Mixtape Mondays Archive

Hey friends! If you have been reading this blog lately you will know that I am doing a thing called Mixtape Mondays. After having done a number of these I decided that I really needed to come up with a static archive page where I bring all of them together in one place. The idea behind this project is pretty simple. I was one of those kids that made mixtapes, and there was a lot of thought that went into the specific placement of songs. I missed doing this and since the mixtape itself doesn’t really translate to an internet audience… I am sharing Mixtapes with you via both Spotify and YouTube. This page will collect them all in chronological order for folks who weren’t around or weren’t paying attention when I started this nonsense.

1 – Contours of Indecision – April 19th, 2021

This is the mixtape that started the process. It has less of a specific theme that some of the later mixtapes but in general has a “Industrial” feel to it blending a number of tracks that are extremely well known, and some that are considerably less well known. The goal is to bring you on a musical journey with a beginning, middle and end.

2 – Mellowcore Cantriping – April 26th, 2021

This Mixtape is more created as a reaction to some of the comments I got about the first one being “a little too hard” for some tastes. This one is designed to be pretty mellow and more or less a delivery vehicle for Last Goodbye by Jeff Buckley. Again trying to go for a mix of very well known songs and lesser known gems.

3 – Push Me Punch You – May 3rd, 2021

This is technically the second Mixtape that I created in the series, but given that it was a little more punk influenced I spaced it out a bit to try and break things up. Of all of the tapes so far this is the one that is closest to a daily driver for me. A lot of songs are favorites and some of them are not very well known.

4 – Flannel and Chain Wallet – May 17th, 2021

I grew up at exactly the right time to be a flannel wearing grunge kid as that music essentially formed my High School years. You could create a very predictable list of the greatest hits, but I instead wanted to go with something slightly different to represent the grunge music that I remember or music that makes me think of that era.

5 – Thinly Veiled Crisis – May 31st, 2021

I have the eighties in my blood given that I started listening to mixtapes provided to me at a very young age. Recently I have noticed there is an awful lot of music that is fairly modern, that reminds me of those eighties aesthetics. This mix goes deep into that “saudade” feeling.

6 – Hack The Gibson – June 7th, 2021

This MixTape is my attempt of creating a love song to the campy movie Hackers without just straight up stealing its soundtrack. As I went the MixTape sorta developed a life of its own, but I still am pretty proud of the feeling of it. There will be some odd choices but I think it works as intended.

7 – Waiting For Now – June 14th, 2021

This is another case of me setting out to build a playlist around a specific song, this time How Soon Is Now? by the Smiths. This leads me to skim the surface of New Wave and dive into Goth standards a bit, all while trying to create a list that feels like the song feels.

8 – Big Hair Tight Pants – June 21st, 2021

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.

9 – Semi-Charmed Panic Attack – June 28th, 2021

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 is filled with peppy songs with depressing themes, and I love it.

10 – Tapedeck Held Alot – July 5th, 2021

Given that I was born in 1976, I consider myself equal parts a child of the 80s and a child of the 90s. I have a deep nostalgia for the movies of that era and the soundtracks associated with them. This MixTape is a love letter to the soundtracks of the John Hughes era of Teen romantic comedies.

11 – Hot Chicken Cold Stares – July 12th, 2021

There is a very specific sound that I associate with bands like the White Stripes and Kings of Leon. Both record out of studios in Nashville, and as a result I named this album after another Nashville favorite… Hot Chicken. Much like Hot Chicken, this blend is spicy as hell and also a bit of an acquired taste. However it also is among my favorite released so far.

12 – Explorations in Syncopation – July 19th, 2021

With this one, I am uncertain if I landed on a proper theme or just came up with an excuse to put Information Society, The Shamen, and Jesus Jones in the same playlist. The concept is a dive into songs that focus on heavy syncopation, but what seemed to happen in practice is I just made a list with a lot of songs I enjoy.

13 – Tides of War – July 26th, 2021

Every generation has a period where they delve the music from the generation before them. For me it was exploring the music I associate with Vietnam/Post-Vietnam “Classic Rock” and it represents a good chunk of my late middle school and early high school listening. This morning I share with you some of my favorite tracks.

14 – Aether Consumed Prayers Answered – August 2nd, 2021

This is my fourteenth mix and it is entirely unintentionally aligned that it is made up of entirely music from Final Fantasy XIV. If you are not listening to the music in the game you are missing a large part of the experience. This mixtape is largely made up of the music that plays in the background of big fights. Word of warning however on the YouTube version, that playlist includes full fight spoilers given that it was impossible to find the audio that did not show the fight itself.

15 – Major Party Foul Dude – August 9th, 2021

This morning we have a mix that is dedicated to a certain party vibe from the late 90s and early 2000s fueled by a sea of red solo cups and a steady diet of pop-punk. While I set the stage for a very specific time, I feel like the sound itself is very timeless. Hopefully you will feel the same listening to it.

16 – Remember the Eclipse – August 16th, 2021

This mix began with “An Honest Mistake” and ended with me creating my own in this blend of songs that made me remember a coffee house. Ultimately this breaks my rule of not repeating a single artist, but I never could get the flow right without the songs in question so I am releasing it to you in its imperfect state hoping you will love it all the same.

17 – Now That’s Nonsense – August 23rd, 2021

This morning I share with you a blend of top 40 guilty pleasure tracks that I have blended together in the style of an early 2000’s “Now! That’s Music” style album. In truth, I just wanted to put Radioactive, Sail, and Chandelier on the same Mixtape. I hope you enjoy it!

18 – Faith Funk Fish – August 30th, 2021

This Mixtape exists as an experiment in trying to blend Faith No More, Living Colour, Fishbone, and Bad Brains into the same blend of songs. I think it personally works pretty well and if you are interested in rock with a heavy bassline then I suggest you check it out.

19 – Mason and Librarian – September 13th, 2021

This Mixtape was created while thinking about two wildly different friends from my high school years. One followed in his father’s footsteps and became a Stone Mason, and the other followed their childhood passions and became a Librarian. The songs remind me of them, although indirectly.

20 – Melancholeidoscope – September 20th, 2021

Sometimes you listen to down songs because you are down… but also you are not looking to be cheered up and are fine with staying down. This journey all started when I heard something on the radio that I had not heard in years… and started to piece together an album around that song… and then proceeded to edit it out of the mix in the first place.

21 – Zombie Sexfiend – April 25th, 2022

Sometimes a mix begins with a single song, and for this more specifically it was Chemicals Between us… which made me think of the connection between that and Rob Zombie and then we were off to the races. This is a mix of songs that all fit within that ambiguous genre of “Rob Zombie” like. A little on the heavy side so might not be everyone’s jam.

22 – Immaculately Overwhelmed – May 2nd, 2022

One of the things that I realized in the in-between since the last run of MixTape Mondays is that I never really plumbed the depths of Emo Music. While I was too young to be a “Scene Kid” I absolutely feel a connection to my “Skater Punk” phase. The music that we got as the frat boy rock era faded was phenomenal.

23 – Contextual Rickroll – May 9th, 2022

I had the idea for this morning’s mixtape for a while, but Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley has become this pinnacle of cringe through the memory of the internet. The song is very much an artifact of its time, and this playlist is a musical tapestry that restores that context.