Can a feel-good playlist still have depth?

After a few heavy weeks of protest music, world events, viral posts, and existential spiraling, Kate and Richie decided they needed a reset. This week’s playlists are filled with songs they simply enjoy—but because this is Entry Points Radio, “feel good” still leads to Greek tragedy, ancestral languages, immigrant stories, the collapse of civilization, and at least one polyamorous tardigrade.

Kate’s playlist moves through Hadestown and the eternal question of why we keep retelling stories when we already know how they end; summer memories with The Lovin’ Spoonful; moving to Texas with Blaze Foley; an eighteen-year-old rooftop crush soundtracked by Nick Drake; Bulgarian choral music that feels like the ancestors calling; Lebanese pop; an extraordinary Ossetian artist from the Caucasus; the very useful Arabic philosophy of toz; and Austin-based Ecuadorian songwriter Javier Jara’s beautiful reflections on immigration, culture, and the many worlds living just down the street.

Richie builds a feel-good playlist that is emphatically not saccharine, moving from Cécile McLorin Salvant and M83 to Australian electronic music, Skee-Lo’s refreshingly honest hip hop, a Bon Iver cover with more drums, Filipino vocal group Acapellago, Eddie Money, DJ Harrison, and the cathartic electronic brilliance of Daft Punk.

Along the way, Kate and Richie ask whether joy has to ignore suffering—or whether real joy actually requires depth, memory, catharsis, and human connection. They also consider why singing with other people makes us feel better, whether algorithms and AI are optimizing all the interesting parts out of art, and why sometimes “I like this song” is reason enough to share it.

Also discussed: Richie being a Scorpio, the unforgivable “Java Jive,” Kate’s teenage Barnes & Noble almost-boyfriend, Mick Jagger at the MoMA coat check, an opera about two microplastics falling in love with a polyamorous tardigrade, and whether an egg is emotionally somewhere between a carrot and a donut.

Because the world is still the world—but joy, lightness, ridiculousness, and music are part of what makes it worth fighting for.

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Think of it as a mixtape with a passport...

Produced and Edited by Kate Bass and Richard Steighner

Full Playlist on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5uDffKrZ7LQsFJVjHae6Sr?si=XjjfvCrFR1eyoQ6dfCrBfg

Full Playlist on Apple Music:

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/entry-points-8/pl.u-aZb0kWDImKRWMJ

Youtube:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXgeSnlkZC_zdaWytIIUx8iA-mDGRnVVQ&si=70zPI3tyslA6xVqP

Patreon for the Full Playlist Archive:

https://www.patreon.com/cw/EntryPointsRadio