The PoYB Monthly Playlist: March 2026

You get a dozen songs every month, in playlist form, that act as official PoYB music recommendations, since none of the other music columns are necessarily recommending anything, just exploring. These are your recs. Fuck the algorithm.

It's Pam's birthday tomorrow. Remember this monthly blog column used to be structured like a playlist I made for Pam? It's been a while. I don't think she listened to too many of those. She doesn't need to! She's out there making her own way through cool music. She was listening to Dummy by Portishead last week! So fucking cool. Happy birthday Pammy!

March 2026

1. "Straight Drop" by Cootie Catcher — There haven't been too many albums released in 2026 that have hit me right in the heart. I don't know if that's even typical, that any albums from the first two months would do that. Maybe I've just had too many years in a row when my favorite album dropped in January or February. I think the next nine months are gonna feature a lot of great music. For now, here's some pretty cool stuff from a band called Cootie Catcher, which I learned about from Stereogum (where else). It's pretty good! Not gonna be my favorite album of the year, but enough to get me through the cold months.

2. "Cavern" by Liquid Liquid — Four of the songs on this playlist are from albums that received a 10.0 score in a Pitchfork review. I found a list of 10.0 albums on Wikipedia, and raided that shit for every studio album that I wasn't already familiar with. It's cool exploring them, because I can read the actual review while I'm listening, and get a second-hand account from a writer who loves this shit. The love is infectious.

3. "Vaudeville Villain" by Viktor Vaughn — By all accounts, MF DOOM was a weird fucking dude. But when it comes to music, weird is good. I don't understand why he released this album under the pseudonym "Viktor Vaughn." I want to assume he was just fucking around? At the very least, there's a good payoff later in the album when one of the songs is "featuring MF DOOM."

4. "Rules" by Mitski — It still feels strange to call Mitski "popular," but I think that my issues with that descriptor are more symptomatic of my confusion in the wake of the monoculture's death. She's popular, but only with a certain niche, but very popular with that niche. Falling outside that niche, I'll say that I'll continue to listen, and I'll continue to cherry-pick the two or three songs from each Mitski album that are actually good.

5. "Over the Hill" by John Martyn — My first thought after realizing that I liked this song was "wow, this sounds like Nick Drake." Imagine my surprise when I do the research and find out that not only does the album sound like Nick Drake, but it is about Nick Drake—John Martyn was his friend, and was worried about him, and tried to get Drake help, and sang about it in oblique ways. There is the story of music, and it expands outward infinitely.

6. "Kiss Kiss Kiss" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono — I've always been extremely skeptical of Lennon's solo work, but I love "Watching the Wheels" unconditionally, and wanted to see what its album, Double Fantasy, was all about. But I had forgotten that Yoko's songs take up half of the album. I gotta say... there's some real weird shit on here, but I continue to be enthralled with her weirdo shit. Is this a good song? I don't know, maybe not? But I really fucking like it, and it's honestly so refreshing to hear Yoko go weird instead of hearing another trite bummer from John.

7. "Killing a Camera" by Braid — Did you read that American Football feature in GQ a couple weeks ago? Of course you didn't. You thought it was too long. I read it, though, and there were so many fucking takeaways. One among many was: damn, it's crazy how many of these Midwest emo bands were connected. Braid did their thing somewhere in between Cap'n Jazz and American Football, and got a shoutout in the article, so I figured it was time to check out. This is B+ Midwest emo, in that it doesn't reach for the same heights as the A/A- Midwest emo, but it is always way more accessible.

8. "L'hôtel particulier" by Serge Gainsbourg — That 10.0 reviews list really got me to step outside my comfort zone a couple times. Here's a 28-minute French pop album about, ermmm, child molestation? It's probably for the best I don't know how to speak the language. But I can get behind the music for sure, in a strange (I guess this is follow-up to a MMM from a few weeks back).

9. "Bug" by Remember Sports — Remember Remember Sports? They're back (again). And their new album is doing some real cool shit with their sound, even beyond the requisite indie rock country-curious sound seeping into the work of all their peers. More on those cool new sounds at some other time. For now: a return to the sound you've always loved from these Philly folks.

10. "Ham 'n' Eggs" by A Tribe Called Quest — A few years, I made a sincere effort to move through the hip hop classics. After satisfactorily schooling myself, my explorations of hip hop have waned slightly. But I'm still pecking away at some deeper catalogs. The band I've probably dug through the most is A Tribe Called Quest. Something about them resonates with me. I like the comradery and I also like the optimism and fun. That's too basic of an explanation, but that's all I got for you in this blurb.

11. "Achin' to Be" by the Replacements — I have always had this problem in which I'm familiar with the work of great artists because they have a certain body of work that is critically acclaimed, but then assume for some reason that the body of work that is critically acclaimed is all there is. Whereas most artists of this level also have albums that aren't as critically acclaimed. I just didn't know about them! It's like when I didn't even know that Led Zeppelin had two albums after Physical Graffiti until years later. Anyways, the Replacements are that type of band. They have two albums after Pleased to Meet Me! Don't Tell a Soul was pretty good. I can see why it's not as acclaimed as Let It Be or Tim. But it still has some emotional heft to it, and is still probably worth your time.

12. "Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby" by Counting Crows — I warned ya in the MMM, I'm part of the Murder of Crows now. That's what we call the Counting Crows fan club, the Murder of Crows. Do they actually? I don't know. I made that up. I should look it up. I should pay the membership fee. I'm all in. This shit is really good. Don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise.