Hey Friends! It seems that I have gone from being one of the most prolific bloggers to one of the least prolific in record time. I am still more or less trudging through hell on the work front, and as a result it has sapped any energy that I once had for creative endeavors. I miss you all greatly and this time I carved out of my life to talk to you. I need to figure out a way to return to some semblance of normality and maybe attempting to blog again is a good method to get there. The prolific era of this blog was actually spawned as a counter reaction to one of the worst periods of my life up to that point. Part of me is hoping that after I get on the far side of this current phase… I will have a similar upwelling of creative desires.
For those who are not used to this construct, the idea is simple. I create a mixtape and share it with you. For me however the act of creating a mixtape is way more than just throwing a bunch of songs together. I am old school in that nature in that I am trying to build an experience that is enjoyable to listen to in its whole. Back in the day I used to refer to albums that were built in this manner as “listen throughs” which I admit isn’t terribly creative, but they were albums I could just throw on and let play without feeling the desire to skip tracks. My goal with this project is to share with you tiny bits of myself in musical form. I was a creator of mixtapes then and I find the process more or less translates smoothly to an online playlist.
Thinly Veiled Crisis
A lot of the tracks that I have been sharing with you are fairly old at this point dating from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. With Thinly Veiled Crisis I am cherry picking from some of my favorites in modern rotation but even then there is a bit of a theme. A lot of these tracks remind me of an earlier era, namely in many cases they have this throwback flair to the “New Wave” era of the 80s. Others just sorta felt like they fit into missing pieces. I have been working on this list for a month, adding and removing songs here and there until it reached a point where I thought it was ready for listening.
- Hard Times – Paramore
- Once in a Lifetime – All Time Low
- Blinding Lights – The Weeknd
- Such Great Heights – The Postal Service
- Oh My My – Blue October
- Comeback Kid – Sleigh Bells
- Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked – Cage the Elephant
- Kiss This – The Struts
- Deadline – Grouplove
- Level of Concern – Twenty One Pilots
- Serotonin – Girl in Red
- Soul Meets Body – Death Cab for Cutie
- Are You Bored Yet? – Wallows feat. Clairo
Listen on Spotify
Listen On YouTube
Listen On Tidal
This one is a bit different than most of what I have been sharing, but still very much represents a slice of my musical tastes. I have to admit one of my favorite parts of this experiment has been the comments I have received. Even if I can’t do other posts right now, I am hoping to keep this going because I enjoy the process greatly.
I just watched the whole thing on YouTube (well, minus Cage The Elephant, who I cannot stand). It felt bizarrely like listening to daytime radio in the mid-eighties. I thought guitar music was supposed to have died about three or four times now. Obviously not. (You missed Death Cab for Cutie off the YT playlist, by the way.)
The only song I knew was the Grouplove. It was also the one I liked most. They’re really good. Second favorite was pobably either girl in red, although it’s by no means my favorite of hers, or Death Cab for Cutie. I liked the Struts, who I’ve never even heard of before, but they seemed to have swaggered in through some rift in the temporal fabric. I couldn’t tell if they were serious or not. I didn’t take to the Wallows but the bit where Clairo sings is worth the wait. As far as the videos (as opposed to the music) went, the best part was when girl in red bounced herself off the trampoline. I hope she didn’t hurt herself.
A few of the tracks did have something that wouldn’t have happened in an eighties song, like that bit in the Weeknd where that bit where it goes all weird about haf way through. Contrast that with the bit in Grouplove that goes all weird and actually that would sound fine in the eighties because it sounds almost exactly like “Hey, Mickey!” by Toni Basil. As a whole, though, this mix is so eighties it’s ridiculous. And a lot of those songs are only a year or two old. Will we never be free of the past? (No, we won’t.)