Picture this: you’re in a backyard with a group of close friends. A dude named Atticus (apologies from Go Set a Watchman for tainting your birth name, bro) is grilling up some burgers and Cecilia is in the corner hooping away. There’s a slew of flannel and craft beer at the picnic table and you’re in a hot debate about the newest 8-bit game you’ve been crushing.
You’re having a solid night, but there’s something missing. Music. But what does one play at a hipster barbeque? Well, I’m sure that would be a difficult question to answer…if Pandora didn’t provide the simple perfection that is the Hipster BBQ playlist .
How will you get your EDM and Folksy Alternative in the same place? Hipster BBQ, the place where Odesza and Modest Mouse are comrades and City and Colour make an appearance splashed between Flux Pavilion and Purity Ring. It’ll make you feel like you have friends named Atticus and Cecilia, who glow-hoop in parks post-falafel burger.
Truthfully, all my friends have relatively normal names, none of them hoop, and I would have it no other way, but my point is this: (1) I haven’t stopped listening to Hipster BBQ for an entire month and (2) the internet music age has something for everyone.
Though I am a millennial, I grew up cultivating my CD collection. And even though it’s now loaded onto my trusty 180 GB iPod Video and impressive iTunes library, when my mom called me last month to tell me she was getting rid of my 300 CD book I was more than a little distraught. I miss the days I got a new album and flipped through the pamphlet, admiring the art and reading the lyrics along with the songs. I even made up my own band and would write lyrics and design pamphlets for their albums (Grace Under Pressure, may your Paint files rest in peace on my floppy disks).
I loved, too, making mix CDs and then, when iTunes came along, playlists. Though I dabbled in Pandora when it came around, I liked the idea of curating a mix of genres not just finding similar songs. My acceptance of the internet music age really came about when I discovered 8tracks, a website with human-curated (as opposed to Pandora’s database-curated) playlists. It offered album art, inventive though often emo playlist names, and the ability to share your picks with a unique subculture.
I’ve dabbled, too, in Spotify though its options are overwhelming and the creepiness factor is, well, a definite factor. (Like when I overheard my art direction partner whispering, “Shut up, shut up,” and then looked on my Spotify feed and realized she was just super into Linkin Park at that moment).
But when Hipster BBQ came along, Pandora sold me. I even tweeted about it because I had clicked the Thumbs Up button on every song it played me.
I’ve heard rumors about an R&B BBQ station and they have an official Outside Lands playlist that sounds promising (and mostly makes me wish I was at Outside Lands this weekend). So, no matter what your vibe is, it seems the internet music age has something for you. And if you use Spotify, your Facebook friends probably all know what that is.