Playlist: Sun Glitters on Cool Water – Remembered Paradise

It’s been far too long since I’ve posted a new playlist on the blog (also just posted anything period), but I’m breaking that dry spell with four new chillwave / balearic revival / synth pop playlists all set to soundtrack your summer.

With the hellish events that have been occurring without abatement putting a damper on my summer, I’ve personally been yearning for my summers past, specifically those from 2008 to 2015, also known as my high school and college years. Not only is the music paired with a time where I was at my lightest, responsibility-wise and most surrounded by friends and family, but the music from the era itself feels more upbeat, cheery and rosy. I can’t be ashamed of indie nostalgia since it’s fully baked into my musical discovery journey.

Anyways – I’ve made four playlists to channel back to those times, full of songs that were from that sweet late 00s / early 10s spot. I’ve made a chillwave / balearic pop playlist before, Beach Ball Hell, which you can find HERE. It’s built upon the scene cornerstones Toro y Moi, Washed Out, Neon Indian, Small Black, Brothertiger, along with a few other personal favorites. It’s the boilerplate! Sun Glitters on Cool Water follows a similar formula, focusing on the big names and building out from there and features many of the same artists like the ones listed above along with Kisses, Beat Connection, Tanlines, Mr Twin Sister, Delorean, Lemonade, Korallreven, The Tough Alliance and more. I love the early 2010s! There was a surplus of fantastic bike riding, driving, summery grooves to choose from.

Picture yourself sitting by a pool, or better yet, retreat to your most treasured summertime memories while listening to this playlist. The taste and sensation of cool, frozen grapes from the cooler. The feeling of jumping into still water. The plush feeling of cushions on a deck chair. It’s a playlist that I picture working better in the daytime, and absolutely slaps on a long car ride. It’s here to make you feel good, to be a sort of salve. I hope it helps.

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Warm Visions’ Top 100 Songs of the 2020s So Far

It’s already that time again: below you’ll find my favorite 100 songs of the 2020s so far, ranked in order. It feels bizarre that I’m already dissecting songs from the last five years under the lens of them being the encapsulation of the decade so far. That might sound uselessly cyclical or redundant, but the last five years have felt and acted like no other half decade span I’ve lived through. The elasticity of time has never been more dynamic, and with it our perception of art and trends. Compounded with that, the last few years have been taxing beyond belief, molding our brains into contorted forms of what they once were. How much of my changing perception is due to these traumatic times versus just being a general byproduct of aging, times changing, and life events naturally accumulating brain wrinkles?

In making this list, I’ve been constantly looking back at the other decade-recapping lists I’ve done, taking note at what kind of songs rank high and why. These last five years already feel, music-wise, so distinct from the five years preceding the 2020s. Again, this might just be wholly due to the pandemic, and without it would have felt like 2019 part two in 2020 (it honestly started to in the beginning there).

What you’ll find below is a collection of 100 songs, ranked, with little blurbs (not Warm Visions descriptions) and stream links. It’s predominantly “indie rock, pop and electronic,” with a few crowd-pleaser mainstream pop tracks in the mix too. There are artists that repeat, but I only pull one song per project. I make a better note of it at the end of the list, but my Top 10 picks really adequately reflect my desired mental state as we hit the halfway point of the 2020s. I hope you enjoy looking back at these songs, or finding new ones you may have missed.

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Warm Visions’ Top 100 Albums of the 2020s So Far

Somehow, someway, we’ve reached the midpoint of the 2020s. We’ve all lived through it, so I don’t need to break down what it’s been like. I’ll just say that if this hasn’t been the most turbulent, spiritually damaging stretch of five years in your life, then buddy, I do not envy the way your life was prior to 2020.

Albums-wise, this half decade has provided us music freaks with some fantastic tunes. I’ll say that based off this list alone that 2022 is one of the best years of music I’ve ever live through. You’ll find a wide array of genres and voices present below. If you’re familiar with Warm Visions, hopefully a lot of these records are familiar to you as well. I have my favorites and I hold them tight!

(If you’re curious, I made one of these in the midpoint of the 2010s as well. Wild to think that I wrote this 10 years ago at this point now. You can read that HERE.)

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Recommended Albums: May 2025

I’m about to post my Best Albums + Songs of the 2020s so far, so I’m going to keep this brief. May was long as hell, but also feels like it flew by SUPER FAST. Some solid albums! Really damn good! Let’s get it!

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Recommended Albums: April 2025

It sure does feel good to get back into a rhythm. It also makes it feel even better when the music is actually good. April 2025 was a wellspring of fantastic tunes, mostly leaning electronic, but encompassing a wide array of genres and styles, along with utilities. Barker, DJ Koze and Lawrence Hart is music for romping around the city sweaty-like. Cloth and Maria Usbeck is for enjoying in the house. Walt McClements and William Tyler are for questioning the universe in the wee hours of the morning. It’s all good, folks. Dig into some good stuff.

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Recommended Albums: March 2025

Another late but better than never installment of Recommended Albums. Thankfully for me, my wedding month was a plump bouquet of fantastic records, ones I anticipate landing high within my year-end favorites in December.

Out of everything, the YHWH Nailgun and Chuquimamani-Condori + Joshua Chuquimia Crampton records were the most-played for the month, with Cross Record not too far behind. What can I say, this year needs records that bend the fabric of time and reality, challenging our ersatz world with both visions of it at its worse and its prospective best.

And PS – this is the first Recommended Albums of 2025 with little descriptions! I’m back, baby! Just took four months!

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Recommended Albums: February 2025

Only a few days under two months late, I’ve got a list of my favorite records of February 2025 below. Truthfully I wasn’t paying too much attention to new music from the month aside from the Horsegirl and Oklou records, but looking back I had a nice array of records to pick from. Oh yeah and I mean, anything Yo La Tengo was going to make it, even if it was the film score for a 20-year old movie. I was also planning my wedding all of February, so hey. I’ve got some leeway here.

No Warm Visions descriptions below because that part of my brain is still getting repaired.

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Recommended Albums: January 2025

To anyone that’s been disappointed about the lack of updates on Warm Visions, I humbly apologize. 2025 has been quite the wild year and it’s been a bit tough to get the motivation to focus on new music like I have in the past. This might be an indication that I am becoming washed, or perhaps I’m filling my life with more pointless hobbies. Both can definitely be true. At the very least though, I’ve still got Recommended Albums to catch up on, and January comes logically first.

Truth be told I started off the year taking a concerted break from actively listening to new releases to try and focus on either past favorites, new-to-me albums, or purely just let my ear guide me where it will. Where it brought me was DJ mixes, namely the fabric presents, DJ-Kicks and LateNightTales mixes. Great for just putting on and not thinking about for a while, unless the selector spins something spicy. January 2025 did have some solid records though, and here’s where you can look back on them.

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Warm Visions’ Top 10 Concerts of 2024

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Realized I did things a little out of order, as I like to post the year’s Retrospective after all my “Best Of” lists are done. Well, woops. I still had to list out my favorite concerts I saw in 2024, of which there are a few!

Below you’ll find my Top 10 favorite shows of 2024, organized alphabetically, plus a bunch of rogue favorite memories / moments from the other shows I went to. Overall, this was a great year of shows – the most I saw since before the pandemic. Getting back out there! If you see an artist coming to your town sometime this year, take the plunge and go see them, even if you have to go alone! Live music is soul-filling, and helps our new music ecosystem.

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2024 Retrospective – 100 Discoveries, Obsessions and True Moments + Listening Stats

Every year since 2014, I’ve taken time at the end of my Best of the Year list season to survey the field, to take stock in the music that defined my year, and not just the tracks that came out that year. You can find the whole list HERE. Sure most of the songs in the playlist were brand new so of course they will sound like 2024 looking back, but some weren’t from this year. I wanted to catalog how each year sounded, with the week-long obsessions or radical discoveries woven in, and provide a resource for me to be able to say “hmm I wonder what mid-year 2017 sounded like… oh here’s the playlist”, and get warped back to another time. This isn’t escapism (ok maybe some shred of it is), but it’s mostly just preserving memories and the music associated with them. 

Kind of crazy to think about how this is the 10th year I’ve done this. Looking back at my first in 2014, aka my rowdiest year alive, I was living it up. Partying often, working in NYC, making new friends, experiencing new things, the works. You can check out that feature HERE, although you’ve been warned that it was written by a 22 year old. 10 years later, I’ve never felt more stagnant. That’s not to say there wasn’t any enjoyment, or good music being bumped regularly, but I need to claw out. Make the year feel as dynamic as 2014 reads.

But let’s get back to 2024 – below you’ll find 100 songs that soundtracked my 2024, followed by my listening stats (basically my “Wrapped”, a little log of other non-music media consumed in 2024, and finally a short diary section summarizing my thoughts on the year as a whole. There’s also a playlist that you can follow along with below as well.

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