Hey Friends! It is once again time for a Mixtape Monday where I dive into some of my favorite songs and blend them together into a custom made mix just for you my friends. As a quintessential GenXer I was a producer and consumer of the artform known as the Mixtape. It was so much more than just putting a number of your favorite songs on a single tape for convenience. I dug more into the flow of a mix and how the songs blended together to produce something greater than any of the parts.
Now I am doing this same process but instead presenting it in Spotify and YouTube Playlist forms for your pleasure. I am also creating custom album art for each mixtape, which is super pretentious and nonsensical but would you expect anything else? This is the second edition of this feature so here is hoping I don’t get distracted and can keep this up!
Mellowcore Cantriping
I have to be honest, I am not entirely certain I would explain the inspiration here. Effectively I built this entire mix for the sole purpose of building up to the last song. Everything leading up to that is just there more or less to prime the pump for the optimal delivery of what is bittersweet musical perfection. There will always be mystery shrouding the death of Jeff Buckley, but Grace the album released shortly before his death is sublime and I wish we would have had enough time to get more from him. The problem is that Last Goodbye is a weird genre bending song that took a very special mix tape to do it justice. I hope that I did at that.
- What’s Up? – 4 Non Blondes
- You Wouldn’t Like Me – Tegan and Sara
- Black Gold – Soul Asylum
- The Girl Underground – Cloud Cult
- All I Want – Toad the Wet Sprocket
- First of the Gang to Die – Morrissey
- The Old Apartment – Barenaked Ladies
- It’s A Shame About Ray – The Lemonheads
- Breaking the Girl – Red Hot Chili Peppers
- High and Dry – Radiohead
- Milk – Garbage
- Possession – Sarah McLachlan
- Last Goodbye – Jeff Buckley
Spotify
Youtube Playlist
Tidal
I hope you enjoy it and drop me a line below if you did.
This is such a great idea. I hope it catches on with other bloggers and we get to hear (and watch – I have the YouTube playlist running as I type) lots of people’s mixes.
It’s also a really good evocation of what mixtapes were like back when they came on cassette. There’d be a few songs you already knew really well and liked a lot (First of the Gang to Die, Shame About Ray, Milk), some you’d forgotten but that instantly came back to you when you heard them (Frente’s cover), one or two you didn’t know you knew because although you’d heard them many times you hadn’t ever noticed who they were by (What’s Up) and some that were completely new that you were really happy to discover (The Girl Underground, Lemon Eyes). I love the custom art, too. That’s absolutely essential! Don’t apologize for it.
Of course, there were always one or two you had to fast-forward through. I never could stand the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Ironically, given your motivation and intent in making the mix, I never really got Jeff Buckley either and this hasn’t changed anything. Sorry about that 🙂
Thanks for putting it all together.
I am going to warn you… RHCP played a very big role in my musical history heh. There are many ways you can show who you are to other people, and I think a mixtape is in many ways to bare a piece of your soul. These say as much about me as a person as anything I could write. I appreciate that you are enjoying this process.