I’ve been making mixtapes for as long as I can remember. It’s how I first fell in love with music. My friends in high school would slide me custom mixtapes to bump after school and, eventually, romantic interests would do the same. It was a glorious time for self-discovery and shared experiences.
As time passed, and audio formats evolved, my love affair with mixes only grew stronger. But with more music available than ever before, how do you make something stick? One day I’m loving a song and the next thing I know, I haven’t heard it in weeks. A whole new crop of tunes have replaced it, coming at me from every angle. First we had surround sound, and now we’re surrounded by sound. Is the era of the earworm over?
I really hope not. For our part, we put together a blend of tracks that we hope can cut through. It’s a collection of 2019’s best dance, latinX, hip-hop, rock, and obscure gems we stumbled on along the way. What do they all have in common? They slap, of course 🙂
One of the awesome things about playlists in 2019 versus mixes 1999 is that they’re living, breathing “earganisms.” If I missed a song or, inevitably, another burner drops this Friday, I can add it. So holler if you heard something we need to know about!
I must admit that this year’s list was more challenging than 2018’s. Are there fewer summer anthems? Is a trend toward sadness and pain in pop music tougher to pair with poolside margs? Or have we fully entered the world of the niche, resulting in fewer songs we unanimously understand to be “songs of the summer”?
Regardless, it’s fun to go back and hear what we were pumping this time last year. But it’s even more fun to look forward. So fire up that grill, crack open a fire hydrant, and do a giant cannonball with Nue’s Agency’s Summer of 2019 playlist, curated by me and the fam, blaring in the background.