Playlist #22: Never easier, never better

This is the playlist where I find myself grappling with my loneliness head on. As if I haven't done that in all my other playlists, probably driving you all away.

You probably already know this: September is the busiest month of my calendar year.

This year, I was busier than ever. Somewhere along the way the day job decided to be bigger than ever. It’s intensely rewarding, but also intensely draining.

There’s the assumption that when a group of people go through the same challenging thing together, they come out with a stronger bond. Not really the case for me. I think, in this case, it’s partly because pretty much everybody else is older than me, and while the conversations whenever we get a break can be comfortable, I can only really go so far. Reminds me of the time I went to Taipei for the first time: I was accompanying sixty-somethings who were happy with just staying at the big Ikea downtown to mooch off their wi-fi. I needed to be with people on my own wavelength.

And that is why the busiest month of the year, ironically, is the month when I feel the most alone. Not even the work is distracting me.

I never really had a “support group”. I could easily talk to people in school, but I never had a best friend, or even a circle of friends. I suppose that’s why I kind of tried to cling on to the ex for longer than I should’ve. But even then, I couldn’t tell her everything, for fear of being a burden. Referring to the patriarchy is in vogue these days, sure, but it is what it is. I’m a guy. I should learn to deal with things myself.

So, imagine the break-up happening, and imagine me scrambling to find people to spill my troubles to. Thankfully there were some, and some have become what I call “better friends” in the process. But we’re in our mid-30s. We have our own lives and our own problems, and some just don’t have the patience to be there all the time. You know, the non-linear nature of grief, how the solution to everything has to be “moving on”, that sort of thing. I know I have to do many of these things by myself, but when it just gets too much, does it still have to just be myself? Or am I being banished to my own loneliness? Is it because I still have to “do the work”? Bleeping therapy-speak. It’s become an excuse to exclude those you just don’t want to deal with anymore, isn’t it? An excuse to isolate those who do not deserve the empathy you claim to have?

I mean, I know. It’s difficult. I’m not a saint myself. But having lived most of my life where I’m told constantly to be what others want me to be so I can fit in, while also somehow saying “just be yourself” over and over, well, this gets tiring. You might think I should be used to this—I’m 35, I should just put my head down and do the things that make me happy—but it never gets easier, and it never gets better. The farther in I go, the more alone I feel. The more I feel I am a bad person who does not deserve, if not love, then commiserations at the very least. Until that happens, I’ll just be tolerated, actively diminished, unless, I guess, I contort myself further to their exact specifications.

The funny thing with the Substack platform pivoting towards being a social network rather than just a publishing tool is that, one, it’s great knowing more about your fellow writers and readers—but two, for me at least, it exacerbates my anxieties about ultimately not being accepted. It always goes back there. And so I ask myself: why did I just write all that here? Where’s the playlist?

Unfortunately for all of us, this month’s playlist isn’t isolated from those feelings of being alone. I’ve been listening to it and realizing how it’s a story of friendships that could have gone on and on, should have gone on and on, but never will—of starting and ending at square one. But maybe you have a different take. At least it follows that French radio thing I’ve been hyperfixated on for the past few months—with the addition, like last month, of a years-old K-pop track that I’ve been playing over and over to pick myself up, in this case Dia’s “Can’t Stop” with its brilliant build to Eunjin and Huihyeon’s rap part and the final chorus.

One of the things I noticed while finalizing this month’s playlist is how I have a lot of Filipino acts once again—only this time, half of that number aren’t exactly household names here, which is a little unusual considering how we latch on to every success Filipinos (and members of the Filipino diaspora) make internationally. I mean, beabadoobee is doing quite well, and yet I don’t think I’ve seen wall-to-wall coverage around her being Filipino. (She moved to the United Kingdom at a very young age, but judging from how she called her Manila concert a couple of years back a “homecoming”, I don’t think she’s lost touch of her heritage.)

But sometimes my “Pinoy ba siya?” senses tingle. I came across Aussie singer-songwriter Mariae Cassandra when she was announced the winner of this year’s Triple J’s Unearthed High competition, and somehow I guessed it correctly that she is from these islands. Cebu, I think, but now based in Perth. Not that you would know from “Million Billion Trillion”—not that her heritage has to shine through there, but you know, some people will make that a point of contention.

Proof that we are getting older: the pop-rock aesthetic of the early 2000s is back. Avril Lavigne is now a reference point for today’s up-and-comers—although in the aforementioned cases, I feel it’s more of the polished, radio-friendly pop-rock of Ashlee Simpson’s Autobiography, with a smidge of shoegaze given the middle-of-the-road treatment. I like it. It does convey the floating feeling of being in love—“Million Billion Trillion” at the beginning, “Beaches” somewhere in the middle—and it never lets me be bitter about it.

Please continue bringing this sound back. I’m getting older and I want more variety in my pop radio—and I know that’s shorthand for “too much hyperpop”, and while I have nothing against it, I’m sticking with the sentiment.

Speaking of variety,

andi

introduced me to Mijon.—that is not a typo, there is a period at the end of the band’s name—and their song “Magpatuloy”. It’s one of those songs that apparently a good number of people already like, as if to drill down the point that I am out of the loop (as if I ever was) because I am getting older. Sure, it’s also because it appeared in the LGBTQ+ web series Marahuyo Project, (specifically the fifth episode,) which I haven’t seen, of course, but people are really raving about for being so comfy.

Honestly, I initially wasn’t sure about the song. It wasn’t how earnest it is—I was in the right mood when I first listened to it, so I was more receptive. It’s one of those songs that makes you think it’s going in one direction, until it shows all its cards and then you feel entirely differently about it. Specifically the two-minute mark, when vocalist Anne Cortez just goes there, and all of the baroque pop elements come together, and suddenly I am on board and somehow fighting back tears. And also asking, “there are more songs, right?”

At this point I think about how, despite almost a decade of writing about music, I still have a lot to learn about the songs coming out of my own home turf. Well, to be fair, I am not claiming to be a journalist, to know everything (or anything) about what I’m writing about. I’m just foolish enough to think my thoughts on what I listen to are of interest to a lot of people. Between seven years of the old music blog and almost two years of the Once Monthly, finding out about these acts has always been rewarding, and I get a kick out of doing a little to bring them to the surface. (I always had a feeling I had something to do with how Reese Lansangan’s Arigato, Internet! ended up being represented by that one specific album cover, when it technically came with twelve.)

And then I realize that I do this also because I want to carve a niche, to be relevant to a crowd with a limited attention span. And then I realize I never quite will. And then I’m sad again. See, it always comes back to my loneliness, doesn’t it? You know, you should learn to be comfortable with being alone. No. You don’t get to banish me.

I’m pondering what to do exactly with this month’s Plaka Note—this is what you get when acts just drop albums out of nowhere, wrecking your editorial calendar—but it should still go live on 25 October. The next playlist follows on 8 November. In between, I’ll be active on the socials, and you can always drop a song recommendation via nicksyoncemonthly@gmail.com. Until then, and all that.

---

On this playlist

• Juniore—“Méditerranée”
  Trois, Deux, Un (2024)

• Frances Forever—“Space Girl”
  single release (2020)

• Mariae Cassandra—“Million Billion Trillion”
  single release (2024)

• beabadoobee—“Beaches”
  This Is How Tomorrow Moves (2024)

• Dia—“듣고싶어 (E905)” (Can’t Stop)
  Love Generation (2017)

• The Buoys—“Ahead of Myself”
  Lustre (2024)

• Tame Impala—“Feels Like We Only Go Backwards”
  Lonerism (2012)

• Orange and Lemons—“The Story Must Come To A Sudden End”
  Moonlane Gardens (2007)

• Cosmo’s Midnight—“Eating Heartache” (featuring Spill Tab)
  Stop Thinking Start Feeling (2024)

• TLC—“Waterfalls”
  CrazySexyCool (1994)

• Ships and Hardships—“Flou”
  Belmondo (2024)

• Jungle—“Let’s Go Back”
  single release (2024)

• London Grammar—“Kind of Man”
  The Greatest Love (2024)

• Everything But The Girl—“Cross My Heart”
  Baby, the Stars Shine Bright (1986)

• Mijon.—“Magpatuloy”
  single release (2022)

• Vulfmon and Evangeline—“Letting Things Go”
  Dot (2024)

• Dizzy—“Daylight Savings Time”
  The Sun and Her Scorch (2020)