MUSIC: Mixed Bag

I participated in Chris "Lefty" Brown's Mixed Bag CD exchange project (along with these other fine bloggers). Yesterday, I finally mailed off my mixes to the remaining bloggers (I gave Dorian and Mike theirs in person at the comic shop).

I'm a little worried about the quality of the CDs. When I listened to one, it sounded a little fuzzy and static-y in places. I don't know if they all sound like that, or if it's a problem somewhere in my computer's sound system, or what. I just hope it doesn't render the music unlistenable for the recipients.

Anyhoo. Here's my track listing. I went a little less obscure than others, partly by choice -- I guess I'm just a mainstream rock kind of guy -- and partly by necessity -- I don't have that many CDs to choose music from, ever since the day I had to sell back my gigantic CD collection in order to, you know, eat (I call that day Black Tuesday*), and my gigantic MP3 collection disappeared when my old computer bit the big one.

You'll Play It and You'll Like It, Vol. 1

1. The Presidents of the United States of America, "Kick Out the Jams"
A nice rousing number to start things off. I kind of wish I had been able to use "Ladies and Gentlemen" from PUSA's second album ("Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, are you prepared to rock?/ And hello, ladies and gentlemen: let's rock!"), but alas and alack, I don't own the second album anymore. But "Kick Out the Jams" is good enough: "Well, I've been elected to rock your asses till midnight!"

2. The Donnas, "I Don't Want to Know (If You Don't Want Me)"
Ah, the Donnas. How I love them. I kind of wanted to put my favorite song by them on here, "Take It Off," but I had already used that song on a mix CD I had previously sent to Fred Hembeck, and didn't want to repeat myself. It literally did not occur to me until after I had burned the CDs that I could've used whatever songs I wanted for everyone else, and just changed some songs on Fred's disc. I am smart like a doorknob.

3. They Might Be Giants, "Number Three"
What better song for this slot? If only I had Blur's "Song 2" for the previous track. Or Three Dog Night's "One" (or, for that matter, Metallica's "One") for the first. (And maybe something from Huey Lewis and the News' Fore! album for the next.)

4. Bruce Springsteen, "Further On (Up the Road)"
Gotta have the Boss! A non-single from his excellent The Rising album; it's kind of a creepy and menacing tune. I love it.

5. Marvin Gaye, "Let's Get It On"
Get what on, Marvin? Not a personal invitation to any of the recipients, by the way. I just dig the groove.

6. Lit, "Miserable"
Not much to say here, other than these guys can really put together a good, catchy, rockin' tune.

7. Ben Folds Five, "The Battle of Who Could Care Less"
So can Ben Folds. I could've used about five different songs from this album, but I liked the anti-slacker, anti-mopey tone of this one. "I know it's not your thing to care, I know it's cool to be so bored."

8. Green Day, "Uptight"
One of my favorite songs from one of my favorite bands. 'Nuff said.

9. Harry Nilsson, "Coconut"
This was on a CD given out as a souvenir at my best friend's wedding, at which I was the best man (ain't I always?). That was a good day. I guess you'd call this a "novelty" song. At least I only used one.

10. Gary Numan, "Cars"
Hey, do you remember the '80s?

11. Joe Jackson, "I'm the Man"
I've always liked Jackson's "punk with a piano" style. (Even though there's no piano on this song, I don't think.) A nice observation on the marketing of fads. "And you think you're immune, but I can sell you anything."

12. Dean Martin, "That's Amore"
Gotta have the Rat Pack represented! I would've gone a little more obscure than, you know, one of Dino's biggest hits ever, but this is the only song of his I have anymore. Frowny face!

13. The Refreshments, "Heaven or the Highway Out of Town"
Finally we get to something slightly less mainstream. This is my favorite band that nobody's ever heard of (although everybody's heard them -- they do the opening theme for King of the Hill). Southwest rock with clever lyrics.

14. Kim Wilde, "Kids in America"
I love the line, "New York to East California, there's a new wave coming I warn ya." East California? Yeah, because nothing's happening on the West Coast. Forget L.A., San Diego, San Francisco. The youth movement's all about Barstow! (Or maybe Needles.)

15. AC/DC, "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock & Roll)"
Bagpipe solo, bitch!

16. The Lemonheads, "Style"
Remember when everyone knew who Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield were? For, like, a minute? That was a weird time. This song is great. "Wanna knock things down/I'm not gonna knock things down/But I don't wanna not get stoned/So I'm not gonna not knock things down."

17. Therapy?, "Screamager"
Another group on the less well known side of things. Ass-kickers from Belfast. "With a face like this I won't break any hearts/And thinking like that I won't make any friends."

18. Dropkick Murphys, "The Legend of Finn MacCumhail"
I would've said these guys were the absolutely most obscure band on this disc, but I already got Larry Young's CD, and it had a track from the very same album. At least it wasn't the same song! (Larry also sent everyone a copy of Couscous Express, for which his CD serves as a soundtrack. Very nice! Thanks, Larry! I will be posting a review soon. And no thanks to my lousy mailman, who rolled up the package and crammed it into my mailslot, damaging the hell out of the book -- but not the CD, fortunately. Stupid fuckhead.) That name is pronounced "MacCool," by the way.

19. The Who, "Who Are You"
One of the three best songs from the greatest rock band of all time ("Behind Blue Eyes" and "Won't Get Fooled Again" being the other two). And it's the alternate verse version, even! See if you can decipher what the hell it says. Apparently, nobody can quite figure it out.

20. Patsy Cline, "Crazy"
I finally got an album by Patsy. 'Bout time. God, she's awesome. But this song sounded the fuzziest of them all when I played this disc. Dang it.

21. Barenaked Ladies, "Shoe Box"
One of my all-time favorite bands. I've seen 'em in concert four times, which is the most I've ever seen anyone in concert (I've also seen Neil Young four times). I actually bought the Friends soundtrack because this song was on it, and it was released months before the BNL album containing this song was. Yikes.

22. Tori Amos, "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
Great cover, totally altering the mood of the song. I always wished Tori would do a cover of "Cop Killer."

23. Foo Fighters, "Times Like These"
From a Nirvana cover to a Nirvana spin-off. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I like the Foo Fighters better than I ever liked Nirvana. Blasphemy!!

24. The Beatles, "Her Majesty"
A perfect little ditty for when you've got just a little bit of space left to fill.

And there you have it! Thank you, Chris, for organizing this crazy thing. I hope it becomes an annual (or more frequent, even) tradition!

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*Might've been a Wednesday.