The Page We Turn

A Playlist for Reckoning and Reflection

As a DJ, I always take requests. As the year closes, which refrain will you carry forward, and which are you finally ready to leave behind?

Share your favorites and maybe you’ll inspire my next playlist!

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There is a particular quiet that settles in at the end of the year. Not silence, exactly, but a pause. The kind that arrives after the last train has passed and before the next one is announced. One page lies heavy with memory. The other waits, blank and patient.

This is the moment for inventory. For sitting with what was said and what was left unsaid. For acknowledging the weight of the year without rushing to redeem it. Turning the page is not about erasing what came before. It is about honoring it honestly.

The Page We Turn is a soundtrack for that reckoning. It lingers with nostalgia, grief, endurance, and the quiet strength it takes to look back without flinching. These songs hold space for memory, for mistakes, for the lessons that only arrive once the noise fades.

🧭 Curating the Arc

The stories we tell ourselves at the end of a chapter shape how we carry it forward. Reflection is not passive. It is an active reckoning with who we were asked to become.

Like any good story, this playlist follows an arc. The overture opens with confrontation and memory. The entr’acte moves through vulnerability and endurance. The curtain call closes with solidarity and grace.

Listen in order to feel the full weight of the year settle. Or shuffle if you need gentler landings. Either way, the path leads you to the same crossing.

🎶 Track List & Artist Highlights

1. The Good The Bad The Ugly – Fitz and The Tantrums | A brassy overture that reminds us of triumphs, mistakes, and the ordinary moments between.

2. Hyperempathy – Cold War Kids | A song about feeling too much that reframes sensitivity as radical honesty, the kind of awareness that makes reflection possible.

3. The Kill – Maggie Rogers | A clear‑eyed reckoning with endings. The moment you admit what has been lost and let the silence speak.

4. Linger – The Cranberries | Unfinished conversations and memories that refuse to fade. Some feelings stay because they still have something to teach us.

5. Nice To Each Other – Olivia Dean | Kindness as survival strategy. A soft insistence that gentleness matters, especially in hindsight.

6. Last Time – Medium Build | The ache of repetition and the discipline of closure. A door closing so it does not have to be reopened again.

7. Rubber Band Man – Mumford & Sons & Hozier | Stretch, snap, resilience: the sound of bending without breaking, of finding strength in tension.

8. Sledgehammer – Rihanna | Change that arrives with force. Sometimes reflection demands impact.

9. When A Good Man Cries – CMAT | Tears are not weakness but proof of humanity, the kind of honesty that makes reflection real.

10. Camouflage – Milky Chance | A playful groove about hiding in plain sight. A nod to the masks we wore; disguises that kept us safe but also kept us apart.

11. All My Life – The Black Keys | Bluesy persistence and the grit of survival wrapped in guitar riffs, insisting that endurance is its own kind of grace.

12. Beautiful Nothing – Sheppard | A meditation on emptiness, finding grace in absence. Sometimes the void is its own kind of presence.

13. Sign of the Times – Harry Styles | A ballad of crisis and endurance. “We gotta get away from here” becomes a mantra for persistence, a plea to keep holding on.

14. Take A Drive – Rex Orange County | Sometimes the only way to process is to keep moving, to let the road carry your thoughts. Occasionally, I miss my car.

15. this part of town – Better Joy | Local grief, universal resonance. A song about place that becomes a song about belonging, about the corners we carry with us.

16. 2002 – Anne-Marie | A sugar-rush of nostalgia, celebrating innocence and formative years. It’s memory as pop anthem, a reminder of who we once were.

17. Ghosttt – Slayyyter | Neon and spectral, a reminder of what refuses to fade. It’s the haunting echo of unfinished business.

18. NO SECRETS – Jessie J | A declaration of honesty with pop bravado turned confession, the year’s truths laid bare.

19. Metamorphosis – MILCK | Transformation as survival. Each verse is a chrysalis cracking open, a reminder that change is constant.

20. Masterpiece – Neon Dreams & Frank Kadillac | Affirmation that even chaos can yield beauty. The chorus insists: you are art, even unfinished.

21. Be Kind – Marshmello & Halsey | A plea for gentleness. The beat is urgent, but the message is tender, reminding us that kindness is radical.

22. You Don’t Have to Be Lonely – The Undercover Dream Lovers | A groove that insists solitude is optional, that belonging is always possible.

23. Shine on Me – Dan Auerbach | A warm glow of gratitude. The guitar feels like sunlight breaking through clouds, a reminder to notice the light.

24. Crybaby – Paloma Faith | Permission to feel deeply. Faith’s theatrical delivery makes vulnerability glamorous, turning tears into spectacle.

25. If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me) – The Staple Singers | A gospel invitation to step forward together, closing the retrospective with solidarity.

Closing the Book

Turning the page is not an act of erasure. It is an act of witness. It asks us to sit with the year as it was, not as we wish it had been, and to acknowledge the ways it shaped us in return. Reflection is not about resolution or redemption. It is about truth, and the quiet courage it takes to face it without rushing toward consolation.

This playlist lives in that pause. In the stillness where memory settles and meaning begins to surface. Let these songs hold what you are not ready to carry alone yet. Let them remind you that reckoning is not a failure of optimism, but its foundation.

When you are ready, close the book gently. The weight you set down here makes room for what comes next.

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Thanks for vibing with this curated playlist 🎧—your presence fuels my creative journey! If you enjoy a mix of witty memoirs set against Dutch backdrops, gripping serialized mysteries, and rebellious dystopian sci-fi, you’ve come to the right place.