Heading home, let's turn this up.
The best day of the week. You just got out of a dredge of five days behind the desk, someone put a meeting, a goddamn meeting, on your Friday, but you know what, it's done. You're good now. Just looking forward to some Netflix and hard chilling, right? Glorious couple days off, and if you're a lucky soul, you have Monday off, hell yeah, President's Day, you know, for the Presidents.
I always play victory music on Fridays; lose the windows -- all of them, open the sunroof, if it's cold--here's a protip--kick on the heater, but keep those windows down and enjoy that Braveheart degree of liberation you get for making it to the end of another week.
I'm looking to establish Friday as my music day. Where I offer up some songs I think will boost your Friday into a California state of mind. Let's do this.
Tame Impala - "Past Life" Give this song 50-seconds to kick into gear. There's this odd robot-speak bit in the beginning, but it soon bursts into a serious jam. The louder this goes, the better it sounds, trust me. This Australian six-piece dominates my radio these days, their latest album, Currents, is a sun-bleached empire of a record. Best album of the year, in my opinion.
Odesza is a Seattle duo that produces monolithic electronic music. Most of my readers probably already listen to them, if not, lucky you. There is no greater Friday driving home jam than the following...
Blue Sky Black Death sounds like a metal band, but I'm assuring you that California beach cruisin music doesn't get more chill than this San Francisco duo. Glowing atmospheric crescendos, anthemic largess. This is a quintessential Friday after work heading home jam. If this doesn't give you a driving frisson, few things will.
Though the Californist isn't a music blog, music is a huge chunk of California culture, and also endures as a central figure of my life, the motivation for this theme.
Thanks to Thomas Anderson for the header gif.