Cool

By Sydney Steans-Gail

Mary plays Childish Gambino, and Caroline plays Miley Cyrus. Leo is listening to Jens Lekman, Sophia to Kurt Vile, and Ruth to Beyonce. KP listens to Michael Buble and Cam to Lorde.

Not cool, not cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, not cool.

Childish Gambino should be cool, but Mary is listening to Redbone which was the #1 hit from Awaken, My Love, so that’s not cool.

Miley Cyrus is uncool, but she’s so uncool that in some cases it becomes cool. Liking what everyone slightly dislikes isn’t cool, but liking what everyone hates is cool.

I’ve never heard of Jens Lekman, so that’s automatically cool.

Kurt Vile is very cool, and Sophia is cool because she’s listening to a song I don’t know. If I’d known it, it would have been automatically downgraded.

Beyonce is always cool. Though hating Beyonce is contrarian enough that some people could make it cool.

Michael Buble is not cool eleven months out of the year, but exceptions are made for seasonal listens. Cool.

Lorde is played out. Not cool.

I want to listen to Jens Lekman because Leo is a very cool dude (his instagram has a selfie that is spread across pics from months apart, so you can only see the whole pic in his grid. Very cool.) but he’ll see in his feed that I’m listening to the song he was just listening to. Horrifyingly uncool.

Madi puts on Corinne Bailey Rae. Nostalgia is very cool.

Putting too much effort into a playlist name is not cool. Not putting enough effort into a playlist name is not cool. Leo uses the name of sea creatures--right now he’s listening to starfish. Spontaneously cool. I use an random work generator for my playlist names. Tentatively cool.

Chance used to be cool, but he’s not Chicago’s dude anymore. Maybe you could listen to some of his old stuff that the suburban kids don’t know, but that’s all on soundcloud so it won’t do you any good. Maybe try Noname?

You could try looking at lists of up and coming artists to watch in 2018? But definitely go to Pitchfork not Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone is too commercial now. Not cool. Knowing artists before everyone else is cool, but being a dick about it isn’t.

Having your music at all times is cool, but listening to the same songs all the time is not cool. So don’t forget to mix it up and have a wide range of music. That said, your followers only see the songs one by one so there can’t be any duds. Not cool.

To be safe, I just keep mine on private.