Music

February Sweatdown 2K25

Published

5 months ago

February 12, 2025

The February Sweatdown 2K25 is here and it’s a major one. It’s for my 40th birthday. I’m doing 40 songs most important to my life story and will have a special playlist for both Spotify and YouTube.

February Sweatdown 2K25 on Spotify

February Sweatdown 2K25 on YouTube

The Sweatdown has existed since April of 2018 as a monthly collection of music I’ve been listening to. Sometimes it’s old tracks but it’s usually new music. Everything from indie to synthwave to rock to alternative and more. Every December is a culmination of the music I’ve listened to.

I decided to make this the 40 most important songs of my life. I have decided to make both a Spotify playlist and a YouTube playlist. The problem is that Spotify only has 36 of the songs I wanted. I was able to make a list of all of the songs I wanted on YouTube so it’s more complete that way. So how did I arrange the song list?

“Chronological? Not alphabetical.”

“Autobiographical.”

“No fucking way.”

To be honest it’s mostly chronological but some songs are based on the time I heard it and fell in love with it instead of when it actually came out.

Here’s over 5,000 words on the songs I’ve chosen for this list. I’ve added my Fumbling Towards Forty journal entries so you get an idea of which era I was listening to these songs.

Fumbling Towards Forty – Music Part I

The Romantics – Talking In Your Sleep

As I talked about in Fumbling Towards Forty: Music Pt. I:

I remember my oldest sister had a big box of cassette tapes she left at the house once with a Walkman. One of the tapes was a 1980s Greatest Hits collection. This was in the early 90s so they were already hawking these things as if the 80s were a century ago and not like, like, two years ago. I remember this tape had “Twilight Zone” by Golden Earring on it which I loved. It also had “Talking in Your Sleep” by The Romantics on it and I used to listen to that all the time.

It’s always hard to remember things when you were really young, but I remember putting on that Walkman with the 1980s Greatest Hits and just dancing and singing in the upstairs of my parents house. This song has such a great bass line.

Golden Earring – Twilight Zone

Good way to see if a song lasts the test of time is if you still enjoy listening to it. I first heard Twilight Zone in the early 90s on that Greatest Hits collection and I felt comfortable adding it to my April Sweatdown 2K23 along with heavy hitters like I Been Young by George Clanton (that’s on this list later) and Dancing with the Moonlight by Hotel Mira (one of my favourite current Canadian bands) so if I can still enjoy something I enjoyed as a kid and not ironically? Tells you it’s a great track.

Whigfield – Saturday Night

I talked about how I wanted to dance to dance music at Electric Circus in Fumbling Towards Forty Pt. II and one of the songs I remembered loving from it was Saturday Night by Whigfield. The music video on the song is all about getting ready before going out and it’s literally my go to song to listen to before I go out on a Saturday night to this day. I don’t go out as much as I used to (mostly because the bars in my city suck now) but you throw this on and I’ll get fuckin’ down to it anywhere anytime and anyplace.

New Radicals – You Get What You Give

I grew up in a heavy rock and roll house hold. My mom and my oldest sister loved hair metal from the 80s. My better sister preferred 90s alternative and metal. My dad loved rock music but tried to keep up instead of staying stuck in the 1970s. While I credit Oasis as the first band I got into without any connection to music my family listened to, I credit New Radicals “You Get What You Give” as a song that I appreciated on a musical level. It wasn’t the, “Courtney Love or Marilyn Manson” line that caused controversy that I loved, it was the lyrics and the sound and the chorus and everything in between.

Todd in the Shadows did a really good retrospective on the song if you want to know more.

Nine Inch Nails – Just Like You Imagined

Selecting a single Nine Inch Nails song is hard.

Too hard.

There is no band I’ve listened to more than Nine Inch Nails. I’ve seen them live three times and will go a fourth this year. I used to post on Nine Inch Nails message boards. I just recently decided to listen through every Halo again to see if my feelings changed on anything.

There’s a lot of songs that mean a lot to me. I went with Just Like You Imagined from The Fragile because buying The Fragile was a big moment for me. Skipping high school just to go to the music store and being barely able to afford it. Listening to it over and over on my discman. Just Like You Imagined is the song I picked at one point for my e-wrestler entrance theme.

I know it was on the trailer for 300 and basically sold me on seeing the movie in the first week. I can listen to Just Like You Imagined over and over and it still evokes the same feelings out of me. It’s one of the greatest instrumentals I’ve ever heard and even if there’s better known Nine Inch Nails songs? It’s just the one that brings the most out of me.

Fiona Apple – Fast as you Can

I remember around the time The Fragile came out was Fiona Apple’s When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight And he’ll win the whole thing ‘fore he enters the ring There’s no body to batter when your mind is your might So when you go solo, you hold your own hand And remember that depth is the greatest of heights And if you know where you stand, then you know where to land And if you fall it won’t matter, cuz you’ll know that you’re right and they both got music videos on MTV’s TRL that lasted maybe a week and then were gone. Fast as you Can was the first single for Fiona on that album. There was a girl I went to grade school with who looked a lot like her. I loved Criminal but I didn’t listen to anything else by her prior to this.

I loved that album, and while Paper Bag is a song I find myself listening to and appreciating more, Fast as You Can is a karaoke staple for me.

Fumbling Towards Forty – Music Part II

A Perfect Circle – 3 Libras

I actually listened to A Perfect Circle before I listened to Tool. I was very much into both bands and thought Maynard James Keenan was great. I did however one day lose interest in listening to Tool. Some of the songs still work for me. Heck, they were supposed to be my first concert on September 13, 2001. I just fell out of love with them. A Perfect Circle lost me on their eMOTIVe album but I still love the first two, and 3 Libras was a song I listened to on repeat. Same with Judith, but 3 Libras was my, “I like this girl and she doesn’t like me” song I would run to in high school. We all had that kinda song, right?

Michelle Branch – Something to sleep to

I love Michelle Branch. It’s one of those loves where I loved her music and loved, you know, her, physically, in all one wrapped up combo. We all got crushes as a teenager but my crush on Michelle lasts to this day. I loved her first two albums and then didn’t care about The Wreckers but she came back in 2017 with “Best You Ever” and I’d put it up there with her best songs in the early 2000s. She will always be one of my favourite artists.

Now, why Something to Sleep to and not Everywhere or All You Wanted or Goodbye To You or Breathe or Are You Happy Now or Hotel Paper? Something to Sleep To was just one of those deep cuts that I loved singing to on my discman. We all have our favourite deep cuts, and that’s high for me. I love the lyrics, I love the vinyl skip it opens with, and to me it’s like a different perspective of the Eagles Desperado.

Sarah McLachlan, Delerium – Silence

“Heaven holds a sense of wonder
And I wanted to believe that
I’d get caught up
When the rage in me subsides”

That refrain is still my favourite lyric ever. I’ve tried to write lyrics and poems before. I don’t know if I’m good or not, but I’ll never write something like that. And I’m content with that.

If I ever start getting tattoos on my skin (I’m not a tattoo guy) that will likely be one of them. Sarah has had a lot of great songs with great lyrics, but I think her work with Delerium on Silence is her very best. It’s one of my favourite songs for lyrical content.

8Stop7 – Satisfied

As I said on Part II I think it’s one of the best rock songs of the early 2000s and it’s still a song I can throw on repeat and pump iron to in the gym. It’s also a great time for me to show my age and bring up MP3 CD’s. I had a discman at some point (around the time I was finishing high school) that played CDR and CDRW burn discs and I remember I had one that I listened to all the time that had this as one of the first songs so I could always get to it quick.

Matthew Good Band – The Workers Sing a Song of Mass Production

Matthew Good Band was my favourite Canadian band growing up and I remember when I moved to Windsor in 2005, I made friends with a few guys who also loved Matthew Good Band. At the time I didn’t give their last album Audio of Being as much of a listen as I gave Beautiful Midnight and it was either O’Keefe or Halligan who suggested I should. I did and it ended up becoming one of my favourite albums of all time. I can listen to it any time and still love it. I’m close to loving every single song on that album and it was the last done by the band and sort of a protest meant to not have singles. The Workers Sing a Song of Mass Production has one of my favourite choruses and while the lyrics are a bit silly, I just love how the song moves.

Elton John, Almost Famous Cast – Tiny Dancer

I wanted to go with Love Comes and Goes from Stillwater but when I found out the version from the movie where the band and actors sing Tiny Dancer was on Spotify and YouTube I absolutely went with that. Almost Famous is arguably my favourite movie. Like I said in Movies I can watch in any time and it’s still fresh for me. It’s my comfort movie. It’s also probably why I went to college for journalism.

“I need to go home.”
“You are home.”

The Killers – All These Things I’ve Done

My friend Krystal in Michigan got me into The Killers, and I’m positive they weren’t popular at the time when she did. I thought they were a British band for the first year or so. Of course I love Mr. Brightside. Go ahead and hate it. It’s the greatest song of the 2000s.

But All These Things I’ve Done? That’s my karaoke staple. That’s the song I always do. It’s the song I’m best at. I love it so much and I’ve gotten standing ovations for it. All those dreams we all have of being rock stars? That’s probably the closest I get to it.

My Bloody Valentine – Sometimes

I knew nothing about shoegaze or noise rock when I saw Lost in Translation. I thought “My Bloody Valentine” was an emo band any time I saw someone mention them. Then Kevin Shields did the soundtrack for Lost in Translation and this is the song that plays when Charlotte is waking up in Japan and looking at all of the neon signs in Tokyo. It’s one of those scenes I’ll drop everything for. It makes me think of Japan more than Japanese artists.

Mathew Valente – Corridors of Time (Chrono Trigger Resurrection)

This song was made by Mathew Valente or the canceled Chrono Trigger Resurrection project, which was someone trying to remake Chrono Trigger in 3D back in 2004. Square Enix ended up shutting it down when it got attention at a trade show.

The songs Valente did are my favourite versions of the Chrono Trigger OST and specifically Corridors of Time is arguably one of my favourite songs ever. I’ve probably listened to it more than any other song if I had to think about it. It would be this or something from Nine Inch Nails.

It’s the most beautiful version of the most beautiful Super Nintendo track.

(This is not on the Spotify playlist and is replaced by Body of Years by Mother Mother)

Noel Gallagher – Listen Up! (VH1 Paris Acoustic Set)

As I said earlier, I listened to Oasis back in the mid 90s and they were the first band I loved on my own, no influence from family or friends. I remember watching VH1 and they had this acoustic set in Paris, I don’t remember the year, and Noel Gallagher did Cast No Shadow and Listen Up! Both songs are incredible but his version of Listen Up! is one of those “shake my core” songs that I’ll be listening to until the day I die. It’s also the song I think about any time I have to leave home for a long time.

(This is not on the Spotify playlist and is replaced by Gravity by W O L F C L U B)

Jimmy Eat World – Disintegration

There’s a bunch of people I hung out with when I first moved to Windsor, and they were all a little older than me and finishing University while I was just a lost 20 year old looking for people to hang around while I was broke and not going to school. They took me around and I’ll always appreciate the time they spent putting up with my shit.

There were times we’d be drunk at 3 in the morning just listening to music. At Tyler’s wedding, we all got in a circle and danced to “Hello City” by Barenaked Ladies, but it was Disintegration by Jimmy Eat World that made the most impact on me. I remember us all singing it poorly, full of cheap beer, and feeling like time stopped. It’s those kind of experiences you never end up forgetting.

MGMT – Kids

When the University folks I hung out went left and moved back home or wherever for work, I ended up shifting to other friends. This was when my LooP days began, and there’s a lot of songs that ended up staples due to the LooP. But before the LooP, I already loved Kids and Electric Feel by MGMT. I also loved their song Indie Rokkers (Soccer Mommy did a great cover of it) but Kids is one of my favourite songs to dance to. I wish they stuck to making music like this.

Innerpartysystem – Night is Alive

If you asked me to pick one song, just one song, that’s my favourite song of all time? It’s Night is Alive.

Innerpartysystem only made one album and it’s not even on it. It’s on their EP. I’m guessing the lead singer thought it was too hard to sing, since I’ve seen him do it live and he has to bring the energy down on it. I don’t know.

The lyrics, it’s about a woman going too hard drinking and partying and the dangers of it essentially, especially when you’re feeling empty inside. There’s times I feel the lyrics border on, “Guy telling woman what to do” but those lyrics have reflected how I felt about myself at times too.

But the song itself? The drums. The guitars. The vocals. The electro underneath. The refrains. Everything. It’s a song I can listen to any time and never get tired of.

Innerpartysystem means just as much to me as Nine Inch Nails has, even if they only lasted a few years and I never got to see them live. I’ll listen to Night is Alive forever.

Ladyhawke – Better Than Sunday

I got into Ladyhawke thanks to Innerpartysystem as they did a remix of Paris is Burning. It got me to check out Ladyhawke’s album and I loved My Delirium and Magic and of course Paris is Burning, but it’s Better Than Sunday I listened to most. Again, it’s a great leaving song.

Arkells – Ballad of Hugo Chavez

I spent a little time as a DJ at the University of Windsor’s CJAM recording studio both as a university of Windsor student and a St. Clair College student. I did a few of their Top 10 countdowns as well as doing 4AM radio blocks. It was during that time that my music tastes expanded and there’s several bands maybe I would have heard about from a friend but hearing them first at CJAM is a big reason I became a fan of them. Mother Mother with Body of Years is one, Giving Up on Love by Slow Club was on the Top 10 countdown I had to do once, Vanished by Crystal Castles as well. And then there’s Ballad of Hugo Chavez by Arkells, which eventually turned Arkells into one of my favourite bands. At one point I saw them live more than any other band. It was hard to pick a single song but I had to go back to the first.

Matthew Good – Last Parade

When I lived in Kingston this song ended up being really important for me. I remember walking in the snow many times on an old MP3 player and listening to this on repeat. Having Matthew Good on this twice (band and solo) might feel like cheating, but it’s important to separate the two and how much Last Parade got through me my excursion out to Kingston leaving Windsor and being 8 hours from family for the first time in my life.

Florence + The Machine – Dog Days are Over

I’ve talked about the LooP and the songs I loved to listen to there, and there’s nothing for me better than Dog Days are Over. It’s like a religious experience every time. So much that there was a LooP revival night at the Chelsea Underground (they closed like a month after, because of course Windsor can never have something good anymore) and nothing recaptured the spirit of the bar quite like when Dog Days Are Over played. If someone asked me if there’s an anthem for millennials? It’s Dog Days.

Fumbling Towards Forty – Part III

The Naked and Famous – Young Blood

After losing Innerpartysystem I found The Naked and Famous.

I only saw them once live in Toronto, which just so happened to be during the U.S. Election when Donald Trump got elected and everyone was shocked. It was so hard to pick a song, much like with Nine Inch Nails.

Their album Passive Me, Aggressive You I love almost every song on it. It’s the closest thing to a perfect album for me. Eyes is still the song I think about when I think about the women I loved and can’t love again. All of This is one of the greatest side one track one’s I’ve ever heard. The Sun is a perfect pump up track (I opened January Sweatdown 2K25 with it), their EP prior has Dadada which I love. In Rolling Waves I love half of the tracks, especially What We Want, Grow Old, and A Small Reunion. Simple Forms has The Runners (easily top five), Last Forever, Higher, and a song in Fallen that I’ve got into more in recent years than when I first heard it.

But I have to go back to Young Blood. It’s my anthem forever.

Foster the People – Helena Beat

Helena Beat is here for a very specific reason. I liked Foster the People, but this song is specifically special because for me it was the theme song to my experiences at The LooP. It’s not the most played song (I think I got the DJ to play it once? Twice?) but it’s the lyrics and the danceable theme that it just encapsulates my life at that time more than any other song. “I took a sip of something poison but I’ll hold on tight” is absolutely those black out nights with a double mud.

Passion Pit – Constant Conversations

It might be weird to have this song on here over other songs (I feel bad there’s no Hotel Mira, Chain Gang and Mother Mother only make the Spotify list, no July Talk, no Reaction by Norma Jean which is probably my main gym song, no Hot Chip Over and Over which was a LooP staple, no Alexisonfire!) but Constant Conversations is on here because it’s my victory lap song.

I have always envisioned myself and my friends winning. I don’t know what we won. But we won. We’ve survived the hurdles of our life. And now we’ve all come to a big house with a big backyard, all wearing our best suits and dresses, and we have drinks and food and laughs to this. To Constant Conversations.

Maybe it’s a silly dream, but that’s why it’s here. It’s a fantasy fulfilled song.

Swing Hero – Home is Where You Fake It

I had to make tough decisions in removing Chain Gang of 1974 from the list, when “Slow” or “Sleepwalking” or “Such a Shame” or “Ordinary Fools Pt. 2” or the Spacebrother remix of “Miko” all could have made it. I remember Katmin Mohager from Chain Gang linked on Twitter or somewhere this little EP for Marshall Gallagher (Teenage Wrist)’s project Swing Hero.

It’s not on Spotify so this one is a YouTube exclusive, but this EP? I listened to this on repeat for hours at one point in my life. I downloaded it to my phone and just listened to it over and over and over. It captures my feelings and emotions on life and relationships at the time. The whole EP is important, but Home Is Where You Fake It is the one I just go in a trance when I hear it.

(This is not on the Spotify playlist and is replaced by Ordinary Fools Pt. 2 by Chain Gang of 1974)

Founds – Caves

I struggled to not include this. I started downloading the Indie/Rock Playlist for their September download, and one of the first songs I fell in love with one it was Caves by Founds. Finding this song really pushed me into getting into indie music and trying to seek out music instead of listening to the radio or relying on friends. Other songs I remember finding in those days are The Age That You Start Losing Friends by General Fiasco, San Francisco by The Mowgli’s, Been There Before by Ghost Beach, Tomorrow is Yesterday by Field Mouse, and the next two on this list.

Great Northern – Holes

For years this was one of my favourite songs. I loved Holes by Great Northern. I loved their album Tremors, which unfortunately the Spotify upload goes blank when you try to listen to the song Bullets. I don’t really know what the lyrics are about, and that’s a bit of an issue on Great Northern songs, but everything in the song itself is so beautiful and striking to me.

Daughter – Smother

When it comes to songs that just make me cry or be emotional or forlorn, it’s Quiet by This Will Destroy You, Cats in the Cradle by Harry Chapin (always made me cry as a kid and I still can’t hear it without getting a little choked up) and Smother by Daughter. It fucks me up every time I listen to it. I’m just not the same after.

The Midnight – Sunset

I love the song, but it has to be with this music video of Jennifer Connelly roller skating in an empty Target in the film Career Opportunities.

It was tough to choose between this and Los Angeles, and while most would go with Los Angeles, the chorus on Sunset about even bad girls know good love? God I love that.

Trevor Something – Summer Love

In my Spotify era, there’s probably no song I’ve listened to more. No song I’ve thrown on randomly for something to hear. No song that just makes me happy and gets me in a good mood. It’s pretty close to Night is Alive as one of my favourite songs of all time. The lyrics talk about doing drugs, some I don’t bother with (not a weed guy) but I love the easy breezy feeling of the synths offering to hang out with someone pretty. I always have it on one or two Sweatdown’s every year because of that.

Battle Tapes, Party Nails – Solid Gold

Battle Tapes is a big band for me. Belgrade, Valley People (which I was close to choosing), Again, every song on the Form EP, Sweatshop Boys, so many songs on their recent album Texture (Brand New, If Only, Perish the Thought, Weight of the World) but Solid Gold is that perfect combination of electro rock, David Bowie disco licks, and the perfect singing by Party Nails into the chorus. This song has one of my favourite ending parts. It’s at the 2:20 part of the track. In my head I can picture a dance number or a wrestling entrance. Fuck it. Make it both. “Show me what makes you human, I’ll show you vulnerable. You bend, you break, you surrender. And melt like solid gold” just sends me chills every time.

Hans Zimmer, Benjamin Wallfisch – Sea Wall (Blade Runner 2049)

I went into Blade Runner 2049 skeptical if it could ever touch Blade Runner as my favourite movie. The one place I felt like it absolutely never would, and even walking out of the film I doubted it, was the soundtrack. There was no way Vangelis’ perfect soundtrack for Blade Runner would get touched by the sequel. The movie is now my favourite movie of all time, and getting to sit down and listen to Sea Wall? It’s one of my favourite movie track compositions of all time.

Stars – Real Thing

“Who told you that the feelings are laid out for you to decide? You can’t have what you can’t have, that’s right. Cold to survive.” is a set of lyrics that changed the way I looked at relationships in my life and I have never gone back. You can’t make someone love you. Just because you misinterpreted or felt something more, it doesn’t mean that other person has to. Another great deep cut.

Culture Wars – Lies

I’m glad I finally saw Culture Wars live in 2024. I love a lot of their songs, even if they have been doing it since 2017 and yet to release an LP. They even deleted a bunch of songs off Spotify that I liked (Bones and Money) I love some of their new stuff like Heaven and think the work they did on teche was great (especially the song teche and Faith) but the guitar in Lies is one of my favourite guitar tracks ever. I’ll put it up against anything ever. Great chorus too. Great music video!

St. Lucia – Walking Away

This was a big song for me when I took a solo trip to the United States visiting New Orleans, Atlanta, Nashville, and Chicago. It’s less the lyrics and more the power of the song, but the first verse of, “You’re all they want now that they got everybody” is something that often goes through my mind in situations. Sometimes people aren’t mad at you or in love with you because you’re the best choice. It’s because you’re the one hold out. They need what they can’t have. They can’t say something is unanimous without you.

Fumbling Towards Forty – Part IV

The 1975 – If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)

When I was making my list originally I didn’t have The 1975 on it. I then looked and wondered if Love it if we made it or Somebody Else or the EP version of Sex or Be My Mistake or I Always Wanna Die (sometimes) or People should be on it. And then I thought back to “If you’re too shy (let me know)” and how that was the song that made them a band I really needed to see live, and did at the end of 2023. I think it’s a perfect rock song. I even started getting haircuts like the lead singer due to his hair in the music video, kind of a mohawk but kind of not.

George Clanton – I Been Young

I Been Young was the perfect song at the perfect time for me. I had actually tried listening to George Clanton prior due to an interview he did with Anthony Fantano but I couldn’t get into it. Then I Been Young hit and it’s this perfect 90s throwback while still sounding modern with a great chorus. The lyrics said a lot about how I felt as someone in their late 30s looking back and looking forward at the same time. Glad I got to hear it live.

Social Order – Sometimes

There’s two songs called Sometimes on this list but Social Order’s Sometimes is a great mix of modern synthwave and 80s synthwave to create something that once I listen to it once I can’t stop listening to it. Maybe it falls off my lists in the future but right now it’s a song that gets me feeling younger, gets me feeling a generation I’m not a part of, and gets me thinking about past love.