Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Heart it Races in Love

Here it is, only two months late, my long-awaited "happy/love mix." This playlist draws much of its inspiration from my long, illustrious, seven-year career of making mixes for crushes/smooshes/lovers/guys who barely knew I existed,  but I also must give a shout out to my friend Rachel's own love song compilation. Yes, its inevitable that these songs get recycled over the years, but I think I've finally whittled it down to my favs, and I don't believe I've included any of tracks that were featured on the three-disk clusterfuck that launched my mix career back in the day (I feel like that one was heavy on the Dashboard Confessional). Anyway, here go!

Standard 8track disclaimer: Due to weird copyrighty things, you can only listen to the mix in its intended order once. So basically, if you're going to listen to it, you better sit down and listen to it all the way through or you won't get the full experience (I did work somewhat diligently on the order for this one, so please give it a shot!).

Running Time: Aprox. 1 hour, 14 minutes
Track List:

01. Adam Fitz - Fool Says [M. Ward]
02. Born Ruffians - Little Garcon
03. The Blow - Parentheses
04. Josh Ritter - Come & Find Me (AM/FM Mix)
05. Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew - F--Ked UpKid
06. The Rural Alberta Advantage - Barnes Yard
07. Dr. Dog - Heart it Races [Architecture in Helsinki]
08. Ani Difranco - Bliss Like This
09. Wisdom Tooth - Faith
10. Rogue Wave - You Read My Mind (demo)
11. Dean & Britta - Friday I'm in Love [The Cure]
12. Pomplamoose - Don't Want to Miss a Thing [Aerosmith]
13. Taj Mahal - Queen Bee (Live)
14. The Beatles - In My Life
15. Jeff Tweedy - I Got You (Live)
16. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Hysteric (acoustic)
17. Iron & Wine - Judgement
18. Paleo - December 7th, 2006 ("Ash in My Eyes")
19. The Free Design - I Found Love (Styrofoam & Sarah Shannon Mix)
20. Bloc Party - Tulips (Remix)


Again, I find it hard to pick a favorite track (these are all pretty much my favorites), but I'd like to share my random thoughts on some/most of these love-struck tunes.

There are some definite cases of "the cover is better than the original" syndrome on this mix, specifically with the adorable Aerosmith cover and to a lesser degree with Adam Fitz covering M. Ward (the original is good, this one is just 75% funkier).

We also have a few cases of "the remix kicks ass on the original"disease running through here. The Josh Ritter remix adds a subtle yet all-important beat throughout the song (more dramatically seen in "Tulips"), while The Free Design track (better known as the band who recorded "Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?" in 1971)--which got an indie makeover in 2005--rises about 10,000 miles above the cheesy 70's pop version.

I'd be a horrible creeper/fan if I forgot to note the salty-sweet lyrics of Ani's "Bliss Like This" as well as the sweet-sweet croonings of Meagan Day as Wisdom Tooth (whose links seemed to have disappeared from the internets, sadly).

If you ever get the chance to see Taj Mahal live, please do it. He was 66-ish when I saw him at Oberlin, and still rockin' like nobody's business. I still have yet to see a full live set of Jeff Tweedy and/or Wilco, much to my eternal shame. :-(

I'm still diligently working my way through Paleo's 2006-2007 Song Diary project, though I have fallen a bit behind at times. While most of it is, well, pretty meh, there are still plenty of stand-out tracks. Definitely stay tuned for more on this character.

I'd like to offer my most humble apologies, as the Born Ruffians' "Little Garcon" should definitely have gone on my Stomp/Clap mix. Some nice stompy, clappy moments at the end there.

Ain't love grand?

I only used 8track so I could include The Beatles.
(Picture via random tumblr).

1 comment:

  1. I was so happy to wake up early and have 2 hours before class to listen to your mix!!! It was very enjoyable. I'd never listened to Taj Mahal before but that song Queen Bee is fantastic, I downloaded it right away on grooveshark to listen to on repeat for while lol thanks for sharing again <3<3

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