Spotify is a great service for people that love music, normally download it for free… and decide they want to try a legal variety. It is also a great tool for discovering new music, I have found lots of new acts through my few weeks on Spotify, and will use this blog to talk about some of the playlists I am putting together.This is apt because Spotify allows you to share playlists with other people, so if you want the playlist I describe here, you can click on this link (after installing Spotify) and this playlist will be added to your Spotify automatically!
This is the first list I made, based on music I like. I called it relaxed as all songs have the ability to calm me down. Feel free to give me feedback!
The Fun Loving Criminals
First up the Fun Loving Criminals. These guys from New York are well known in the Festival scene for producing some of the most distinctive and soulful Blues/Rock whatever you want to call it. Smoke em’ was their key-song on Dutch festivals, wonder why…, and is still great after all these years.
Fleetwood Mac: Albatross
I never really knew Fleetwood Mac, they were from well before my time, but when I heard the Chain on the radio I knew I had to find out what else they made. Although the Chain is my favourite FM song, Albatross is the one making it onto this list. When I hear it I can just see tropical beaches!
Jamiroquai: Seven days in Sunny June
What better follow up to tropical beaches than a song about Sunny June. Although Jamiroquai is by no means an artist I would consider part of my “favourites”, this particular song is both uplifting and soothing.
Iam: Sans Issue
Iam
Iam is hardly known at all outside of France, which is odd as he is a great hip hop artist. Recent collaborations with Beyonce and other American commercial drab proof this, but in my opinion this guy doesn’t do himself justice by collaborating with ’superstars’. Sans Issue is one of his masterpieces and it is both soothing and impressive. Not a clue what he sings about though 
Blof & Heather Nova: Mooie Dag
Blof are definitely in my favourite bands top ten. This Dutch band has been changing the Dutch pop-scene since the mid nineties and are going from strength to strength. This song is about the day their drummer died in a car accident. It is beautifully written and composed, and in this version Heather Nova actually contributes to the strength of the song.
Pearl Jam: Gone
Another band with a knack for writing great songs. Their album Ten, which triggered their breakthrough, is one of my favourite albums, but this song from the album Pearl Jam is up there with Alive and Jeremy in terms of strength and lyrics. Oh, and it is relaxing in a weird way.
U2: With or without you
I doubted this song should be on this list, but the underlying guitar riffs and the pace of the song warrant a spot anyway. I don’t think I need to say a lot about U2 do I?
Lenny Kravitz: I belong to you
Spotify does have a quirk in that it only plays what the record labels allow it to play. That means that a classic Lenny album with some great songs is missing. Fortunately this track has made it to the Greatest hits album and is well worth listening to.
Mellon Colly and the infinite sadness.
Smashing Pumpkins: Tonight Tonight
One of the best bands of the nineties, which fortunately have decided to reform some years ago, publishing the great Zeitgeist album. Tonight Tonight is a massive song, with brilliant composition and strength.
Nirvana: Something in the way
My musical taste is revealing itself rapidly in this list I suppose… Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins… Bush is missing of Spotify but would have made it otherwise. Grunge really got me going in the nineties! But it is still music that stands out from the rock-crowd. Eventhough over the past decade we have been blessed with a raft of great bands coming through to the top of the charts.
Roykssop: Eple
Another festival favourite, although I don’t like all of their work, Eple (with the famous melody that keeps floating in and out) is a classic and manages to free my mind from any thought.
Prince: Sexy Motherfucker
Prince is an icon, unfortunately he sank away into oblivion but to me his music is still ten times better than anything ever produced by that other eighties icon, Michael Jackson. This song brings lots of different influences together into an orgy of gorgeousness.
The Prodigy: 3 Kilos
At the end of the album, Music for the Jilted Generation, tucked away from the rougher and tougher side of the album, are three electro tunes that never interested me earlier. But the more I listened to the album, the more I fell in love with these jewels. I could have picked any of them, but 3 Kilos is great.
Wax Tailor: Positively Inclined
This guy I discovered through Spotify and boy am I pleased I did! French trip-hop producer Wax Tailor is a gem, one of many to be uncovered by me using Spotify I hope!
