100% JUNE 2026
It’s Gannon again with another playlist. Here are the tunes that grabbed me this JUNE of 2026:
1. Love Plus One - Haircut 100
I was watching an interview with the dude who fronted and still fronts the ULTRA CLASSIC, ULTRA CANONICAL hardcore band Youth of Today. Really interesting guy! You can see he got into the scene because that’s where all the weirdos were. Musically, I have to admit the “youth crew” sound Youth of Today pioneered misses me a bit. To some guys in this musical scene (a scene in which, am becoming more and more obsessed with, to the point I am often saying to myself “why the hell can’t I stop talking or thinking about hardcore????) this band and this sound is everything. I’ll get there, I hope.
Anyway, I was watching an interview with this guy, and he’s saying in the early 80s he was going to every “weird” music should he could. He used the band Haircut 100 as an example of how wide his tastes were. “I was going to see Agnostic Front one night and Haircut 100 the next!” Something like that. Hearing the name Haircut 100 immediately made me think, “oh my god what a 80s New Wave band name, I bet they have at least one killer single.” They actually got a ton of killer tracks off of their one album. They have sound that straddles both dance edge of punk inspired bands, and a hint of the smooth mellowness the frontmen of these bands all embraced when time came for them to put out their first solo album. It’s pretty cool! Makes me want to go back and compile all the best stuff from forgotten British new wavers with cuckoo names.
2. Falling Into It - Joyce Manor
I love a short song, and I love massive hooks. Not much more to this one than that. Joyce Manor, like youth crew hardcore, are a musical entity I wish I liked more. I like power pop-y forward pop punk and these guy are the biggest band doing that right now. They got a handful of songs I’m really rocking with. Fake ID, Constant Headache, I Know Where Mark Chen Lives. But they got a lot of tracks that leave me cold. More hooks please! More big dumb hooks! This song’s got em so I’m chillen
3. Jesus was a Cross Maker - Judee Sill
Judee Sill is an artist who I don’t feel like was getting a lot of play when I was becoming a proper music dork in 2008, but who is massively influential in the current lyrical folk inspired sect. I got this song rec from an interview with Karly from Wednesday, actually, who’s at the forefront of that scene. She pointed to the lyric “He’s a bandit and a heartbreaker/ Oh, but Jesus was a Cross-Maker.” What a fucking line. Insane. You need to get into Judee Sill NOW!!!!
4. Jeep - Kim Petras
This song’s a grower for me. First time I heard this I thought to myself, ugh, does every pop act have to do a country homage song to try and score a crossover chart hit these days!?!? Well, like the best Kim, this one pays more with repeat lessons. Monster hooks. Taken from a chopped up acoustic riff. Kim’s ad-libs are also great - the meaning laden “fuck…”, the fireworks “pewwww” before the outro. I guess the idea for the song came from Kim being German, and Germans calling all cars “Jeeps” - kinda f in the way some southerners call all sodas “Cokes.” The German interpretation of middle of nowhere romantic America is also a funny element in the song. Slipknot and stupid gas station shirts. Very in vogue these days.
5. Boys of Summer - codeseven
Boys of Summer was one of those songs I remember in my youth hearing referred to as basically dogshit by either my dad or the music critic intelligencia. So for much of my life
I wrote this song off as dogshit. Nowadays, I feel like many of these sorts of songs previously derided songs have stuck around so long and proved themselves to be too undeniable to be totally written off. “Whatever, fun is fun” feels like the attitude. Anyway this cover is pretty fun, works great as a hardcore song.
6. Five Eyes - Demonstration of Power
I believe this is a Scottish straightedge hardcore band. That’s cool. Learned about this song from a clip that was going around twitter of the lead singer hitting a psychotic two step to butterfly kick during the song’s breakdown. It looks so cool. If you’re in your twenties, learn to two step NOW!!! A lot harder to figure that out without looking insanely lame in your 30s. Anyway this song is sick. It has like 4 breakdowns. Fucking insane.
7. Money in My Pocket Version - Joe Gibbs
Really loving dub these days. Mellow enough to put on while you’re working, but has a creeping ferocity that keeps me in a “coiled panther on the creep” mindset. May this song thusly propel you.