Saturday, September 19, 2009

Mix Tapes/CDs

For our Book Club meeting this week, we read "Love is a Mix Tape", and a bunch of us created mix CDs to share. It occurred to me that it had been years since I had created my own mix, though the technology for sharing music has improved vastly from the days of putting an album on the turntable and snapping the cassette recorder on and off as the desired songs played. Back in cassette days, a mix tape was a real time investment, but now it's a matter of dragging and dropping.

It was a fun project. The challenge is to come up with something that the recipient might not have heard, which forced me to break out of my "same old" mold. My natural inclination was to pull out a few of my favorite songs by favorite artists, but what's the point of sharing Springsteen, Petty, Dylan, and Prince when the people I know are mostly well-versed in their music already? A mix tape should introduce your friends to the gems you've found that might not have shown up on their radar.

I would up going with a mostly alt.country mix, with a few other gems. Alt.country is a sound I've been enjoying a lot over the past several years, and it's under-appreciated by most people who think of rock as Springsteen and country as Toby Keith.

Anyhow, here's what I came up with.
1. Let's Take Some Drugs And Drive Around… 5:12
2. I Will Survive / Cake 5:11
3. Shrapnel / American Steel 4:28
4. Permanent Scar / O+S 3:34
5. Hurting Each Other / Johnette Napolitano… 4:12
6. Skinny Love / Bon Iver 3:59
7. Some Are Lakes / Land Of Talk 3:41
8. Flowered Dresses / Slaid Cleaves 3:49
9. Another Kind Of Blue / Slaid Cleaves 2:28
10. Hallelujah / Jeff Buckley 6:53
11. Oh My Sweet Carolina / Ryan Adams 4:57
12. Girl From Maryville / Thad Cockrell 4:29
13. I and Love and You / The Avett Brothers 5:01
14. Drown / Son Volt 3:22
15. A Better Place / The Setters 3:59
16. Euro-Trash Girl / Cracker 8:04
There was also a bonus track in there, which shall remain nameless.

Since I've reintroduced myself to the ease of sharing music with friends, I think I'll try to do a better job of evangelizing music I like.

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8 Comments:

Blogger Tim (Drunk-Monkey) Marks said...

Check out http://blip.fm/home
It's like Twitter for your iPod. Huge library of songs

9/20/2009 10:11 AM  
Blogger A Librarian said...

The urge to name your nameless track is almost overwhelming. I should use this opportunity to engage in blackmail.:-)

9/20/2009 2:27 PM  
Blogger Nata Harli said...

How nice to see that someone else in this town knows who Slaid Cleaves is.

9/22/2009 5:51 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This mix is terrible. It does not include Kings of Leon, the only band that is relevant these days.

9/26/2009 2:37 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

and you can't come up with a top 50 albums of the decade list? think again, my friend. great mix!

10/15/2009 6:44 AM  
Blogger bigsmithdude said...

and you can't come up with a top 50 albums of the decade list? think again, my friend. great mix!

10/15/2009 6:45 AM  
Blogger bigsmithdude said...

oh, and i assume the KOL comment was made as a joke, but if not--yikes!

10/15/2009 6:46 AM  
Blogger Dan said...

I don't know who posted that, so I can't be certain whether it was a joke or not. Let's generously assume so.

10/15/2009 6:56 AM  

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