A photo of various forms of Seattle public transit, and some tunes

Alrighty, April playlist time. We're playing catchup here!

It's felt so good to get back into a regular writing schedule between the daily content for Starting E11even, my new football-focussed youtube channel, and increasing my time for personal projects like this blog. It may be a little soon to say, but I think this freelancing thing is going to work out.

And shortly I'll be popping out to spend my day at my favorite store in Seattle, Glasswing, where I was fortunate enough to be offered work taking care of the plants after taking their month-long plant internship in April. Happy days.

April was an incredibly intense month, between balancing my full time internship, two freelance gigs, and the weekly plant internship I also added to my plate. So this playlist is extremely strong too, as it was needed to keep me going.

Let me break it down for you: April, Fool.

I got really into Lorde after listening to a Song Exploder podcast she did where she gave a behind the process of Sober, and I couldn't get those horns out of my head all month. Didn't truly appreciate that particular number off the album as much as some others previously, so I love the newfound appreciation I have for it and her methods.

I also got really into Miguel. His voice is so powerful and sunny and sexy, and his songs are infectiously happy, and I think we could all use a little more of that in our ears day to day.

Speaking of summery inflected music, there's some more of that because it was needed for me to stay positive and also begin to get into the spirit of the sunshine that was beginning to break through in Seattle. Guatemala and Since I Left You are such idyllic soundscapes each.

There's a lot of Khalid as my goodness that kid has been cranking out the songs recently. He's going to have a feature on every radio track this summer. Luckily I can't hear enough of his voice. Don't Let Me Down also features Sabrina Claudio, who's great.

Some awesome albums were released or prereleased in April; Leon Bridges', Kacey Musgraves', and Cautious Clay's. Teasing tracks from each on the playlist.

The tracks I couldn't stop listening to though, both from Canadians: Drake's Nice For What and Jessie Reyez' Figures (and the rerelease with Daniel Caesar, another Canadian!). Nice For What isn't Drake's best single ever, but my god it's so infectiously hype. I can't not jam out while listening to that song. And Figures is so raw. The Amy Winehouse comparisons write themselves, but it's a new generational figure. The lyrics are fantastic and so cathartic, and her voice is almost poisonously sweet. Like Grace Vanderwaal, the America's Got Talent winner who played ukulele and sang wholesome tunes with a large psychopathically savage streak. Real good ish.

Give it a listen. Hopefully you enjoy and discover some new tunes, new artists, and new appreciations. It helped me through my foolishly ambitious April, and saw me through to the other side.