constellations #114: new-old favorites

FYI: I’ll be back in your inbox early next week with my annual round-up of things that guided my year. I look forward to writing that list every December and I look forward to sharing it with you soon! Thanks, as always, for being here.

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Hi again.

When I used to run the newsletter at NPR Music I started an annual tradition: in mid-December, after everyone on the team was thoroughly exhausted from working on our lists of the Best Music of the Year (which always involved trying to listen to everything you’d missed from the year, then evaluating all of that against everything you had heard and loved during the year, then voting on it, then arguing with your colleagues about the results, then coming up with the final list, then writing blurbs for it…exhausting!), I would request one more write-up about a yearly favorite. But rather than inquire about a new release, I asked my colleagues to tell me about a piece of music they fell in love with during the year that didn’t come out in the past year. After spending our working hours trying desperately to keep up with, and tell our audiences about, the flood of new releases every week, it was a nice reminder that there is so much music to discover (and re-discover) from, you know, all of music history. I loved hearing about a niche genre favorite from a decade ago that someone just heard for the first time, or an old radio hit that stayed stuck in their brain, or an overlooked historical figure they came to adore. It was my favorite newsletter of the year to put together.

Anyway, after I got laid off a few years ago, that tradition stopped. But this year, I have decided to resurrect it—here, in my own way, constellations-style.

So in that spirit: Here are five of my new-old favorites from 2025:

Most of the Low back catalog, but especially Secret Name (1999) and Things We Lost in the Fire (2001)
I was working on a book proposal all year and kept alternating between devoting myself to it every day for weeks and then avoiding even thinking about it for weeks. This pattern stressed me out. But after a while, I started a new routine to get myself in the zone, mentally, which was listening to Low (for reasons that will make sense if I ever I finish the proposal and then turn it into an actual book [ha ha ha ha]). I already knew and loved a handful of albums from their vast discography, but wanted to get familiar with everything they ever made. So every time I wanted to focus on this project, I put on this band, trying to form a trigger in my brain: This music means it’s time to Get Work Done. It didn’t always make me work more diligently but I was really glad to listen to so much of this perfect band all year anyway.

Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
Madeline got a car this year with a CD player in it, so they reclaimed all their CDs from growing up: early editions of Now That’s What I Call Music!, mixes made by/for high school exes, and, notably, the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack. The first time they gave me a ride in their new car, the soundtrack was blaring, and they were shocked when I told them I’d never seen the movie (about an all-woman band confronting fame, friendship, and world domination) as a music-obsessed teenager. I promised them I’d watch it, and then I did, one summer afternoon after a gorgeous day at Riis Beach. I was promptly obsessed. Five out of five stars; perfect movie!

Fanny, Fanny Hill (1972)
I first heard about Fanny, the pioneering 1970s rock band—often said to be the first all-woman rock act to be signed to a major record label—when I was working on a project about women and music history at NPR many years ago. I was totally astounded by their story, though I didn’t immediately listen through their catalog. (I should have!) But then this year, by luck and circumstance, I got to see founding member June Millington perform twice—once in DC, once in New York. She’s in her late 70s and she still shreds! After seeing her live, I went back and listened to Fanny Hill a bunch. Incredible.

DJ Sprinkles, Midtown 120 Blues (2008)
As I did with Fanny, I first learned about DJ Sprinkles’ trailblazing work because of that same NPR project years ago, but similarly didn’t do a deep dive on their music at the time. But then I actually spent time with their celebrated record Midtown 120 Blues after hearing the magnificent RA set they put out this summer (and also because the album came up in a conversation about Pitchfork’s Sunday Review of Aaron-Carl’s Uncloseted, which I also heard for the first time this year). Midtown 120 Blues is a radical history lesson and a gorgeous piece of house music all at once—I can’t believe it took me this long to get familiar.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992)
Elle read this beloved ’90s campus novel last year and adored it, so I borrowed her copy in the spring and promised her I’d read it, too. When I finally did, I found it as beautiful and twisted and thrilling and strange as everyone says. (And actually, writing this all out made me realize that two-thirds of all the books I read this year were published within the last ~five years. I’d like to shift that balance significantly next year; I feel like I have so much to catch up on.)

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Here are some other things I have been consuming lately: Loved and Missed by Susie Boyt; Casanova 20 by Davey Davis; Holo Boy by This Is Lorelei; Los Thuthanaka live; Snocaps live; the Big Apple Half Marathon in Central Park; the Christmas lights in Dyker Heights; another garlic knot from Radio Bakery (one the best pastries I’ve had this year); a friend’s new newsletter called Show Pony (the pitch: “if carrie bradshaw lived in philadelphia and was a horse girl” [!]); soooo many Source Naturals Wellness Formula pills to ward off winter sickness (they do not necessarily have hard science behind them, but I have decidedly put my faith into them nonetheless); our annual Christmastime open mic with friends at home in Massachusetts

a nest i found in my parents’ yard

Thanks so much for reading. I’ll be back in your inbox very soon with my personal year-end list. In the meantime, I hope you have a lovely holiday season.

xo,
M