... & the livin' is sleazy
A 2025 summertime mix for you
It’s the dog days, and I’m not in any state to mount a cogent argument. So I thought I’d share the summer playlist I’ve been compiling a track at a time the past couple of months. It’s about half 2025 releases and half other stuff prompted by recent events in life or the world. The moods are mixed—the best we can hope for under the present circumstances—but it’s all “summery” in one way or another to me. Whether swampy or languid or scorching. Notes on the selections below. But first, links for your player of choice:
On Spotify — on Tidal — on Apple Music — or YouTube.
Read on as you listen, or as you please.
Track notes
“Summertime,” The Residents: To set the mood, an askew version of George Gershwin’s seasonal standard from the cult San Francisco collective’s American Composer series. This 1984 track would have been made primarily on an Emulator II.
“Barracuda,” John Cale: “Burnt scarecrow in the wind was choking/ Smoking in the summer heat … The ocean will have us all.” This apocalyptic summer song from Cale’s 1974 Fear album was featured in the third episode of the new season of Poker Face, in homage to the 1969 blue Plymouth Barracuda driven by Natasha Lyonne’s Charlie.
“Big Spender,” Sam Phillips: A cut from 2013’s vol. 3 of the Sweet Relief musicians’ health benefit albums. The song is originally from the 1966 musical Sweet Charity (the unlikely Broadway adaptation of Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria), where it was sung by Shirley MacLaine, and soon also became a hit for Shirley Bassey. I’d listen to Sam Phillips sing just about anything (not the Sun Records exec, but the one who did the la-la’s on Gilmore Girls). Any echoes of current news re: wealthy men and sex workers are purely coincidental.
“Prize,” Kitchens Of Distinction: This track by the oft forgotten late-1980s-to-1990s gay South London band was a pleasant surprise on the soundtrack of the Mix Tape TV romance miniseries, reviewed in “Crritic!” last month.
“Temptation to Exist,” New York Dolls: An existential anthem I listened to a lot after David Johansen’s death this winter—and still like enough to bring to the beach party too.
“I Wanna Know,” Cymande: From the latest album by the reunited 1970s UK funk band, covered at length here.
“Broken Hearted Sade,” Joseph Shabason & Dawn Richard: A lush collab between the Toronto saxophonist and the New Orleans-born singer; all proceeds go to support health care in Gaza.
“Infiltrator,” Veggi feat. Cadence Weapon: This joint from the L.A. producer with Canada’s own renaissance man Rollie Pemberton is simply a banger.
“Ubu Dance Party,” Pere Ubu: In memory of David Thomas, of course. “My soup was steeped in strange ideas.” This 1978 live version is from the tour compilation with the greatest title ever, One Man Drives While the Other Man Screams.
“Student Demonstration Time,” The Beach Boys: Writing about the parallels between Brian Wilson and Sly Stone when they died at the same age the same week this June, I was reminded of this deep, unloved cut from 1971’s Surf’s Up. Mike Love’s garbled attempt to say something deep about the politics of the day sat uneasily on that album. Based on Lieber & Stoller’s “Riot in Cell Block #9,” it retained the original’s key chorus line, “There’s a riot goin’ on”—the title, of course, of Sly’s milestone album a few months later. But Love drew the conclusion, “Stay away when there’s a riot goin’ on.” I kinda like it in spite of all that, or maybe because of it.
“Skate Now,” Sly & The Family Stone: From Live At Winchester Cathedral 1967, the earliest known concert recording of the Family Stone, released last month. (Skating in summer, you ask? I’m assuming it’s the roller kind.) This song never made an official album, but there are fragments of later group trademarks here.
“Get Still,” Alan Sparhawk with Trampled by Turtles: Sparhawk’s second album since the death of his Low bandmate and spouse Mimi Parker offers much of the beauty and solace that his first one pointedly withheld.
“Funeral Mariachi,” Sun City Girls: From the final Sun City Girls studio album (2010), an apt coda to the memorial mood of the last few songs. (NB: This track wasn’t available on Tidal. I substituted the timely “The Collapse of Everything” from the new LP of the same name by Adrian Sherwood, who’s on my mind because pal Jody Rosen has been cratedigging on him lately.)
“Chacun fait (c'qui lui plait),” Chagrin d'amour: I’d never heard of this early 1980s duo till this summer—sometimes laughably called the first French hip-hop group, but closer to being the French “West End Girls”-era Pet Shop Boys or the French Blondie-doing-”Rapture.” Still, this track slaps.
“Take Me Back,” Haim: One of my favourite songs on their new album, it also sticks with me because, while working on my review, I went down a tunnel tracing its musical DNA: “These ribaldries roll out over strummed acoustic guitar in a rapid recitation that seems to remind every listener of a different touchstone—I’ve heard a few people refer to Jim Carroll’s strung-out classic ‘People Who Died,’ as both fire off a series of given names (Carroll had a Bobby while Haim has a Billy, though the latter presumably survived his ‘bad GPA’ and being unable to ‘get it up’). It really has more in common with strummy speak-singing slacker numbers from 1990s alt-rock, a subgenre including Beck, Primitive Radio Gods, Shawn Mullins, Soul Coughing, early Modest Mouse, and OMC’s ‘How Bizarre.’ Given that it’s Haim, you definitely also have to square that with Sheryl Crow’s ‘All I Wanna Do.’ Whatever the case, this self-aware indulgence in millennial nostalgia yields real pleasure.”
“Zeppelin III,” Lola Kirke: One of several great songs about family on Kirke’s latest album, Trailblazer. For further details see her memoir Wild West Village. I wrote about her April show in Toronto here. She’s also one of the vampires in Sinners, in the scene where they sing the Irish trad tune “Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go” (though I prefer the title “Wild Mountain Thyme”).
“Just Fun,” Jeffrey Lewis: Carrying on the family theme with this tune from the Lower East Side songwriter and comic artist’s new album The Even More Freewheelin’ Jeffrey Lewis. Saw him just last week at the Horseshoe.
“Wildfire Season,” Jobi Riccio: All people can talk about in Toronto lately is the air quality, which has been among the worst in the world due to the wildfires in the Canadian prairies. I found this song by Colorado’s Riccio on Ann Powers’ midyear-best playlist. Rarely has a new topical song felt so right and essential. It’s insane this is normal now.
“Rainy Day Parade,” Jill Sobule: Another very sad casualty of 2025, Sobule was an artist I mostly overlooked over the years. I’m trying to make that up belatedly. This is from 2000’s Pink Pearl, maybe her best album?
“Better Things,” Massive Attack feat. Tracey Thorn: A needed dose of (guarded) optimism from 1994’s indelible Protection.
“Prayer Hands,” DJ Premier & Roc Marciano: Brand new from the joint project The Coldest Profession, coming Friday.
“Constellation,” The Circling Sun: Nate Patrin called my attention recently to this New Zealand cosmic jazz ensemble.
“Creation Dream,” Bruce Cockburn: As long as we’re in the ether, this cosmogonical song from Cockburn’s 1979 Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws album has been on my mind since paying tribute on his 80th birthday in late May.
“How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore,” Prince: One great guitarist deserves another. And around the midpoint of any mix tape, a good Prince B-side is always in order.
Lorde at this year’s Met Gala. “Current Affairs,” Lorde: One of my faves from her new one. My piece about it is one of my faves this year too.
“Take A Sexy Picture Of Me,” CMAT: This single and her Glastonbury performance this summer were just two more steps towards a mainstream breakthrough for Ireland’s Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson. Expect her to complete the process with Euro-Country, her album due later this month (Aug. 29). I wrote about her show in Toronto in April 2024—she’ll be back at the Concert Hall on Sept. 15.
“Travelin’ Prayer,” Dolly Parton: Writing about Billy Joel last week reminded me of this Joel cover from Dolly’s 1999 The Grass is Blue album. At the time I thought it was a left-field choice on her part, but in fact “Travelin’ Prayer” has always had bluegrass bonafides: Eric Weissberg of “Duelin’ Banjos” fame played on the Piano Man album original in 1973, and as early as 1974 it was covered by no less than the Earl Scruggs Revue.
“Philanthropist,” Jesse Welles feat. Billy Strings: I resisted Jesse Welles for quite awhile, thinking him too cutely retro, too self-consciously 1963 Bobby Dylan’s grandchild. But the sheer wit and charm of his prodigious output has more than won me over now. Nügrass hero Billy Strings joins Welles here on one of his trademark eat-the-rich tunes, from his strong new album, Pilgrim. (Welles comes to the Danforth Music Hall on Oct. 18.)
“Jesus and John Wayne,” GooglyEyes, Joy Oladokun, and Allison Ponthier: Picked up on this one from an excellent June column by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd in Hearing Things. One thing she missed there is that it’s a kind of answer song to a country gospel number of the same name from the 2000s, which I think is fairly well known in Christian music circles.
“It's So Easy,” Fievel Is Glauque: I saw the Brussels/NYC jazz-rock band at the Dance Cave early in July and wrote about them here (item no. 9).
“Katru Dienu,” Luge: When I saw them open for Deerhoof in a sweltering basement in late June, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t known this terrific Toronto post-punk group before—they’ve been active for a decade already!
“Action Painting,” Perennial: Also in the neo-post-punk vein, someone on social media pointed me to Perennial, who are a bit like a new Art Brut in their meta-aesthetics, but thankfully less jokey. Ate this up like caustic candy.
“Hunger Games,” Bob Vylan: Before all the political and free-speech issues, I’d already glommed onto the UK duo the past couple of years for the force of their punk-rap sound. Now, all the more so—fuck the censors.
“Monday Song,” The Ex: Still one of the world’s greatest bands after four and a half decades. Listen to their whole new album, If Your Mirror Breaks, dedicated to Steve Albini.
“Metal,” The Beths: What did I do this summer vacation? Mostly waited for the new Beths album to come out. (Straight Line Was a Lie, Aug. 29.)
“Say You Will,” Ivy: What an unexpected grace that Adam Schlesinger’s bandmates in this long-dormant indie-chanson trio circled back to complete their unfinished work, since his death from Covid in 2020. (Traces of You is due Sept. 5.)
“I Got It from Agnes,” Momus: I neglected to eulogize the great 1950s-60s musical satirist Tom Lehrer in “Crritic!” after his death near the end of July. His heirs include not only the obvious like Weird Al or cabaret wits like Kiki and Herb. In his day he was more often compared to Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, or Jules Feiffer than to other working songwriters. But his acerbic treatments of then-verboten topics like sex, drugs, racism, war, etc., also made him a forerunner of, for instance, Randy Newman, the Fugs, Lou Reed, Loudon Wainwright III, or Stephin Merritt—the latter in particular also mirroring Lehrer’s Sondheim-esque levels of precise scansion and acrobatic rhyme. The obvious fact that Momus is among that crowd too only occurred to me when I stumbled on this cover version of one of Lehrer’s most polymorphously perverse numbers.
“You're Not Singing Anymore,” Mekons: What is it about late 1970s anarcho-punk collectives? Like the Ex, the Mekons are still one of the greatest bands in the world. I wrote about their superb new album Horror in April. Since then I’ve been watching enviously as American friends traipsed out to see their U.S. tour, and periodically harassing Sally Timms on Facebook about when they’re coming back to Canada.
“Witchitai-To,” Pavement: The only “new” Pavement song released in the 21st century is this rehearsal-session version of this much-covered 1969 Jim Pepper song. It’s sometimes claimed to be the only Billboard charting song to include a genuine Native American chant, reportedly from a peyote ritual song Pepper learned from his grandfather. This recording is from the Pavements quasi-documentary soundtrack.
“Better Be Quiet Now,” Brad Mehldau: I doubt jazz pianist Mehldau’s upcoming album of Elliott Smith tunes (Aug. 29) possibly can be as exquisite as his record of Beatles songs, which made my year-end 2023 list. But from what we’ve heard to date, it may not be far short. The original Smith heartbreaker is on Figure 8.
Thanks, Carl.
Aaah, thank you for this! I love a seasonal CW mix.