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In case you haven’t heard, it’s been an interesting week for Brand New. The band just kicked off their Canadian headlining tour as the start of a packed schedule of summer concerts. And in typical Brand New fashion, the start of that tour was overshadowed by their cryptic messaging of t-shirts and stage banter and upside down flower crosses. I’m glad I was given two years notice that Brand New were hanging it up, because it’s going to take me at least that long to prepare my tear ducts for that final tour. Because they’ve been on our minds this week, I decided I should probably devote one of our ultimate setlist playlists to the band.
Last week I brought you the first installment in the “Ultimate Setlist” playlist. This week, I’m doing it again. This time it’s for one of my all-time favorite acts, Motion City Soundtrack. I’m not ready to pour one out, but the band recently embarked on their farewell tour, and I figured now would be as good a time as any to try and curate a career-spanning setlist. No pressure, right? Same rules as last time: 22 songs including a two song encore. The full track listing is below and you can find the playlists on Apple Music and Spotify.
For this week’s playlist I’m putting together what I call “The Ultimate Setlist.” This is a concept that my friend Mike came up with back when people still made mix CDs. The idea is to give someone a starting place in a band’s discography, basically a jumping off point to the artist’s best songs and biggest hits. The rules are fairly simple: arrange the playlist in such a way that emulates the perfect setlist for the band, and make sure that the playlist comes in under 80 minutes (that was the length for CD-Rs — remember those, from another life?). This week, I’m jumping in with Jimmy Eat World and you can find my picks on Apple Music and Spotify.
