Blog Features

MixTape Mondays: Tapedeck Held Aloft

by

Good Morning Friends! Today would normally be considered “holiday mode” given that in the United States many of us are off today in celebration of the Independence Day weekend. However given that I do a thing on Mondays and only on Mondays… and have a nice backlog of mixtapes to go through I thought I would put forth the effort to keep things rolling. For those who might be new to this blog, each Monday I post a new custom curated mixtape of music, often times with a theme of some sort. As a kid I was a mixtape creator and crafted them for friends and recently I have fallen back into that tradition utilizing things like Spotify and YouTube to craft as close as you can get to the feeling of a digital mixtape.

Tapedeck Held Aloft

Being born in 1976, my “childhood” pretty neatly straddled the line between the 80s and the 90s and as such I largely consider myself a child of both decades. I am a sucker for a good John Hughes film and spent more than more than my share of time watching romcoms and teen movies from that era. This MixTape today is essentially my love letter to the soundtracks of those movies. If you are of a certain age, you can close your eyes and imagine the movies that went along with these songs or instead let it all sort of blend together into one sappy slurry.

  • Hungry Like the Wolf – Duran Duran
  • Take on Me – A-Ha
  • The Promise – When in Rome
  • Doctor! Doctor! – Thompson Twins
  • Things Can Only Get Better – Howard Jones
  • If You Leave – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
  • I Melt with You – Modern English
  • Head Over Heels – Tears for Fears
  • It’s My Life – Talk Talk
  • The Goonies R’ Good Enough – Cyndi Lauper
  • The Ghost in You – The Psychedelic Furs
  • Voices Carry – Til Tuesday
  • In Your Eyes – Peter Gabriel
  • Don’t You Forget About Me – Simple Minds

Listen On Spotify

Listen On YouTube

Listen On Tidal

There you have it, my tenth MixTape served on a Monday for you all to enjoy. I hope folks are partaking of this nonsense, but even if they are not it is at the very least causing me to listen to a lot more music which is increasing my overall joy in the world. If you are tuning in late to this series you can check out the entire archive of past weeks collected in a single page:

MixTape Mondays: Semi-Charmed Panic Attack

by

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:

MixTape Mondays: Big Hair Tight Pants

by

Good Morning Friends! It is that time again, time for another MixTape. For those who don’t know what is going on here, every Monday I release a new MixTape as I share some of my musical tastes with you my readers. I was one of those kids who made MixTapes for my friends and as a completely failed attempt at flirting. There is a certain artform to a good album and this is my attempt to revitalize that whole experience that I have found I deeply missed. An old friend of mine told me over the weekend, that it seemed like I was missing creativity and creative outlets… and I guess this is one way of flexing those muscles. I do enjoy creating my nonsense album art for each release. However lets get on into the music.

Big Hair Tight Pants

This time we are diving back into the era kept alive by mascara, tight pants and copious amounts of extra hold hairspray. That’s right I am talking about the era of Hair Metal and Glam Rock. I am of a specific age that has allowed me to weather many trends, not the least of which is when the baddest dudes on the planet wore women’s cut tops and spandex pants. I have a deep nostalgia for this era of rock and once again I attempted to pull together some very well worn staples and a few deep cuts as we go. Honestly once again this is a bit of a build around… Hysteria by Def Leppard is probably my single favorite track from that era so of course I had to feature it.

  • Panama – Van Halen
  • Hysteria – Def Leppard
  • Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Warrant
  • 18 and Life – Skid Row
  • Sweet Child O’ Mine – Gun N’ Roses
  • Livin’ On a Prayer – Bon Jovi
  • Poison – Alice Cooper
  • Dr. Feelgood – Motley Crue
  • Nothin’ But a Good Time – Poison
  • Thunderstruck – AC/DC
  • Cum on Feel the Noize – Quiet Riot
  • The Final Countdown – Europe
  • No More Tears – Ozzy Osbourne

Listen On Spotify

Listen On YouTube

Listen On Tidal

An there we go, another Monday and Mix down. This one is probably going to be fairly polarizing since the hair metal era is not exactly loved by everyone. The older I get the more nostalgic about it I am. For some reason this era always reminds me of State Fair concerts and the little “coke” mirrors that you used to be able to win on the midway with album art for all of these bands. If you are tuning in late to this project and want to catch up you can do so through my archive linked below.

MixTape Mondays: Waiting For Now

by

Hey Friends! I was torn this morning as to whether or not to keep up with MixTape Mondays or to create a more topical post returning E3 shows today. I opted to keep the series rolling forward and I guess tomorrow I will return to my crappy coverage of E3 events. For those unaware MixTape Mondays is my series where I share a playlist aka the closest thing we have to a real MixTape these days. I was one of those kids who used to create them a lot given I had the magical dual tape cassette deck stereo allowing me to record all the things. Instead of sharing them on a one by one basis, I am sharing them with all of you my readers and internet friends.

Waiting for Now

Sometimes all it really takes is a single song to send the brain off in a specific direction. I love How Soon is Now by the Smiths. There is something so iconic about the guitar vibrato and big train horn chords that I legitimately never get tired of hearing it. Because of this fact I had no clue that the song was actually over six minutes long. What ended up happening as a result was me trying to match the feel of this song occasionally skimming the top of new wave or diving down into goth classics. The end result I think “works” for reason I can’t really fully explain. This has been in my listening rotation an awful lot lately and I have technically had this one finished for almost a month before unleashing it upon the world.

  • How Soon is Now? – The Smiths
  • Whisper to a Scream – The Icicle Works
  • True Faith – New Order
  • For Her Light – Fields of Nephilim
  • Fascination Street – The Cure
  • Under the Milky Way – The Church
  • Wasteland – The Mission
  • Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division
  • Under the God – Tin Machine
  • She Sells Sanctuary – The Cult
  • Never Let Me Down Again – Depeche Mode
  • How Not To Drown – Chvrches feat. Robert Smith

Listen On Spotify

Listen On YouTube

Listen On Tidal

There you have it folks, my attempt at doing “How Soon Is Now?” some justice in MixTape form. Tomorrow I fully expect to return with a post about the Microsoft and Bethesda E3 show, but for now I wanted to keep the pattern of Monday MixTape releases. I managed to make a post every single day last week and even over the weekend so I am hoping that I have finally reached a place of equilibrium with my life in spite of still going through work hell. For those new to the series there is of course always the archive allowing you to catch up on the series.