Recommendations: Now & Then by Adam Freeland
Added 2025-04-28 23:23:06 +0000 UTCSome years ago, I looked at Spotify playlist that catalogued all the songs it possibly could from the 15+ years of Top Gear aired on Television. Because the BBC have a licensed music library that any of their shows can use without paying anything, tons of music gets utilized over the course of seasons and shows.
One day, I spent hours and hours going through the list, marking down the songs I'd heard probably dozens of times over the period of watching the show, with the intent to listen to the albums where those songs came from.
Here's the latest result.
Big Wednesday is the song I heard on the show, but what caught my ear immediately was this albums funky-ass opener We Want Your Soul, an almost timeless reflection of 2000s consumerism that's as depressing as it is dance-able.
And the rest of the album doesn't stop experimenting, while also being so beautifully produced. Personal low points like Mind Killer don't sink the album nearly enough to stop the rest of the package from beaming like it was released yesterday.
Discoveries like this are why I keep tracing down perceived one-hit wonders, for when that one song leads to ten.
