I was worried that I wasn’t going to have enough material for my 2025: The Mixtape, Vol. 1 Spotify mix before the end of June as recently as just a few weeks ago, but then: bam! Ringo Starr’s latest album Look Up hit me the right way on a third listen, I liked Hayden Pedigo’s I’ll Be Waving as You Drive Away and Alexandre Desplat’s score for The Phoenician Scheme right from the start, and the end credits for The Life of Chuck were set to a creative interpretation of maybe my favorite song ever by Gregory Alan Isakov. Problem solved! Here, then, is an annotated track listing:
1. Nels Cline – Inner Wall
Has a similar ominous vibe to the track “Accident” from Justin Hurwitz’s score for Whiplash, which appears in a scene that isn’t a bad metaphor for what the first half of 2025 felt like at times.
2. Car Seat Headrest – The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)
A new one by an old favorite.
3. billy woods feat. Preservation – Waterproof Mascara
As I recently said on Bluesky and X, this song is my favorite horror film of Movie Year 2025 so far.
4. Morgan Wallen feat. Post Malone – I Ain’t Comin’ Back
In which Morgan Wallen and Post Malone finally resolve the question of whether or not they are Jesus. Someone needs to introduce these boys to Compass Box’s The Peat Monster!
5. Lucy Dacus – Ankles
Phantom Thread, The Musical.
6. Aesop Rock – Snail Zero
A description of what a breeding pair of black mollies are doing to my fish tank at home right now.
7. Alexandre Desplat – The Jungle Unit of the Intercontinental Radical Freedom Militia Corps
From my favorite original score of Movie Year 2025 so far.
8. These New Puritans – Bells
The songs on this particular mix skew shorter for some reason, so this is a welcome exception.
9. Alan Sparhawke w/ Trampled by Turtles – Stranger
Or: The Blogger’s Dilemma.
10. Takuro Okada – Taco Beach
And if the world does turn, and if London burns/I’ll be standing on the beach with my jazz guitar.
11. Lady Gaga – How Bad Do U Want Me
When I played this for my loving wife recently, she said it sounded like the opening credits song from an 80s movie.
12. Ringo Starr feat. Billy Strings – Breathless
Not a film reference . . . or is it?
13. Beirut – Garbo’s Face
Elegantly wistful, like the title says.
14. Tobacco City – Autumn
Features some of the year’s most evocative songwriting: “Jimmy and his niece/Scrambled eggs and country ham/Runnin’ from police/Drink the cream for free with Valerie”
15. Bonnie Prince Billy – Boise, Idaho
The first song to earn a spot on this mix, and still one of my favorites.
16. Salem 66 – Across the Sea
Okay, fine, this isn’t technically “new music.” But it’s new to me and I dig it!
17. Julien Baker & Torres – “Tape Runs Out”
Probably the most predictable selection on this mix?
18. Hayden Pedigo – I’ll Be Waving As You Drive Away
Not all goodbyes need be sorrowful!
19. Sharp Pins – I Can’t Stop
As Pitchfork‘s Shaad D’Souza wrote, “it’s likely to remind you of whatever music felt most romantic to you when you were growing up.”
20. Patterson Hood – Last Hope
Springsteen-esque.
21. Gregory Alan Isakov – The Parting Glass
I discovered “The Parting Glass” through Shaun Davey’s score for Waking Ned Devine and it was fun to encounter it again in a different movie. Isakov’s version is as understated as that one is grand
Links to previous mixes I’ve posted about can be found here.
The Prodigal Cinephile 