On Warmer Music's Spring 2014 Mix

via Chicago Colors

By this point in the year, most of my friends are pretty sick of me but this year, I'm starting to fear for my safety. As you might remember, I'm one of the few Chicagoans who is an unapologetic fan of winter. Far from a popular position in an average year, this year it was the kind of thing that had visions of torches and pitchforks dancing in Chiberians frostbitten heads.

But even after a winter as historically bleak as this one I will still defend my love of true winter because it makes the spring all that much sweeter. This morning I smiled because it was raining. Rather than snowing. In late March. Only someone whose dealt with freezer burn on their lungs could find happiness in a drippy, 40 degree day.

Indeed spring in the midwest is a brief and flighty thing that exists for, at most, six non-consecutive weeks between March and early June but it's no less glorious because of it. A long-time spring fever sufferer, I still dream every year of the utterly giddy feeling I got in college when the season's first day over 50 when I could get away with skipping an afternoon class, throwing together a mixtape and go tooling down country roads to find a place to walk amidst woods and birds.

Don't get me wrong, as a whole, spring 'round these parts is perhaps the least satisfying season. But like that girl/boy/other you always had a crush on growing up, the brief moments when the light shines on you are unbelievably heady in a ways a solid. steady relationship/season (OK, this metaphor is getting out of hand) never quite could.

On Warmer Music's 30 Favorite Songs Of 2013 (10-1)

And there they are, the final songs of the year. It's funny, when I first started doing my end of the year list, I was a bit underwhelmed by my choices. Yet as I've gone through writing this, re-listening to the music, I've realized just how strong these songs are. Perhaps my 2013 list is the least flashy or catchy one I've made but I suspect that the grit and heart in these songs will hold up surprisingly well. Oh well, You can be the judge, here, after a brief recap are my ten favorite songs of 2013: 30. Lake Michigan Wind - Jones Street Station
29. Nothing Is Gold - Bare Mutants
28. New You - My Bloody Valentine
27.  Wendy 'N Becky (feat. Chance The Rapper) - Joey Bada$$
26. Lookin - The Dismemberment Plan
25. Uptown Boys - Netherfriends
24. Come Walk With Me - M.I.A.
23. Dreaming Of Giants - Radar Eyes
22. Nightwater Girlfriend - Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
21. White Girls (Student of the Blues) - Diarrhea Planet
20. Joy To You Baby - Josh Ritter
19. Husbands - Savages
18. Coming Through (feat. Cat Power) - Willis Earl Beal
17. I Saw Her Face - The Men
16. Coast To Coast - Waxahatchee
15. Only A Clown - Caitlin Rose
14. Unbelievers - Vampire Weekend
13. Get Back In Love - Carrie Rodriguez
12. Banana Clipper (feat. Big Boi) - Run The Jewels
11. It Can't Be You - Basia Bulat

The Christmas Party - On Warmer Music's Christmas Mix 2012

Christmas music is easily my most uncritically sentimental music of that year and God bless it for that. Christmas is the one time of the year that I still let myself go all out and try to recreate my childhood (unlike the rest of my generation which seems hell bent on recreating every aspect of their childhood in a bubbling nostalgia bath as soon and as often as possible).

Of course at the same time, so much Christmas music is produced with such insufferably cheeriness that it's, well, insufferable. God knows the holidays are just as much about disappointment, an inability to recreate the past and the passage of time as about blithe celebration. Hopefully this mix will succeed in balancing that hope and alongside songs about the imperfect reality that is more often our lot.