSonic monitor, which I got because it’s one of the only ones that can connect to a MacBook and charge it at the same time, through just one cable.
  • When at my desk, I switch back and forth between a few mechanical keyboards that I customized myself. My daily driver is a blue Epomaker Galaxy80 with Holy Panda switches on the alphanumeric keys, Akko Cream Blue switches on the modifier keys, and blue and pink pastel keycaps from Drop; I also added a custom volume knob to it. When I’m podcasting, or doing other activities that require quiet, I switch to a KeebMonkey KBM68Pro that has Akko Fairy silent switches on the alphas and Akko Penguin silent switches on the modifiers, with turquoise gradient keycaps.
  • I use an Apple Magic Trackpad (a gift from my Apple-nerdy spouse). Have never really been able to go back to using a mouse after getting used to a trackpad.
  • My spouse also got me a reMarkable 2 a while ago, which I love to use for writing while traveling, writing at coffee shops and bars, songwriting, note-taking, and various other writerly purposes.
  • I use my iPad mini 5 for leisure activities mostly (Netflix, Instapaper, etc.) but it’s also what I work on when my chronic pain is flaring up too badly for me to sit at a desk, or when I want to work in a location where bringing a laptop would be inconvenient. I often use it with a walnut iPad stand from Yohann, which is very design-y and beautiful.
  • My phone is an iPhone 13 Pro, a hand-me-down from my generous spouse. It has a great camera; I take most of my photos and videos on it.
  • For Zoom calls and such, I have a Logitech C920S webcam affixed to my monitor.
  • When I read, either for pleasure or for research, I’m usually doing it on my Kindle Paperwhite. I love that it’s waterproof, because I read in the bath a fair bit, and I also love its highlighting and note-taking features.
  • I have a HomePod mini next to my bed which I use to control music and lighting with my voice, among other things. it’s especially convenient on days when chronic pain and fatigue are making it difficult for me to do things myself.

 

Podcasting & music equipment

 

Analog hardware

 

Software

  • This blog runs on WordPress.
  • I do most of my other writing in Google Docs.
  • I keep track of my income and business expenses in Google Sheets.
  • The Notes app that comes built-in on Apple devices is my best friend, and I use it for the bulk of my digital note-taking and for keeping track of my life overall. It’s where I make my daily to-do list as well.
  • I used Scrivener to write both of my books. It’s the best software for longform projects that I’m aware of.
  • For podcasting, I record in Audacity and edit in Adobe Audition. No particular reason for these choices except that I know them well/have been using them for a long time (they taught us Audition in journalism school and I used Audacity for my first podcast, when I was 12!).
  • Depending on who I’m talking to, I usually do online video or audio calls with either Zoom or FaceTime.
  • When interviewing people on Zoom or similar, either for a podcast or for an article, I record audio with Piezo.
  • When interviewing someone over the phone (very rare these days), I use TapeACall Pro. It’s a bit convoluted and unreliable, though, so I’d like to find a better solution someday.
  • For making rough demo recordings while writing songs, I use Voice Record Pro. This is also how I capture any random melodic ideas that come to me while I’m out and about.
  • During the songwriting process, I often use the Rhymezone app, not only for rhymes but also as a dictionary and thesaurus.
  • I use Descript for automated interview transcriptions. It is a weirdly complicated and difficult-to-understand app but I know how to do the basic things I need to do in it, so it’s fine.
  • I save and read articles in Instapaper. I save and read book highlights in Readwise.
  • The Dildorks is hosted on Simplecast.
  • I record and produce music in GarageBand and then edit videos in iMovie.
  • I listen to tunes on Apple Music all day long.