I used to make these 60 minute tapes for all my friends. I made dozens of those things. They contained whatever it was I thought they’d like that I could get a hold of. Looking back, I don’t talk to a lot of those people anymore. They might have tossed it a long time ago, but if they didn’t, that mix tape or CD is all they have of me. Mix tapes are many things, but one thing especially is nostalgia. A great mix tape from an old, lost friend can make you remember moments that shaped your life. Think about it. How many mix tapes have you given out over your life? How much passion did you put into it? How much memory is held? These things can be powerful, man. They can be heartbreaking.
Most importantly, they can be fun. That’s why here at InsidePulse, during the final week of June our music staff will share their ultimate summer mix tapes with you. I feel especially priveledged that I get to be one of the first to contribute to this hootenanny, and here’s my take.
Those Moments Are So Fleeting – By Kyle David Paul
1. Pump it – Black Eyed Peas – The first track off the new album, Monkey Business, is one of the best firecracker-style starters I’ve seen in a long time. Busting out of the gate with an amazing speed, the four BEP’s waste no time getting people dancing. If the riff sounds familiar, it’s sampled from the theme from Pulp Fiction. If all hip hop were like this, Andre 3000 wouldn’t have declared it dead two years ago.
2. Twilight – The Raveonettes – Go buy a loose, free flowing skirt. Go now! I don’t care who you are. If you ever wanted an excuse to dance like they did at Pop’s Malt Shop 50 years ago, this is it. Reversing the ‘Twilight Zone’ theme, The Rav’s keep that forward momentum going by being sexy, fast, and to the point. You simply can’t stand still with this playing. When I first heard this, I felt the temperature rise 10 degrees.
3. Old Shit/New Shit – Eels – Eels may not be the most summer-y kind of fellow (his upcoming shows are seated concerts in typically standing room clubs) but every now and then he comes out with a track so bright, so hopeful, and so head-bobbingly good that you can’t help but feel like everything is going to be okay. Everyone would be a hell of a lot happier if this was the first thing they heard every morning.
4. Summer Girl – Beck – The second single off Guero is completely opposite from E-Pro; where the first single was jarring, tight hip hop, Summer Girl is light, breezy pop set in the 60’s on a low rider going 45 down a Californian highway. You ever see those Old Navy commercials where everyone is dancing like nobody’s watching, while showing off the season’s newest child-labour-produced duds? Picture those people in the same scene, but just laying around chillin’, and you get a good idea of the mood of this tune.
5. Feel Good Inc – Gorillaz – The first single off Demon Days (an album that inspired my last column), is the heir to the ‘Clint Eastwood’ throne of wicked lazy hip hop mixed with tight, though equally lazy sounding brit-pop. It’s basically the same tune as Clint Eastwood, but with every aspect improved. The hip hop is less abstract and faster. The brit pop choruses are catchier, and the beat is now worthy of a disco.
6. Blue Orchid – The White Stripes – Forgive me for loading up this list with new singles, but that’s often the case with great summer songs; they’re the really popular ones that everyone hears and loves. Plus, I wanted to include something off the new White Stripes album and there’s nothing else nearly ‘summer’ enough on it (however, the other 14 tracks are excellent for a winter mix tape). Blue Orchid is a schorcher of a song. It’s short, only has three verses, and leaves you wanted another 3 minutes. It’s also cool as hell. A wrestler would be cheered 20% louder just for using this as entrance music (I’d give it to Victoria, for example. She needs new stuff anyhow). Fucking great song.
7. your love is a deserter – The Kills – This song has a lot in common with track 2 on this list; the beat is familiar, yet quickened to a dancing pace; the lyrics are simple, but instantly classic and true; and finally, it’s such f*cking sexy music you can’t help but get all sweaty. To me, for a song to be completely ‘summer’, it’s got to make you sweat in one way or another, whether that be in terms of dancing or sex, or in terms of emotional sweat, the kind that produces tears and painful season finales in high schools and dorm rooms everywhere. This song is the first kind.
8. Wake up – The Arcade Fire – Another way to tell if a song is properly ‘summer’ is to try singing it at the top of your lungs while running down your street with a dozen of your closest friends doing the same. This is the most appropriate song for this means that I’ve heard all year. While all the ‘cool’ kids are slowly, barely bobbing their heads to ‘Candy Shop’, everyone who truly loves great music is in their basement or at their favorite basement-themed club throwing their arms and legs in every direction to The Arcade Fire, and songs like this are great examples.
9. Krafty – New Order – This is the happiest song I’ve ever heard from a band not called The Polyphonic Spree. It makes you happy to simply be alive, let alone dancing, let alone singing along, let alone falling in love with that pretty girl over there digging New Order just as much as you do.
10 . Portions for Foxes – Rilo Kiley – This is this years’ “But Daddy, I love him” song. When Jenny sings “Yeah, your bad news, but I don’t care, I like you”, it sounds like she’s actually got someone in mind, which is rare in pop music these days. This is a strange paradox of a song, since while the chorus is repetitive and a reminder of late 90’s summer pop, the lyrics are amazingly sad and focused. It’s like the summer movie that’s a great popcorn flick but at the same time has some poignant moments that people remember come Oscar time.
11. Lottery Winners on Acid – The Crimea – I don’t have any particular reason for liking this band or even this song, but when you need something to hum when you’re in the backseat, looking up at the stars and holding onto that girl you love oh so much, this one’s pretty good.
12. Hold Me – Weezer – Don’t listen to Beverly Hills; it’s a stupid song written by a stupid band that isn’t the real Weezer. The real Weezer writes songs like Hold Me, songs that make you happy to have forsaken all of those stupid people who weren’t your real friends anyway and proclaim your love to that girl down the street that works at the Dairy Queen who likes you despite everything and willl love you forever. The real Weezer writes songs that make music columnists think up imaginary romances that require run-on sentences in order not to seem trite but instead magical. The real Weezer make you stand up and crow like Peter Pan from the roof of your house at 2 in the morning while wearing your boyfriends’ sweater vest.
13. People – The Ghost is Dancing – You’ve never heard of this band, but you will. The ripples are going to begin soon. If you’re in the Toronto area, you owe it to your musical pallette to check them out. People, their most optimistic song, features thunderous trumpet and the most memorable lyrics (such as the bridge where everyone in unison screams “The people are people are planets” over and over). The percussion is a monster feeling it’s chance to finally be unleashed. The potential here is astronomical. Plus, every proper mix CD has to include something that only you know of, that you feel you need to share with the world or with the one you’re giving it to, and this is that gift.
14. Easy/Lucky/Free – Bright Eyes – Ah, the closer. The last song on a mix tape can be the most neglected song, or it can be the most remembered, and this is dependant on the strength of the tune alone. The newest single by Bright Eyes is everything anyone could ever ask from a Bright Eyes song; deep, truthful, a great story, a great melody, a feeling of warmth and love despite the end of the world only being moments away. The chorus line “Honey, don’t you weep, there is no one as Easy, as Lucky, or Free” is so full of hope that it almost becomes true happiness. You almost forget all the horrible things going on this world and remember that at our base we are creatures of love and compassion, that underneath we all want to be loved by our friends and enemies as well as our lovers.
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Check back on Inside Pulse to check out other Music columnists’ mix tapes.
Party On, Garth
