Your New Year’s Eve Party Playlist

How important is a good New Year’s Eve playlist? Well, NYE is not like other parties. Everyone is obliged to party. Everyone has expectations. It’s not your birthday, where your loved ones surround you to celebrate you. It’s something completely different, and everyone wants, no, NEEDS, to have a great time. 

You need up-beat music that can drive people, you need some classic tracks that people recognize, mixed in with some recent hits, but they can’t lag and they can’t let up. You want people to feel like the new year is all about hope and potential. You want people to forget about themselves, let the champagne roll down their throats and just, fucking, dance. 

Here’s our last gift to you in 2014, enjoy, and never stop jamming! 

The Whyd Team’s Coups de Coeur of 2014

What a year! We’ve welcomed masses of new music lovers to our community, and there is an energy that pulses every day across the network. To sum up 2014, we dropped our Playlist of the Year last week, and we also crowned 20syl the Artist of the Year. 

So now, it’s our turn! We asked the diverse group of music lovers, the Whyd team, what our favorite albums from 2014 are. What do you think?

Shaka Ponk - “The White Pixel Ape”

The French experimental rock band is back with their latest effort, an energetic mix of popular and world music. 

Breton - “War Room Stories”

The Berlin-based group originally from London released this gem under Believe Recordings, strong and unexpected, like mixing whisky and espresso. 

Damien Rice - “My Favourite Faded Fantasy”

Ireland’s darling son croons his way through his latest release, laying earnest poetry atop beautiful melodies with veritable authenticity. 

Father Figure - “Heavy Meddlers”

This album brilliantly reconciles three genres: math-rock, jazz, and progressive rock. The result is pure intellectual and sensorial pleasure, from the first notes to the last. 

SBTRKT - “Wonder Where We Land”

The hidden person behind London’s SBTRKT prefers to have the music speak for itself. This album speaks loud and clear, with his signature blend of hip hop, pop, and electronic styles. 

FKA Twigs - “LP1”

Tahliah Barnett released this, her first full album, this year to immediate success thanks to its complicated R&B mash up of original vocals and familiar pop backing. 

Beyoncé - “Beyoncé”

You know who she is. You can probably sing more than a few of her songs off the top of your head. But damn, she made one hell of an album this year, and gave it a very appropriate name. 

Nick Warren Presents: The Soundgarden

This compilation by the English house DJ of purely instrumental electronic music will give you 3+ hours of mental focus. Use it when you need to tackle a huge obstacle. 

The Hottest Tracks of 2014

Every week we monitor which tracks are racing to the top of the Whyd hot tracks. Every week we listen to an array of awesome songs that rise and fall from the top. Every week the community speaks, and listens, and a winner is crowned. 

The Track of the Weekend has been honoring music for 2 and a half years. 2014 proved even more diverse, as our global community continues to cast a wider net. It’s also starting to get a bit more mainstream, as popular tracks from hot artists get launched on a journey around the world. 

So here they are, all of the Tracks of the Weekend from this year, the definitive playlist of the absolute best music of 2014, as determined by our fabulous community of music lovers:

Never stop jamming!

Track of the Weekend #115: Hayden James - “Something About You”

Hanukkah is in full swing - Happy Hanukkah everyone! 

Christmas is just around the corner - Merry Christmas everyone!

And the New Year is coming fast - too soon to wish you a Happy New Year :) 

All of that means that it’s party time, to get together with friends and family and celebrate. And no celebration can exist without music. This week a new track from the Australian Hayden James called “Something About You" dropped, and it ignited the hot tracks like an outback brushfire. Why? Because it’s the perfect song to fit into your celebration soundtrack: pleasant like a baby koala, hoppy like a kangaroo, and not clichéd, unlike all of our terrible Australian references! 

Thanks to Lucile Araud for sending it up first! 

Track of the Weekend #114: The Dø - “Miracles” Parrod Remix

As we’re plowing towards the end of the year we are looking forward to everything that 2015 has in store. But first, we have to celebrate the end of this incredible year. Our team is slowly reuniting in Paris, and there are christmas parties on the horizon. Next week we will be announcing the hottest tracks of 2014, along with our favorite albums and the Artist of the Year on Whyd. 

But first, to get you in the mood for the weekend, Parrad's epic remix of The Dø's “Miracle" will rock you to your foundation, turn it up for an epic weekend. 

Thanks to Louis de Sentenac for getting it to us first! 

Track of the Weekend #113: Panthère - “Storm”

The northern hemisphere darkens as December begins. Night falls before our afternoon coffees. It’s a time of transition, towards the bitterness of winter. If there was one song that could contain this feeling, and relate to the inner turbulence in us all, it’s “Storm" by Panthère, the most popular track on Whyd this week. 

You will recognize the voice of Nili Hadida, the singer from Lilly Wood and the Prick, and the beats come from some of the dudes at Club Cheval. It’s a challenging sound, accompanied by a steamy video, indulging the forbidden parts of our mind and desires while ultimately rewarding our self exploration with muted satisfaction. 

Thanks to Maxime M. from Coloring My Clouds for sharing it with us!

West Coast Hip Hop: Playlist of Reference

Our new initiative at Whyd is to provide excellent playlist of reference that revolve around a specific subgenre or theme of music. But we don’t want to just give you music, we want to give you the story of its creation, and curation.

Music is awesome, music with context is what we should all strive for. 

Today we’re featuring the West Coast Hip Hop playlist curated by Slimane

Can you introduce yourself Slimane? Where are you from and what do you do in life? 

My name is Slimane, I’m 23, and I come from Caen, Normandy, although I now live in Paris. I started to work for a start up in the field of social media 6 months ago. 

When did you start listening to West Coast Hip Hop?

I guess my first experience with West Coast Hip Hop was Snoop (“Doggy” at the time!) Dogg’s “What’s my name.” I got hooked by the G-Funk sound, the crazy synthesizers and the laid back yet technical flow.

What are some example situations when you would listen to this playlist yourself?

Anytime! What’s good about West Coast Hip Hop is that it’s both chilled and intense. Best suited for cruising under the sun I guess, but it works fine at parties or whenever you want to get pumped up.

If you had to choose just one track from this playlist, which one would be your favorite?

It would be Eazy-E’s “Real Muthaphukkin Gs.” There’s everything a good west coast song needs: a whining synth, a crazy bassline, and to me it’s the definite beef-song, Eazy-E and his friends thrashing Dr. Dre and Snoop Doog. It’s a classic!

Track of the Weekend #112: La Fine Équipe - “Cheese Naan” feat. Fakear (La Boulangerie 3)

Yesterday we told you what we were thankful for, along with an Ellen Degeneres-calibre selfie of our very handsome team. One of the things that we mentioned was how we were thankful for amazing music. If there was one track that sums up what that means - music laden with creativity, a punch of fun, collaborations between artists who are arcing up towards their prime - “Cheese Naan" would be it. 

La Fine Équipe x Fakear makes “Cheese Naan” not just an Indian appetizer, but a joyous electronic romp, one that inspires hope, that succeeds in telling a story and captivating. It rises above into the optimistic stratosphere, to give us the buoyancy to float lazily through the entire weekend. 

Big thanks to Louis de Sentenac for nailing this one! 

Hilarious Playlist Titles

Things are just steaming along here at Whyd - up to almost 1.5 million tracks added on the platform, and a lot of playlists. Since we have people from all over the world, who make playlists for all sorts of reasons and situations, you can find music organized and curated for nearly everything. Here is a list of some pertinent, hilarious, and dirty playlists on Whyd

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Track of the Weekend #110: François & The Atlas Mountains - “La Fille aux Cheveux de Soie” (Isaac Delusion Remix)

It’s raining here in Paris and that means a dampness that will stay with us until the sun returns in force in April. Spirits are understandably a bit dreary, but luckily for us, there is — and will always be — music.

Capturing this unique autumnal feeling is difficult, but the Isaac Delusion remix of Fránçois & The Atlas Mountain's “La Fille aux Cheveux de Soie" (translated as The Girl with the Silk Hair) does a wonderful job summarizing how we all are feeling. It’s delicate as silk, dreamy like the morning fog, and warming like a cup of Jasmine tea with a dash of honey. 

Thanks to Lucile (our petite lu!) for getting it to us!