🎧 Downbeat.fm Vol. 2 Track 11

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and like most people, we’re in full Christmas shopping mode leading up to the end of the year.

2021 has been a transformational year for us. We welcomed in another nephew, adopted our sweet dog Poppy, we’re in the beginning steps of more home renovations, and I’ve started a new job.

We’ve all been through a lot of crap these past two years, but I’m hoping you’re also experiencing some good. Take some time for yourself - you deserve it.

Do you like Christmas music? Like, good Christmas music? Well here’s a treat of a playlist for you with some classics and originals by some good bands. Check it out on Apple Music or Spotify. Have a recommendation for the playlist? Leave a comment!

November’s Playlist

This month’s playlist features songs from The Ophelias, Horsegirl, Big Thief, Worst Party Ever, Hot Flash Heat Wave and much more.

Listen to this month’s playlist on

Other Listening and Quick Links

With the Beatles documentary Get Back coming out this weekend, now would be a great time to revisit this list from earlier in the year that Brooklyn Vegan put together of 35 great Beatles covers by indie artists.

Revolver Magazine put together a list of the 20 essential nu-metal albums. Around the Fur by Deftones and S.C.I.E.N.C.E. by Incubus totally hold up and are still in my regular rotation. There are some other albums in there that are still fun, but don’t hold up as well.

This New York Times article is a few years old, but is still very true, at least for me. The article makes the argument that some of the best and most relevant rock music is coming from women. If you have been paying attention to this newsletter you will have definitely noticed that women are a huge percentage of the songs that appear here - a lot of the artists in this article have been featured here heavily. The New York Times created a Spotify playlist about this article, and some nice person also ported it to Apple Music.

Speaking of playlists of women musicians, don’t forget about my Grrrl playlist on Apple Music and Spotify.

There was a tweet going around that was kind of “old man yelling at a cloud” that  music on the radio today sucks and that it all sounds the same and people dragged him for it. However, he was right, but he didn’t have any reasoning behind why, just went for the quick shot. This short Twitter thread explains why everything on the radio sounds the same and you’re not going to hear anything new and groundbreaking there as you would in the early to mid-90s and before.

Someone made a Lars Ulrich toilet. I don’t know why, but here it is.