NYC NOW

a playlist of musicians currently living & working in one of the five boroughs

This is a subscriber-only follow-up post to my November playlist of recordings by and about New York. The rules I followed while assembling it were that the artists (1) actually live in one of the five borough at this time —and— (2) are actively putting out new recordings. Now!¹ Yes, even with the gentrification and the ridiculous rents and the closed storefronts and the coronavirus pandemic.²

If you are wondering why you’re getting this message, I gave a handful of you folks freebie subscriptions for the next 30 days. You’re getting this because I think you might take professional interest in this kind of playlist — because you suggested some artists/songs for it — and, in the most special cases, because your music appears on the mixtape!

Consider this a holiday thank you! Or an inducement to subscribe! (Not really. I do this for the love not the money.) Or one more thing to archive or delete from your inbox…

If you have time to explore the (subscriber-only) archive I’d recommend December 2021’s pre-Brexit optimist playlist full of 300+ great British songs or, if your interests are more esoteric, this hushed, almost-ambient playlist called Beautiful Songs (for Denniston Hill) in honor of an upstate NY artist residency which made a big impression on me a decade ago.

• # of Tracks: 70+

• Length: 5 hours

• Themes: musicians who currently live in one of NYC’s five boroughs & have released new recordings in the last few years ~ multiple genres which don’t necessarily sound good blending into one another ~ an opening & closing tip of the hat to the recently deceased Brooklyn critic/musician/éminence grise Greg Ironman Tate³ and his Burnt Sugar project