The Songs in My Head

"Three of a Perfect Pair" by King Crimson. I really dig some of those 80's King Crimson albums, especially songs featuring a odd-time guitar riff repeated over and over. I like "Discipline," where the guitar riff is repeated on one guitar, and a second guitar will play the same riff, but drop a beat each time so that it seems out-of-time with the first guitar. Then after several cycles of playing "off," each time getting one beat further apart from the main riff, the second guitar eventually lines up with the first one so they are in unison again.

I think I just took a whole paragraph to announce I'm a nerd who likes math rock.

2007 Mix CD

After several weeks of fussing with it, I think I've finally put together a 2007 mix CD that I can live with. I want to post the list and burn a CD of it now before I change my mind AGAIN about certain song choices or sequencing.

To put this mix together, I started with a list of over 40 songs that came out over the past year and (slowly) narrowed it down to these 19 songs that will fit on an 80-minute CD. My main rule was "one song per band," but of course, rules are meant to be broken, and the band Stars appears on this mix twice.

Most of these songs are my favorite selection (or the best mix-friendly selection) from their particular album, but a few tracks are simply singles I enjoyed from albums I have not yet obtained. If you're interested in receiving a copy of this mix CD, post a comment saying so.

Artist - Song Title
1. Spoon - The Underdog
2. The New Pornographers - Mutiny, I Promise You
3. Deerhoof - The Perfect Me
4. Of Montreal - Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse
5. Stars - Take Me to the Riot
6. The Besnard Lakes - On Bedford and Grand
7. The Clientele - Carnival on 7th Street
8. The Sea and Cake - Up On Crutches
9. The Shins - Phantom Limb
10. Smashing Pumpkins - Doomsday Clock
11. Dinosaur Jr. - Back to Your Heart
12. Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby
13. Air - Once Upon a Time
14. Radiohead - All I Need
15. Arcade Fire - No Cars Go
16. Wilco - Side With the Seeds
17. Adam Franklin - Birdsong
18. Stars - My Favourite Book
19. Low - Murderer

Brit Box: On and Off

You've probably skipped ahead and looked already, Ken, but here are the actual songs that made it onto the Brit Box comp. Looks like you got about half right.

Oasis - Live Forever
The Smiths - How Soon is Now?
The Cure - Just Like Heaven
Suede - Metal Mickey
Pulp - Common People
New Order - Regret

Echo and the Bunnymen - Lips Like Sugar
The Stone Roses - She Bangs The Drums
Ned's Atomic Dustbin - Grey Cell Green
Teenage Fanclub - Starsign
The Verve - Lucky Man
Elastica - Stutter

The Boo Radleys - Lazarus
Supergrass - Alright
Swervedriver - Duel
Stereolab - Wow & Flutter
James - Laid
The Charlatans - The Only One I Know

Here is a press release that lists all of the songs in the boxed set.

Some of these are kind of surprising, as some really big hits by these bands were left off. But the most interesting thing about the list are the bands that are not represented at all. Ken brought up XTC as one example, but there are many more.

The press release claims the collection to be "...78 U.K. performers spanning the last 15 years of the 20th century" and containing "U.K. INDIE, SHOEGAZE, AND BRIT-POP GEMS OF THE LAST MILLENNIUM." It's possible certain bands were not included because they were on major labels and not independents. Without doing any research (as easy as it is to research things on the Internet, I'm not going to bother for this post), I find it hard to believe that NONE of the songs on this comp were released on major labels.

Plenty of one-hit wonders and little known acts (to me, anyway) are included, so why then, are bands like XTC, Slowdive, Belle & Sebastian, Simple Minds, The The, Pet Shop Boys, Psychedelic Furs, Depeche Mode and even Radiohead NOT on this comp?

Brit Box

I referenced the "Brit Box" boxed set in my previous post, and how the Blur song choice struck as me as a little odd, given some of their bigger hits were passed over. Let's take a look at some of the other artists on this comp. With some of the artists, it's easy to guess the song because it was their only big hit (see The La's "There She Goes.") But other's such as Oasis have had numerous hits. Which one would you choose?

We already know which Blur song is on there, but, without looking, what song from the following bands would you expect to be a on compilation boxed set? Post your guesses in the comments.
Oasis
The Smiths
The Cure
Suede
Pulp (I always used to get Suede and Pulp confused)
New Order

What about...
Echo and the Bunnymen
The Stone Roses
Ned's Atomic Dustbin
Teenage Fanclub
The Verve
Elastica

Or these?
The Boo Radleys
Supergrass
Swervedriver
Stereolab
James
The Charlatans

Thanks to Ken from Gapers Blog for the idea for this post. I'll do a follow-up post with the actual songs in a day or two.

Songs in My Head

Right now the song in my head is "She's So High" by Blur from their album Leisure. It reminds me that there is this boxed set that was released last fall called The Brit Box which features 78 songs by 78 different British artists from the last 15 years or so. I don't have the set, but I wound up winning a one-disc 18-song sampler of it from an online radio station contest (woxy.com). As you'd expect, the sampler (and the full boxed set) contain a lot of Brit-Pop and Shoegaze tunes. Most of them are what I would consider the big hits of the era, but a few are more obscure.

The Blur song chosen for the compilation is "Tracy Jacks." Not a bad song, but I don't remember it being a single or getting much attention when it came out. Could be that it was a much bigger hit in England, or it could be that I just missed the boat on that one. Or it could be the only song the Brit Box compilers could get the rights too? But I kind of think that "There's No Other Way," "Girls and Boys," or "Chemical World" would be better selections for a British hits collection.

Sorry

Sorry for the lack of posts.

Sorry for not finishing my 2007 Songs Mix like I said I would. I was having a hard time deciding on just one song from some of the bands, and now that I think I have it narrowed down, I still need to sequence them into a good flow.

Already since posting my 2007 Albums list, I've obtained a few more 2007 albums (The Shins, Baroness, and um...the Eagles). So eventually we'll see some revisions in the list, but for now, it stands as-is.

Hope you all had a good holiday season. Now comes the part of winter that pretty much blows.