1. 5:15 Train - A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Scribble Mural Comic Journal
2. My Girls - Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
3. Brother - Annuals - Be He Me
4. Comfy in Nautica - Panda Bear - Person Pitch
5. Car - Built to Spill - There's Nothing Wrong With Love
6. If You're Feeling Sinister - Belle and Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
7. The Orchids - Califone - Roots and Crowns
8. Good Arms Vs. Bad Arms - Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight
9. Come Back From San Francisco - The Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs, Vol. 1
10. Song Against Sex - Neutral Milk Hotel - On Avery Island
11. Maps - Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell
12. Family Tree - TV on the Radio - Dear Science,
13. The Convert - Shearwater - Winged Life
14. Suffering Jukebox - Silver Jews - Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea
15. Drinking at the Dam - Smog - A River Ain't Too Much To Love
--Alex Crisafulli
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You should've exchanged this mixtape's title for something funny.
ReplyDeleteAren't you going to offer some deep explanations for the righteousness of this combination?
ReplyDeleteI'll let it speak for itself. Btw, don't ever talk to me in that condescending tone again. Ever.
ReplyDeletesooooo sorry, Dad. I'll neeeever do it again...I proooomise.
ReplyDeletehere's a movie quote I thought of after listening to your sophomore slump of a mix:
ReplyDelete"There are a lot of things I can take, and some things I can't. But what I can't take is when my older brother, who's everything that I want to be, starts losing faith in things. I saw that look in your eyes last night. I don't ever want to see that look in your eyes again."
I went back and listened to 'died on the cross' just to remember the way you used to be. it's like I don't even know you anymore, man....
Oh, brother, Kracker quoting cut-rate Mel Gibson movies. Someone please end this.
ReplyDeleteI'm on the fence about this mix. I don't know if I like it or not. It feels like a collection of good songs with little relevance to each other, sonically or otherwise. Did "pretty boys in discos distract you" during the sequencing phase? Can't really argue with "The Orchids", "Maps", and "Drinking at the Dam", though.
ReplyDeleteBrian, and the others,
ReplyDeleteContary to a quick prima facie review, this isn't just some hodge-podge collection of songs that I threw together. I put thought into what I chose, and even more thought into how I arranged them from beginning to end. Here are some things that I took into account while making this mix:
1. Era of songs. I first whittled down the list to about 30 songs, and then made some eliminations for various reasons, but thought I could best present my album with songs that I identify with from the last couple of years (give or take a few...most notably with "Song Against Sex"). For better or for worse, these are the songs that define me most. And for this reason, artists like Galaxie 500, Jesus Lizard, and the Kinks had to be discarded even though I wanted them to stay, and it pained me to let them go.
2. Perhaps a mistake (too early to tell), I made a concerted effort not to include anything from an artist that was on my mix last year (the appropriately designated "Jesus Christ" mix). I had an Oxford Collapse song that was perfect for the coveted 7th track spot but at the last minute I couldn't put it on there. Was I playing too much to last year's audience? Maybe. But that's the kind of integrity that went into these selections.
3. Do "5:15 Train" and "Drining at the Dam have any "relevance" to one another? Probably not. They weren't supposed to. They are on the opposite end of the spectrum for a reason, but are connected by various degrees of tight-knit separation. While I would never make such a reckless jump from "Car" to "Come Back From San Francisco" in one leap, I feel that that is a journey that can be made with a few detours along the way ("If You're Feeling...", "The Orchids", "Good Arms Vs. Bad Arms"). Do you follow? It's the peaks and valleys of a record that interest me and that is what I was trying to do here.
4. This is not a concept record and was never intended to be a concept record. Nor was it intended to tell some stupid story. Rather, it's an album. Nirvana's Nevermind was not a concept record, but I'll be damned if "Drain You" not only belongs in that 8-spot, but absolutely has to be there! And that's the same sort of thing that's at play here. So if you don't like it, fine, BUT DON'T EVER ACCUSE ME OF HAVING NO RHYME OR REASON TO WHAT I'M TRYING TO DO!!!
5. I 100% stand by this mix and couldn't be prouder.
In closing, I hope you all enjoy this mix as much as I do, and as much as I enjoyed preparing it for all of you. If you have any more questions, or found anything I said to be confusing, please don't hesitate to post a follow-up comment or shoot me an email.
Yours,
Alex
points 1 and 4 are somewhat contradictory.
ReplyDeleteif these are the "songs that define me" isn't that conceptual, by definition, from a compositional standpoint?
you should bust out some Korn and take care of that simmering rage evidenced by the all cap rebuttal.
and as a serious question, what do you think of the raveonettes and glasvegas (I saw 'geraldine' made your top 10)? I think if the jesus and mary chain had sex with 50's music its offspring would be the raveonettes!
Fair enough. "Songs that define me" probably wasn't the right choice of words and I didn't feel that great about it as I wrote them, but couldn't put my finger on what I really meant. I think it's somewhat clear, though.
ReplyDeleteI was never a fan of that rap/rock genre and feel proud that I was never duped by it. Although Korn and the Deftones were pretty respectable bands, I guess.
To be honest, I have never listened to the Raveonettes but someone was just talking about them recently. Was that you, Brian? I really enjoy Glasvegas.
I never understood Korn's cult following and never gave them much of a chance. I slowly picked up a song here and there and ended up with a half dozen of their songs that serve their purpose as great workout music as an alternative to my tae bo and jazzercise.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit I spent a year of my life duped by limp bizkit.
if you were a JMC fan, then I would check out the raveonettes. just like JMC, their songs all tend to have a similar sound, given their penchant for reverb. the good aspect is that the entire CD is good. the bad is that it makes it difficult to tell one song from the next.
Alex, let me tell you my friend, I just can't get enough Scandanavian music in my life. It started with ABBA, and proceeds through today with Mew, the mary onettes, the shout and louds, love is all, and now the raveonettes.
I'll leave a simple comment. Good Mix. However, I feel like I have spent way too much time trying to tell myself that I like Neutral Milk Hotel, but in the end, there are only a handful of songs that I enjoy, the rest sort of annoy me...
ReplyDeleteI liked this mix. Lots of new stuff (for my ear) along with some favorites. Finishing with drinking at the damn was great. I'd never heard it, but i like that song a lot.
ReplyDelete