Quarantine playlists: what the BrooklynVegan staff is listening to in isolation this week

With the coronavirus pandemic keeping many of us home a lot more, music (and TV) is perhaps more important than ever. It provides solace during these crazy times and an escape from the endless scroll of news, and fortunately — despite no concerts happening — there is no lack of music to get us through. We’ve been posting several musicians’ livestreamed performances on a daily basis and some of our favorite live concert videos every week day. We’ve also asked several artists to make playlists of the music they’ve been listening to in isolation, and several BrooklynVegan staff members/contributors have made our own isolation playlists too. If you’re looking for something new to listen to, or old to revisit, maybe one or more of these playlists will do the trick.

We’ll be posting new playlists weekly. Here’s this week’s:

Andrew Sacher (editor)

I’ve been listening to the new Jeff Rosenstock album a lot, which has got me craving more short, fast, catchy punk songs, so this playlist starts off with one of Jeff’s new songs and then includes a bunch of others that fit a similar mood for me. There’s some nostalgia here, but a handful of great songs from 2020 too. Punk is (not) dead.

Amanda Hatfield (editor)

Charli XCX’s how i’m feeling now really is an amazing achievement, and “anthems” could very well be my quarantine anthem. Inspired by that, and this weird holiday weekend, I made a playlist of some of recent pop I love and some of my favorite nostalgic throwbacks.

Bill Pearis (editor)

I don’t know what made me think of “Ripen” by early-’00s Welsh group Mountaineers, but it popped in my head and the rest of this mix spun out of that. There’s groovy Brit rock (Beta Band, The Bees), Northern Soul (Nolan Porter, The Flirtations), late ’70s lite rock/disco, modern stuff that sounds like late ’70s lite rock/disco, and more.

Erin Christie (contributing writer)

This one was inspired by the release of Phoebe Bridgers’ latest single earlier this week but it kind of evolved into a mess of shoegaze as I continued to add more songs. This playlist has high points, but also has a generally melancholy feel to it, contributed by the fact that a lot of it is based in reverb-heavy, lo-fi instrumentation.

Jeremy Nifras (contributing writer)

When I had to title this week’s playlist, it shocked me how we’re mostly through May heading into June, and how most of these days in quarantine have been blending together. All the while, I’ve been listening to a diverse selection of records old and new, reflected in this mix, which ranges from the new Hot Mulligan and Jeff Rosenstock, to a bunch of slightly older favorites from Atoms for Peace, The Twilight Sad, and others. Here’s to hoping we’ll get to enjoy our summer to the fullest.