My favorite High Fidelity moment is Rob Fleming’s (patron saint of music nerds) soliloquy describing the art of the mixtape. The rules: Stick to a theme, no mixing black music and white music, no two songs by the same artist on the same side (unless you’re doing doubles) etc. While the advice is rote (and ultimately ignorable) the spiel is one of the great elegies to the mix as a conveyor of emotion.
For a generation that fetishizes cassette tapes while barely remembering the discman, Rob’s passion for self-expression through song selection is a reminder of a simple pleasure that’s increasingly obsolete in the era of filesharing. After all, how awkward is it to give a girl that mp3 CD when her Macbook Air can’t even read the damn thing? A Z-Share just ain’t the same.
If it isn’t obvious by now: I like mixtapes. I love making them, giving them, receiving them, losing them, finding them again 5 years later, reminiscing over them and remembering what each song meant and what the person who made the tape meant by it. I love putting them back in the box and forgetting them all over again. I’ll make a mix for any occasion: you went to the dentist? I got a punk mix that’ll match your pain AND make you laugh when the meds kick in. Moving to a new place? An alphabetized all-folk compilation about wandering will serenade your soul. Need to break someone’s leg? My personal best of M.O.P beacons.
Making tapes for music nerds is a whole other ballgame and an altogether less rewarding one. You get competitive: your shit has got to have the illest, next-level, obscure gem from the b-side of some Moldovian funk single you found in a widow’s basement out in Farmer’s Palm, Arkansas. You spend months putting it together to impress a bunch of bespectacled record convention attendees, carefully orchestrating every transition for maximum effect…and then Madlib leaks a live mix he made in an hour and you’re left in the dust like a Ladda at the Indy 500.
This isn’t one of those mixes, hell I’ve got half of Muhfuggin “Layla” on there and I’m pretty sure you can turn on any classic rock station in the country and hear it in the next few hours. Nah, this is a mix I made for someone before I left Saigon for Montreal: a goodbye present, a beginning of summer present, a see-you-again present. It’s the kind of squishy, personal mixtape that you find in someone’s dresser years later and wonder what the hell that was all about.
It’s also a mellow mix of Hip-Hop, classic rock and indie with some ill mixing that’ll sound great after a few glasses of wine or a choice blunt. Obviously it means a lot to me, hopefully it means as much to the person I gave it to, maybe it’ll mean something to other people. Maybe not. At the very least, I think the transition between the Dionne Warwick and Belle and Sebastian tracks is clutch and you can’t get mad at having Black Tambourine and Outkast on the same CD. Enjoy.
Oh, right. I was supposed to talk about summer. Umm…it’s warm outside.
The Mix: http://www.mediafire.com/
I’m pretty sure that Zero 7 and Dangermouse will go down in the Top 10 most hated musicians of the decade by music snobs. But then again, those people listen to Peaches records.
DJ Shadow – 6 Days
Likewise, Shadow’s reputation has taken a beating this decade. I guess dropping Hip-Hop’s Darkside of the Moon doesn’t have the same cultural cache as it used to now that everyone’s biting Donuts’ punk-rock 1-minute masterpiece formula. Still, I’ll always love this track from his sophomore release, if only for the incredible WKW directed music video that’s permanently embedded in my brain.
Janet Jackson ft Q-Tip – Got till its Gone/A Tribe Called Quest – Find a Way
Speaking of Donuts, one of the uncomfortable truths about Dilla is that he wasn’t just unrecognized during his lifetime; occasionally he was downright hated on. Case in point: the later day Tribe sound STILL hasn’t been rehabilitated despite the flood of goodwill towards all things Yancey. I’m not going to pretend that The Love Moment was a great album (Beats, Rhymes and Life – yes) but the Ummah helmed singles from that era were a perfect counterweight to the more obnoxious playerisms floating out of New York: equally smooth but twice as sophisticated and always smart.
Outkast – Ms. Jackson
The last great Outkast single? The Jury’s still out on “Hey Ya” but there’s no doubt that Ms Jackson stands as one of the defining moments of the decade. A half dozen trends are predicted: the Prince/Toomp synths, the emo(tional) rapping, the sing-song hook; all the track needs is a soul sample and an 808. The only downside? Listening to this makes me want to punch Andre for never dropping a proper solo LP.
The Cocteau Twins – Heaven or Las Vegas
I’m heartened that Willie Isz (Khujo Goodie x Jneiro Jarel) name-dropped the Cocteaus in this interview if only because it means I’m not the only one who thinks it makes sense to blend Dungeon Family funk with Scottish dream-pop.
Lily Allen – Who’d have known
Half of the new Lily Allen record sucks. This is more so disappointing because it killed my crush on her than for any musical reasons. Still, when she’s not preaching platitudes over electro like the ungodly offspring of Madonna and Bono, she does find time to include a few songs that play to her strengths. Along with the Kinksian 32, Who’d have known’s McCartneyesque love-ballad makes my short–list of highlights. Let’s hope she hits that weird classic-rock phase girls go through by her next LP.
Dionne Warwick – Check Out Time
Who’s the illest 60’s pop songwriting team: Lennon/McCartney, Holland-Dozier-Holland or Burt Bacharach and Hal David ? Ok so it’s not as catchy as Biggie, Jay-Z or Nas but it’s still a valid question. Incidentally, that would make Brian Wilson the 2Pac of this equation.
Belle and Sebastian – Dylan in the Movies
Putting Belle and Sebastian on a mixtape for a girl is sort of like injecting steroids in MLB: it’s totally unfair but everyone does it and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t make for entertaining results. Seriously though, save yourself the trouble of growing the scruffy beard and copping annoying hipster clothes and just throw this on a tape: you become that cool male-protagonist in the vaguely-indie rom-com by default.
Bob Dylan – I want You
I’m convinced that Bob Dylan wrote this song to prove a point: that you can say just about anything in your verses so long as you’ve got a dope hook. Even Ghostface on a dust-blunt can’t figure out what the hell’s going on here but I assume that Bob really wants this girl.
Neutral Milk Hotel – Holland 1945
Attention contemporary noise-punk musicians: you will never be as cool as Jeff Mangum. Ever.
The Stone Roses – The Hardest thing in the world
The Roses’ non-album material gets short-changed on this side of the pond but their early singles and b-sides were just as valid as the stuff that made their debut LP. This song has got all the elements that made their self-titled the best pop record of the 80’s (I said it): ringing guitars, a powerful rhythm section and Ian Brown’s post-hippie working class abstraction.
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Young Adult Friction
A few months into 2009 and TPOBPAH is still tied with Art Brut vs. Satan as my favorite pop-rock record of the year. Derivative? Yes, but oh so satisfying in its embrace of classic songwriting and ringing guitar rock. How can you listen to this and not want to fuck a hipster?
Black Tambourine – For Ex-lovers only
I played this at a party and was told by a drunk guy that it sounded like the aforementioned Pains mixed with Vivan Girls. I just sort of stood there.
The Raconteurs – Your Blue Veins
This song proves that Jack White and Rza totally need to record together in a haunted barn outside of Memphis while consuming random psychedelics. Blue Veins sounds like Stax on pneumonia.
John Lennon – Jealous Guy
John Lennon was an insecure, emotionally abusive megalomaniac who ignored his children, mistreated the women in his life and did more coke than a Rick Ross record. He was also the most beloved icon of his generation and remains idolized by millions for his belief in world peace and his incredible songwriting. I’m riding with this guy as far as “I’m sorry” songs go, clearly he knew what he was doing.
Eric Clapton – Layla
Don’t worry; this is just the awesome part with the guitar riff, not the never-ending piano solo that fucks it all up afterwards.
The Rolling Stones – Shine a Light
Best rock song about your best-friend being on Heroin ever.
