You don't have to be Lil Wayne or a 1990s teenager to make a mixtape. It doesn't even have to be a tape and your recipient need not be a potential love interest. Just don't dump a bunch of MP3s on someone, you've gotta make something tangible and you owe it to the other person to put some effort into it.
For example, I'm a hardened music snob and I hold the current aesthetic in contempt, but once and a while I'll find an artist that I like. It usually means putting my prejudices aside, sometimes in a big way. I generally don't like "indy" rock and the smug-ness that pollutes the scene, so when considering a rock band, their lack of indy cred holds little to no sway with me. My old friend and longtime blog reader, Mike Brown and I have embarked on a monthly mixtape exchange program wherein we send each other a CD of artists we haven't heard of or haven't embraced. I recently sent him a mixtape of 21 songs, all of them good and I'm eagerly awaiting his impressions. Last week I got his opening salvo, full of stuff I never expected to dig with only a couple of things squarely in my comfort zone. I only owned one of the 18 tracks. I've gone through this CD about a half dozen times, and here's what has stood out (I'll add song titles later):
Anberlin - Initially I hated this selection, but it has really grown on me.
Ben Folds - Two Ben Folds songs, both of them really clever
K-OS - How have I managed to sleep on K-OS? I don't know
Pigeon John - How have I managed to sleep on Pigeon John? I don't know. True-school west coast hip-hop my kids can listen to.
Junior Senior - I don't believe in guilty pleasures. If it's good, don't be guilty. If you're guilty, don't do it. I'm unashamed to say I dig this.
Modest Mouse - I totally look foward to digging through their albums, I love this sound.
El Michel's Affair - Funny thing is, I tipped Mike off to these guys, a neo-funk outfit, after hearing Oliver Wang sing their praises on The Sound of Young America. He went ahead and got the album, while I had to get a late pass.
A few others I'm liking, and a few more have me undecided. If anyone wants to get in on this, let me know. I'll audit your playlist and fill out the right prescription.
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4 comments:
Man, I'd totally love to do this.
It's Aaron from the TSOYA boards, I just clicked on the link to your blog.
Let me know.
Aaron,
I'm honored, though I'm afraid I'm seriously outclassed by your breadth. It's like your tastes mirror mine, plus a hundred other things, but we'll see. Do you have last.fm? I'll see where I can fill in the gaps. I'm sure you could make a killer mix for me and stuff I've never heard and only use Canadian artists!
This really is a lot of fun- in one fell swoop I turned my friend Mike on to The Roots (he checked out of hip-hop in 95, just as they came on the scene), MFDoom (he was a HUGE KMD fan back in the day), Nina Simone, J Dilla, Jason Moran and John Legend.
Damn, that's how I felt after reading your posts about P-Funk on the TSOYA board.
You can try my profile on Facebook for some inspiration.
IScrobbler refuses to work on my computer for some reason.
Thanks!
Yeah, it's good, really good so far.
I'm meeting people, adjusting to living on campus, that sort of thing.
Hmm, what do I want to know about?
I know very little about reggae beyond Bob Marley & Toots & the Maytals.
Educate me!
Likewise, I don't really know that much about jazz besides Miles, Coltrane and Dizzy.
I'd love to hear some 90s or 2000s jazz that I might not have otherwise checked out.
And you? How can I help you out?
P.S. I need to know more P-Funk too!
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