harvest week #10
here we go, we've peaked! so i bring you a sappy nostalgia piece. except its actually interesting?
sometimes it takes you three months to write a newsletter, unfortunately, this is one of those.
music is how i experience the world and in trying to understand my thoughts and feelings at the time, i decided it was a good idea to write about my musical evolution, my unfurling! i wanted to answer the question of how music for me expanded from watching MTV in my mom's house to scouring the earth for memories and locking these in with music and the experiences i had around it.
so we’re doing this! big sigh, i should absolutely be doing something else but here we go.
right now, here is a list of some of my most listened-to songs of the moment on 5th may 2024 (haha when i started writing this).
let’s not even get into my soundcloud (but follow me if you cant)
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let’s go back to 2014, what year for me! what a year for music, what a harbinger of the golden year that was 2016.
picture this, a much younger daniel has just written his school-leaving exam and is catching up on all the tv he missed from his time in boarding school.
what am i listening to?
lorde really wants me on her team, lana del rey unleashes more west coast propaganda, ariana grande is breaking free , tinashe and 2on, halsey makes me feel things with ghost, cold play and up&up and damn, we cannot forget ed sheeran making us feel everything with thinking out loud. i’m in peak sad boi hours, let’s focus on one release here, lana del rey, ultraviolence. it will be important.
on the other end; calvin harris puts out summer, the chainsmokers light up the world with selfie, am i wrong by nico and vinz, rather be by clean bandit *no notes*, tove lo and the best hard drug marketing project, avicii blazing though the charts with the the days / nights ep , martin garrix released his gold skies ep and zhu came out with faded. let’s focus on r3hab how we party. it will be important.
look this list can go on for the 90 other genres i listen to but, because what a fucking year for music! but bref… many other things influenced my taste in music, without going too deep into it, here are others…
movies?
how i met your mother
anything with chloe grace moretz, jennifer lawrence or shailene woodley
greys anatomy, obvi..
also what a freaking crossover, lorde, curating the hunger games soundtrack? daniel? loving it. i’ll also skip how coming-of-age movies got me into indie rock, or we are your friends made me want to be a dj,
video games?
fifa 14/15
just dance
halo
fuuun! back to 2014 and music..
lana del rey ultraviolence
ultraviolence really cemented my love for this specific genre of sad, emotionally pensive yet enjoyable music. a truly unappealing message but gosh did i enjoy it. it wasn’t quite pop, but it was somewhat popular and i started to look for that sound more and more and more. it also pushed me out of the mould i was set in, lorde, florence and machine, hundred waters, aluna george.. i was diving deep and exploring. it felt good to not always pretend to be happy with the music i listened to. life isn’t always, why should my music be?
r3hab - how we fucking party
this is a wild track! it’s less about the musical competence of the artist and more about what they were part of; a record label! i started to notice patterns, i would listen to almost all my favourite tracks from the same youtube channel, which later i realised was a record label. it started to make sense. i started to understand artist relations and the electronic music scene, festivals, and shows, i followed their socials i checked song beatport ranking, and when a remix was released, i explored the other artist’s discography and my musical graph kept growing! i like many others wanted to be a dj now lol
2014 saw a big change in my music habits. all the new music i found was on the internet. all my favourite artists were touring and i would save up my college allowance to see them. gone were the days of experiencing music from my mom’s couch waiting for my favourite songs to show up. i had to do the work myself and discover what my next new obsession would be
i remember what i saw martin garrix play live. that concert put a stamp on what my new idea of live music was and from then, my relationship with artists changed forever. i didn’t just want to have the tracks on my ipod play, i wanted to be front row throwing my hands up, trying to make eye contact with whoever was spinning beats or serving vocals. i did a few other shows after. great vibes, great energy. sadly, i was hooked.
a few years later, i had my first festival. what a VIBE! you mean i could walk around this large reserved area and discover new acts, connect with the artists and instantly become a fan? wow. importantly but not to be dived further into today, i saw two door cinema club for the first time, EVER! nothing was the same after.
i also saw bonobo (an electronic music artist i had previously never heard of) play with drum machines and synths and have an orchestra for the vibes. WHAT? my mind was blown. i also spent those first two hours of the festival listening to the lovely KAVYA share her incredible voice with give or take, 25 people. she wasn’t popular, yet i enjoyed it. this was the end, now 500k monthly listens means you’re not for me. how many gems were out there? i had to find out.
this festival was also my first experience with proper techno, the awakenings stage was incredible, my infant ears too soft to understand it. 2 years later they were ready!
i can go on in incredible detail about every interaction that brought me to where i am musically but that is for another day.
quick chaotic tangent on music discovery; listening to major lazor made me discover dillon francis, who made me discover alison wonderland, who made me really explore the australian music scene1 and that made me discover flume and what so not, who were the same but flume left what so not and what so not is only emo now. listening to flume made me discover vince staples, slowthai and jpegmafia and many many more who i absolutely love right now.
aaaand listening to charlie xcx made me discover mura masa who did a song with tinashe and eventually led me to discover jadu heart, i adore them is a gross understatement. listening to them made me discover2 gretal hanyl who is just wow.
i think you get it, discover, explore, go deep, so much music out there is waiting for you.
ok, why 2014?
have you ever started writing something and then realised that you’re writing about something else? i was sad and listened to my 2014 jams to get the vibes up and decided to write about what a brilliant year it was for music. turns out that wasn’t what i wanted to write about, so fighting that feeling took me three months lol
to be honest i thought i’d be doing any one of the following when i started this..
writing to appreciate my musical journey and pinpoint artists who really played a part in making my taste what it is today
writing a piece mourning the death of music videos and how important they were to me
writing to understand my love for certain types of electronic music by looking for earlier influences
i hinted at it, 2014 was my last year as “child“. it saw me leaving the safety and structure of high school and planning to go out into the world. it’s also the year my relationship with the internet changed. it’s the year i started my journey into adulthood, leaving home and all. it’s the year, music discovery for me shifted from watching music videos on mtv or trace and dancing to the top 40 to curating my own taste and discovering artists on the internet.
2014 was incredible, i always question why i got back and listen to songs from that year when i’m feeling down.
i’ve been writing this for about a month, and it didn’t feel quite right. i’ve been thinking about 2014 a lot. i attached so much importance to it. i wanted to make it shine, this was its time and after leaving the newsletter and coming back to it, i realised that in trying to subconsciously reconcile my 10 years as somewhat of a self-sustaining adult, i got so fixated on 2014 as a year.
this newsletter just keeps giving, here is a semi-curated playlist!!
it was no wonder i turned to my 2014 playlist for comfort missing the warm hug of my parent's couch and lack of understanding, the ignorant bliss and in looking back, at 10 years living, 3 years in france.. i can’t help but appreciate every single way I get to experience life and the music that helps me remember..
speaking of exploring, i’ve discovered this thing called rest, so i’m currently swimming in it - send tv show recs for anything like severance.
the next one will be sooner i promise, here are some things i’m doing as people have expressed really liking these chaotic lists
i’m going to be bothering everyone with
i’m working on an ep, it’s harder than i thought
i’m back cooking, love that for me
i have discovered the joys of messy rooms, jk idk joys are hard to come by - feelings are felt etc blah blah idk
i’m exploring restoring a bike (again)
i’m reading more, found a cute bookstore in dublin
i’m itching to share more art, literally!
planning on taking my bike south and doing a long ride, i’ll write about this
also incredible 10 years later, this is happening
shall we cross our fingers for 2026? i won’t
also i realise this is longer than usual, next few are shorter and less ambitious, we’re going back roots5
hope you enjoyed this, it was hard to write, hope it was better to read xxx
shout out triple j, iykyk
they produced a song on her album and shared it online so i listened and loved it
she never left
it never left but thank you kdot
sorry not sorry