Strange bedfellows

A serendipitous shuffle inspires a playlist

I have been struggling this week because I know that I want to write, but writing something fun and light seems disrespectful to the big feelings that many of us are feeling this week. But, as my friend Ty said, “I don’t want to write something that speaks to the more grave circumstances facing queer folk and many others in the US because it will just contribute to the despair.” Ultimately the urge to write won out and I decided to focus on something that gave me joy, which is something I think a lot of us are going to have to be doing.

A couple weeks ago, I was listening to my Apple Music “Recently Played” playlist as I am wont to do and a trio of artists played in sequential order. These artists were Mary Chapin Carpenter, Ava Max, and Liz Phair. And for some reason, even though these artists make very different music, they seemed to fit together, just like the two songs at the end of “Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas.”

I’ve loved Mary Chapin Carpenter since college, when I had a mix tape of songs from her first three albums that I listened to constantly in the spring of my 2nd year of pharmacy school. She sang exactly how I felt in many instances - her songs of unrequited love and relationships fraying at the seams seemed to be so applicable at that time. I’ve followed her career through the 30 intervening years and a couple years ago I saw her live for the second time (after seeing her perform a disappointing acoustic show several years prior) and this time she had a full band and while her voice has definitely aged, it was so great. The fact that I saw her in the city where I went to pharmacy school and played all her songs so earnestly was so fitting.

Ava Max is simulataneously someone I should and should not love. Her music is disposable and at times, forgettable. She has a voice but it’s not a diva’s voice. But oddly enough, all these things lead me to really loving her music. Her second album, last year’s Diamonds & Dancefloors, was my #1 played album of 2023 (this year, nothing’s even close to matching how many times I played that album.) She has a new song out this year called “Spot A Fake” which is exactly what I expect from her and almost immediately earned a spot on my best of 2024 song list which I’ll be publishing as we get closer to Christmas. I saw her live last year and, as expected, she had a significant backing track but it was a fun show and there’s something about being in a general admission show full of gay men singing along to all the songs that is invigorating (see also: Sophie Ellis-Bextor.)

And finally, Liz Phair. I don’t quite know what to make of her presence on this list as, if I’m totally honest, I don’t like her as much as I want to. The only full albums of hers that I truly like are her self-titled 2003 effort (which ran afoul of many hard core Liz fans because it was too pop and is, naturally, what drew me to it) and 2021’s Soberish. I don’t like Exile in Guyville nearly as much as I wish I did, and that is heresy in Liz circles. I listened to her book Horror Stories a few years back and it was a great audiobook experience. I’m such a sucker for the “celebrity memoir read by the author” and hers was no exception. I always feel like by the time I’m done listening to the book, I am having to say goodbye to a friend that I’ve gotten to know over the course of however many hours the book is.

But anyway, these artists work very well together even though they really shouldn’t. And in many ways, it encapsulates a lot of my musical taste in one little playlist. I capped the playlist at 30 songs - 10 songs each - and cleverly named it MCC AVA LIZ. Sometimes when I make these one off playlists, I end up immediately forgetting about them, but I’ve been coming back to this one quite a bit and I thought maybe my handful of readers might also like to see it as well. I’m presenting it here as a Spotify playlist but I’m sure you could rebuild it in your streaming music service of choice.

I hope that you enjoy it at least a little bit. This week has been hard but we’re going to get through it.