I threatened it. I deliver it. This is LEISURE (that’s right, you can download it), which is both a ridiculously jammed britpop/mod/60’s/madchester night in San Francisco (and this is pretty much exactly their setlist, unchanged, since the year 2000), and my hairshirt of a playlist for writing this summer (in other words: I forbade myself to listen to anything else until I met a massive and immovable deadline).

These are not the best songs. There is nothing cool about this. Which is fine. This is for remembering pouring a shot down your throat because “Babies” just came on, and letting the dancefloor hooligans spill Red Stripes on you. This is for that night when you convinced the DJ that Brian Eno was just found dead (I did; I totally got punked by some people on Twitter who even edited Wikipedia, which I checked, on my phone, dangerously swaying) and so he played “2HB” and you almost died. This is for before when the club was called POPSCENE but they broke off into two different nights because the thirtysomethings wanted to pretend that opening beat in “Lust for Life” would always belong to Iggy Pop and never to the White Stripes. This is even for one fucking Oasis song, because you still need an excuse to back away from that guy, or get another round, or fix your lips in the reflection over the bar. Elbow your way back out there. Get your friends wet. Fuck the DJ.

Artists: Supergrass, Sleeper, Pulp, Brian Eno, The Verve, New Order, Underworld, Lush, Elastica, The Beatles, Gary Glitter (awkward!), Placebo, Manic Street Preachers, Space, The Stone Roses, Edwyn Collins, The Who, Strawberry Alarm Clock, David Bowie, James, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Clash, Joy Division, Iggy Pop, Suede, Morrissey, The Charlatans, The Rolling Stones, The Smiths, Republica, Air, Blur, Happy Mondays, Oasis (told you), Franz Ferdinand (a concession), Kula Shaker (sorry, Kieron), Smokey Robinson, The Supremes, Sneaker Pimps, and Ewan MacGregor waving his cock about, again.

(photo via njf520)