Music

Party Time: The Head Butler Playlist

By Jesse Kornbluth
Published: Dec 17, 2014
Category: Rock

Holidays mean parties — not that we really need an excuse.

Parties need music — and more often than we’d like, we have to make excuses for that. Someone plays entire CDs. Or chooses a Greatest Hits compilation. Or — and isn’t this the worst — just dives into the Oldies.

Our daughter’s playlists are inoperative fast. As she likes to say, “That song was so last week.”

My playlist is too eccentric to be time-stamped. It ranges from Nashville to Bamako. The only constant is rhythm and originality. And a modest hope of liftoff. Can you dance to this music? To a lot of it, yes. It certainly aims to get your toe tapping. (The old saying feels true to me: “God respects us when we work. He loves us when we dance.”) And although it’s restrained — until the end, there’s nothing here that wouldn’t make the small person roll her eyes — the last song on the playlist is blunt about the link between parties and pleasure:

So what we get drunk?
So what we smoke weed?
We’re just having fun
We don’t care who sees
So what we go out?
That’s how it’s supposed to be
Living young and wild and free

At Bar Mitzvahs, the hosts hire “dance motivators” — older kids who get the shy kids dancing. Cool job. I’m taking it. Right here.

How can you replicate this playlist? Choose a song. Click on the link. That will bring you to the Butler review of that musician. Click from there into Amazon. Go to the MP3 version and buy the song, usually for 99 cents. (If you really like the music, of course you can buy the entire CD or MP3 download.)

CONTEST: I’m writing the screenplay of my novel. Two of these songs are contenders for music that starts the movie. Guess one correctly, I’ll gift it to you. Guess two, get two. You know where to find me.

So you can take a tour of this music, I’ve posted videos of the songs on my playlist. In that sense, you could say that the party starts…. now.

Chris Isaak, Back on Your Side