Here’s the first in what I hope will be a regular series of entries about playlists I’ve put together.
Leave this world behind…
- Working for a Nuclear Free City: Rocket
- TV on the Radio: Satellite
- The Swell Season: The Moon
- MuteMath: Stare at the Sun
- The Flaming Lips: Watching the Planets
- Bush: 40 Miles from the Sun
- Keane: Sunshine
- The Dandy Warhols: Stars
- Bat for Lashes: Two Planets
- Zero 7: Polaris
- Gorillaz: Starshine
- The Pains of Being Pure at Heart: Higher than the Stars
- Muse: Supermassive Black Hole
- Spiritualized: Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space
- Explosions in the Sky: Glittering Blackness
- Sigur Ros: Myrkur (Darkness)
- Nine Inch Nails: Lights in the Sky
- Black Mountain: Bright Lights
- 30 Seconds to Mars: 100 Suns
- The XX: Infinity
- Lamb: Darkness
- Bloc Party: Better than Heaven
Of course, there are many more songs that could be added to this playlist, but I like the way it flows as it is. Leave this world behind… grew organically from the song titles. There were a few songs that for some reason I wanted to put together to begin with, and it evolved from there. Those original songs were Oblivion by 30 Seconds to Mars (which didn’t end up on the final list), Infinity by The XX, Staring at the Sun by TV on the Radio (which got changed to Satellite because it’s one of my favorite TV On the Radio tracks and I wanted to also include Stare at the Sun by MuteMath and didn’t want such similar song titles).
A few songs that didn’t end up on this list, but I considered (though these are by no means all of those I thought about): Now My Feet Won’t Touch the Ground by Coldplay and The Planets Bend Between Us and If There’s a Rocket, Tie Me To It by Snow Patrol because, for as much as I love those songs, they didn’t seem to feel right in this list. Also, Mercury by Bloc Party, Sun by Lamb, and Star Star by The Frames were contenders, but simply didn’t make the cut because I didn’t want to duplicate bands (yes, I know The Frames aren’t actually in the playlist, but Glen Hansard is as part of The Swell Season).
In many ways, I suppose, in my mind this playlist is also influenced by the idea of V’Ger from the first Star Trek movie — that if you travel far enough you go beyond space, time, and human limits.
Except for the Spock pic, all images in this post came from NASA’s awesome Astronomy Picture of the Day.
