Fixation Mixtape #1

One thing I do that helps calm down my anxiety is going for drives and listening to music. Or coloring and listening to music. Or just listening to music in general haha! I am constantly finding new songs that I love and then fixating on them for a little while so I wanted to share some songs that I have been listening to so far this year! I’ll be updating this playlist every month or so and sharing why I love these songs/artists and I’d love to hear what music you are connecting with as well!

Songs I’m Loving at the Moment

Here are ten songs that I have fixated on lately. Definitely check out these songs and check out the other songs from these artists as well!

#1Blindsed by Kelsea Ballerini: I’ve been listening to Kelsea’s music for a long time but her newest EP Rolling Up the Welcome Mat is her best work to date. Incredibly honest, beautiful songwriting, and the hook on this song in particular, “Were you blindsided or were you just blind?” will stay in your head. A side note: this also reawakened my listening of her previous work that I obsessed over a lot in college and her song Graveyard has also been a fixture recently.

#2 Flowers by Joan: This is one of the songs off their newest album and I am just a big fan of this band’s vibes. Seeing them in concert this year and I can’t wait!

#3 20 Missed Calls by Braden Bales: He recently blew up on TikTok after Elyse Myers duetted his newest song Chronically Cautious (another great song!) but it led me to his other singles as well and this one has stayed in my brain. Super catchy. A bop with sad lyrics is one of my favorite things.

#4 Shoulder to Cry On by Alana Springsteen: She showed up on my new music playlist and I instantly fell in love with this song. I love a song with clever wordplay and country music often does it the best. I have also become fixated on her song Tennessee Is Mine in the past couple of weeks and the melody and the idea behind the song are just sooo good.

#5 Full Machine by Gracie Abrams: Gracie is my sad girl music of choice (lol) and her newest album produced by Aaron Dessner did not disappoint. This song in particular is some of the strongest songwriting on the album and one of the ones I have played the most since the album was released.

#6 Lonesome by Sabrina Carpenter: She released four bonus tracks adding on to her previous album “emails i can’t send” and the opening line of this song is one of the best lines I have heard in a song. I’m pretty sure my mouth dropped, it was so good. Also, the vibe of this song is watching tumbleweeds in a Western movie and it is so well done. All four of the songs she released in this drop sound different but she succeeds in selling it every time. She is definitely underrated as a songwriter and vocalist. Please check out all her music!

#7 All The Girls You’ve Loved Before by Taylor Swift: If there is one thing Taylor is going to do, it’s surprise drop songs and this previously unreleased track from the Lover era did not disappoint!

#8 Radiohead by Nightly: A native Nashville band who I have been loving for years dropped their newest song and it’s quintessential Nightly in terms of sound. Forever one of my favorite bands. Please go check out all their stuff!

#9 Waffle House by the Jonas Brothers: This song is just incredibly catchy and any song’s hook involving a restaurant chain wins in my book. They are releasing their new album this summer and I just have a feeling it is going to be the best one they have put out. Forever and always a Jonas Brothers fan.

#10: Lost the Breakup by Maisie Peters: I love her. She is great at making bops with scathing lyrics and this is no exception. It has gotten stuck in my head on multiple occasions since its release and I’m not mad about it.

Bonus: Daisy Jones and The Six from the incredible Taylor Jenkins Reid book is now an actual band with an actual album which is insane and the music is actually really good! Be sure to listen to the full Aurora album but Let Me Down Easy is the one I’m listening to most at the moment.

Honorable mentions:

I’ve put all the songs mentioned in this post in my Pasted on Smiles playlist on Spotify so be sure to check it out! Let me know what you’ve been listening to. I’m always looking for new songs to fixate on for a while!

Rachel (: