Good Morning Friends! I hope you are all having an excellent Monday out there in internetland. For those of you who might be stumbling onto this as your first visit, I do this thing every Monday where I post a new MixTape pulled from some of my musical tastes. I was one of those kids that made MixTapes for my friends or as a poor substitute for flirtation. There is a certain artform to placing songs in a very specific sequence in order to create a whole that is greater than any of its parts. I’ve missed this process and decided to revitalize it for you my readers. Again like my blog posts in general, I am sorta sending this out into the void and hoping that someone out there might get some enjoyment from this particular brand of nonsense.
Semi-Charmed Panic Attack
There is this particular moment in music that feels like it gets overlooked. Between Grunge and the more punk inspired stylings of Blink-182 there was this music scene that I find it hard to really define. It makes me think of college and the early days of trying to figure out how to be something resembling an adult. I attempted to reach back into that era and pull out a cohesive soundtrack to represent it. There was this weird thing going on where the songs were still peppy sounding, but the lyrical journey that was happening behind them was pretty damned depressing. I’m also abusing my powers to expose you to two excellent Tulsa area bands: Caroline’s Spine and Mollys Yes.
- The Way – Fastball
- Everything You Want – Vertical Horizon
- Attention Please – Caroline’s Spine
- Promise – Eve 6
- Sugar – Mollys Yes
- Load Me Up – Matthew Good Band
- Father of Mine – Everclear
- Semi-Charmed Life – Third Eye Blind
- One Man Army – Our Lady Peace
- Rain King – Counting Crows
- Good Intentions – Toad The Wet Sprocket
- Til I Hear It From You – Gin Blossoms
- Get Off This – Cracker
- Closing Time – Semisonic
Listen On Spotify
Listen On YouTube
Listen On Tidal
And there we have it friends, another MixTape Monday in the bag. I had honestly been a bit concerned that I might be out of inspiration given that I had burned through all of my pre-made MixTapes last week. Then this weekend happened and I crafted no less than five brand new ones for the coming weeks as well as a handful of idea fragments kicking around in my head. Also of note if you are tuning in late you can view the entire archive of the past nine weeks at:
These virtual mixtapes are doing a fine job of replicating the physical tapes that droped through my letterbox in the mid-80s and early ’90s. It’s a great way to find yourself listening to things you’d never have heard otherwise and discovering what you’ve missed by staying in your own musical silos.
I know exactly what you mean by “this particular moment in music”. It’s an instantly recognizeable sound, entirely American, locked into a tight corridor between maybe 1992-1994. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have a name and I don’t believe it was any kind of recognized musical movement but I know it instantly when I hear it. About the closest named style I can associate with it would probably the Paisley Underground. You can hear traces of Paisley in several of these tracks, but it’s not really more than an echo.
What I do find interesting is how very similar most of the singers sound. There’s a particular tonality and an intonation, kind of a fuzziness around the edges. I associate it with two of my favorites from the period, Grant Lee Buffalo and Matthew Sweet, but there’s some of it in nearly all these vocals. Also, it’s hard not to notice how nearly all the videos follow the same pattern, which is basically quasi-live performance with a bit of framing to keep it from being absolutely dull. The Cracker video stands out for not doing exactly that but then Cracker stand out in this mix for being different altogether, I think.
A couple of the videos were blocked here, Vertical Horizon and the Matthew Good Band so i can’t comment on those. Everything else I kind of liked except for Third Eye Blind and Our Lady Peace, but I already knew I didn’t like TEB. Then again, I thought I knew I didn’t like Everclear or the Gin Blossoms but on this evidence i was wrong. The Everclear track is very strong. As for the two Tulsa bands, I liked both of those tracks, especially Mollys Yes, a name that probably didn’t have the connotations then it does now!