#0088 – All Over the Place

My mix, based on what iTunes thinks I like with the random selection of Nick Lowe…

Many moons ago, Kristen (who is among my oldest friends) made the suggestion that I put my iTunes on random and just make a mix of the first load of songs that come up.  For reasons unclear (mostly laziness I suspect), I never got around to it until last week, where I specifically just threw the iPhone into a frenzy as I scrolled through my 32GB library and decided to hit shuffle, which resulted in the wonderful “Cruel to be Kind” by Nick Lowe.  I then pressed Genius to see what it’d recommend and the result was…. well, it was all over the place, but it actually sounded pretty good.  I didn’t change the order or anything.

So here you go.  My mix, based on what iTunes thinks I like with the random selection of Nick Lowe…

  • Nick Lowe – Cruel to be Kind
  • John Hiatt – Ethylene
  • William Shatner – Ideal Woman
  • Aimee Mann – Put Me On Top
  • Hall & Oates – Did It In A Minute
  • Sleep Out –  Three Towns
  • Electronic – Getting Away With It
  • The Dead Weather – Treat Me Like Your Mother
  • Mexican Institute of Sound – Sinfonía Agridulce
  • Prince – She’s Always In My Hair
  • Saul Williams – The Ritual
  • Jellyfish – The Glutton of Sympathy
  • Santigold – Say Aha
  • The Go! Team – Get It Together
  • Prodigy – Memphis Bells
  • Street Sweeper Social Club – Fight! Smash! Win!
  • The Roots – No Great Pretender
  • Squirrel Nut Zippers – It Ain’t You
  • Astrud Gilberto – Light My Fire
  • Tom Jones – Green, Green Grass of Home

Please… also let me know how my voice sounds.  I was so pissed off with my last show that I plunked down for a Blue Snowball and I think it’s a marked improvement.  You tell me…

#0071 – UnEighties

80s

Jim recently mocked me (he’ll tell you it was just an “observation”) that I’m stuck in the 80s.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I’m a child of the 80s and no doubt influenced by the cheesy pop-rock that dominated Casey Kasum’s American Top Forty.  Starting in college, and most notably attending the ZooTV tour for U2, I was exposed to Public Enemy and Big Audio Dynamite II and that pushed me down the Indie/Alternative path that would weave through the fabric of growing up 90s.

This led to a fervent and strong love of hip hop, beyond LL Cool J, Run DMC or even Digital Underground.

This mix is a heavy blend of progressive hip hop and electronica and some trip-hop.  There’s no other theme here other than to serve notice that I’m not stuck in some scene in a John Hughes film.

That said, there are often moments I hear Wang Chung’s “Fire in the Twilight” — pretty much everyday.

Play
  1. Thievery Corporation – Sound the Alarm
  2. DJ Danger Mouse – Encore
  3. Ladytron – Tomorrow
  4. Q-Tip – Work It Out
  5. Moby – I Love to Move In Here
  6. Santogold – I’m a Lady
  7. The Foreign Exchnage – Let’s Move
  8. Blackalicious – Make You Feel That Way
  9. The Roots – Guns Are Drawn
  10. Method Man – Release Yo’Delf (Prodigy Mix)
  11. Common – Universal Mind Control (UMC)
  12. Portishead – Machine Gun
  13. Massive Attack & Mos Def – I Against I
  14. Propellerheads – On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
  15. The Streets – Turn the Page
  16. Talib Kweli & Mos Def – Joy

#0045 – File under: remash

Play

UPDATE: I neglected to give you a bunch of links where you can download the mashups here and others I found. Those links are now included so you can give the artists, DJs and the geeks who support them some love.

This is an hour-long mashup of mashups. What is a mashup? Direct from Wikipedia…

is a song or composition created from the combination of the music from one song with the a cappella from another (also mash up and mash-up). These songs may be considered part of the bastard pop musical genre. “A mash-up is a song created out of pieces of two or more songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the music track of another…Mash-ups are incredible fun and a fascinating way to reexperience some of your favorite tunes.” [2]

In full swing at the start of the 21st century, mash ups have been described positively are “ultimate post-modern pop song[s]” or “‘culture jamming in its purest form'”[3] and “display an analytical impulse…we actually hear how these songs resonate with one another, comment upon and affect one another…in a way, the music speaks for itself” [4]. They have also been described negatively as “the logical extension of the sampling fever of the ’80s taken to its dumbest extreme”. Due to the questionable legal status of mash ups and little chance of profits “there’s a real punk rock attitude attached to the movement” [3].

So there you have it 🙂

  1. Battle Funktastic – Hotei vs. Rip Slyme (you’ll have to search for it, because it took me forever to find it after hearing it in 2006 when I was in Tokyo, which is the only place I’ve ever heard it other than my iPod)
  2. Funky Kommissar
  3. In Da Black (AC/DC vs. 50 Cent vs. Scissor Sisters)
  4. Thunder Busters (AC/DC vs. Ray Parker Jr.)
  5. Say No Go – De La Soul (using a sample off of “I Can’t Go For That” by Hall & Oates)
  6. Missin Kittin (Rolling Stones vs. Miss Kittin)
  7. The Way It Is – Prodigy (using the riff from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”)
  8. Britney – Dead or Alive? (Britney Spears vs. Dead or Alive vs. Daft Punk)
  9. Every Car You Chase (The Snow Police (The Police vs. Snow Patrol)
  10. The Way to Dirty Fame (David Bowie vs. Queen vs. Don Henley vs. Sly Fox)
  11. Warning, Rush Where It’s At (Big Audio Dynamite II vs. Beck vs. Green Day)
  12. Break Through Love (The Doors vs. Led Zeppelin)
  13. Cry Little Sister (I Need You Now) – The Lost Brothers
  14. Daft Prayer (Bon Jovi vs. Daft Punk)