Hello Saferide Mixtape

Continuing on the Swedish Pop trend I started with my Swedish Playlist a while ago, a more detailed look at one of the artists featured back then: Hello Saferide.

With songs revolving around the universal experiences and sentiments of one Annika Norlin, and pepped up with a catchy hook or two to complete the package, Hello Saferide is very much a product and spokesperson of the confusion of today's young-adult. Her songs draw inspiration from internet stalking and pen-pals, living with OCD, talking in the middle of Seinfeld, and planning to give someone an iPod nano for Christmas, all the while searching for the love of someone who ticks all the boxes.

1. If I Don't Write This Song, Someone I Love Will Die (Introducing...Hello Saferide)
2. I Was Definitely Made For These Times (I Was Definitely Made For These Times CD Single)
3. San Francisco (Introducing...Hello Saferide)
4. 2006 (Would You Let Me Play This EP 10 Times a Day?)
5. I Don't Sleep Well (Introducing...Hello Saferide)
6. I Wonder Who is Like This One (More Modern Short Stories From Hello Saferide)
7. I Can't Believe It's Not Love! (Introducing...Hello Saferide)
8. The Best Night of Your Life (Would You Let Me Play This EP 10 Times a Day?)
9. Saturday Nights (Introducing...Hello Saferide)
10. Anna (More Modern Short Stories From Hello Saferide)
11. My Best Friend (Introducing...Hello Saferide)
12. iPod Xmas
13. The Quiz (Would You Let Me Play This EP 10 Times a Day?)
14. Get Sick Soon (Introducing...Hello Saferide)
15. Middle Class (More Modern Short Stories From Hello Saferide)

M.Ward Mixtape

Phew! It's been a hectic few weeks what with us moving house and going on holiday and all, but I think we're finally settled into a routine. Time to relax, I think. And on that note, here's a mix of good-time, soothing, sepia-toned goodness, courtesy of Mr. Matt Ward.

Today at work I was doing some painting, and since it was just me on my own, I allowed myself to listen to some music so as to avoid going insane from a combination of RSI and solitude. So I listened to all of my M.Ward albums, and it was a really enjoyable way to spend five hours, let alone thinking that I would get paid for it! But while that would be too much M.Ward for a normal person to listen to on any normal day, it made me realise quite how brilliant this man is, and how enchanting his best songs are. And so, as a little preface to this playlist, I'd whole-heartedly recommend grabbing whatever M.Ward albums you might have to hand, particularly Transfiguration of Vincent, as well as End of Amnesia and Post-War (and that's just for starters), and giving them a good old run-through.

That said, the 45-minute introductory dose goes as follows:

1. Rollercoaster (Post-War)
2. Outta My Head (Transfiguration of Vincent)
3. Paul's Song (Transistor Radio)
4. To Go Home (Post-War)
5. You Really Got A Hold On Me (with She & Him, Volume One)
6. Sad, Sad Song (Transfiguration of Vincent)
7. Right in the Head (Post-War)
8. Carolina (End of Amnesia)
9. Vincent O'Brien (Transfiguration of Vincent)
10. Chinese Translation (Post-War)
11. Shangri-La (Hold Time)
12. Involuntary (Transfiguration of Vincent)
13. So Much Water (End of Amnesia)
14. Deep, Dark Well (Transistor Radio)

And for the first time, I'm going to cheat the whole 45-minute rule thing because there are plenty of songs which didn't fit on the playlist, but which still deserve an airing:

• Epistemology (Hold Time)
• Beautiful Car (Duet For Guitars #2)
• From a Pirate Radio Sermon, 1989 (End of Amnesia)
• I'll Be Yr Bird (Transistor Radio)

And I'll leave it at that, before I get carried away...

It's Winter In My Mind (Winter Playlist)

Just to clarify, it's summer for me right now, and although I'm aware of the particularly harsh winter being encountered by friends and family back in Europe and the States, I made this mix one sunny day when I was feeling a little homesick and remembering winters in Canterbury and Amsterdam.

As a result of that, some of these songs might not actually have anything to do with winter - lyrically speaking - to a third party. But perhaps because of associations or memories they conjure in my mind, they all make me think of the colder months, and so listening to them in sequence is a treat for when I want to feel cosy, until I eventually see another winter.

1. Anna Ternheim - 'I'll Follow You Tonight' (Somebody Outside)
2. Duke Special - 'Ballad of a Broken Man' (Songs From the Deep Forest)
3. Basia Bulat - 'In the Night' (In the Night EP)
4. Sigur Rós - 'Untitled #1 (Vaka) ' (( ))
5. Neko Case - 'Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis' (New Coat of Paint: Songs of Tom Waits)
6. The Reindeer Section - 'The Opening Taste' (Y'all Get Scared Now, Ya Hear!)
7. Madeleine Peyroux - 'Between the Bars' (Careless Love)
8. Bright Eyes - 'Lua' (I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning)
9. The Decemberists - 'Shankhill Butchers' (The Crane Wife)
10. Guggenheim Grotto - 'A Lifetime in Heat' (...Waltzing Alone)
11. Elliott Smith - 'I Didn't Understand' (XO)
12. Death Cab For Cutie - 'I Will Follow You Into the Dark' (Plans)
13. Rilo Kiley - 'Paint's Peeling' (The Execution of All Things)
14. The Pipettes - 'A Winter's Sky' (We Are The Pipettes)
15. Bloc Party - 'So Here We Are' (Silent Alarm)
16. Explosions in the Sky - 'With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept' (Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever)

The Smiths Mixtape

As promised a little earlier, it's a Smiths playlist! Perfect for spending those warm, summer days indoors, and sinking into a solemn teenage slump with your jangle-pop loving Irish-Mancunian mates.

Being a child of the 90s rather than of the 80s, I was a little late in getting my hands on my first Smiths records; and when they did finally begin to find their way into my possession, they didn't arrive with the sensible, chronological order you'd tend to want when newly discovering a band's back-catalogue, but dropped in according to whatever my older sister casually remarked I might like next.

The one advantage to hearing The Queen is Dead first, however, particularly having had no previous exposure to the band that carves such a work of genius, is that it completely revolutionises your ideas about music almost immediately. I vividly remember thinking to myself that this 'Smiths' thing is a big deal, and that I wanted to attack it correctly from the outset. So I transferred the CD from the HMV bag to my CD player, put my big headphones over my head, and laid down on my bed staring at the ceiling (and occasionally flicking through the accompanying booklet for lyrical clarification), giving every song my total attention. As it turns out, that was a pretty significant moment of my adolescence.

As most Smiths fans would tell you, it simply doesn't get any better than The Queen is Dead (although since hearing Strangeways, Here We Come, it's very much been a two-horse race for me), and so listening to the masterwork first may have had a downside to it. Still, alongside Meat is Murder, the truly excellent compilation Louder Than Bombs, and the aforementioned Strangeways, only the rarest Smiths track lacks potency and credibility from an otherwise spotless repertoire (looking at you, 'Golden Lights'). As such, forgive the absence of representation of the band's eponymous debut (or their 'unofficial debut', Hatful of Hollow), but 45-minutes is simply not enough time for the brilliance of The Smiths.

1. I Want the One I Can't Have (Meat is Murder)
2. Still Ill [Live] (Rank)
3. I Started Something I Couldn't Finish (Strangeways, Here We Come)
4. You Just Haven't Earned It Yet, Baby (Louder Than Bombs)
5. Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others (The Queen is Dead)
6. Oscillate Wildly (Louder Than Bombs)
7. A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours (Strangeways, Here We Come)
8. I Know It's Over (The Queen is Dead)
9. Nowhere Fast (Meat is Murder)
10. Is It Really So Strange? (Louder Than Bombs)
11. Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before (Strangeways, Here We Come)
12. Ask (Louder Than Bombs)
13. Asleep (Louder Than Bombs)

Incidentally, following my memorable first exposure to The Queen is Dead, I later did the very same thing with all of my Smiths albums in order, listening silently on my bed for over six hours. I recommend it.

Cover This! (Cover Versions Playlist)

So here's the first (of what will probably be many) of a particularly lucratively themed playlist category; that of the almighty cover version. These are perhaps my favourite cover songs right now, and I was sparked into making a brief compilation of them by hearing the second song on the list, I Fight Dragons' sweet blip-rock version of Weezer's 'Why Bother?' (first linked to, here).

I jotted these down just before driving up to Auckland last week, and after a little reshuffling - almost by accident - the songlist began to follow a distinctive split between the more rockin' first half, and the downbeat, quieter second half. I quite like that dichotomy, so I left the list as it was. As a result, I'll probably make supplementary lists of cover songs in the future, rather than adding to this particular one.

I've listed the original artists afterwards too. And added credit goes to Self and Teen Heroes who both tick off more than one song from their chosen artist in the same cover. Try to name each song referenced.

1. Self - 'Ana Ng' (Hello Radio: The Songs of They Might Be Giants) (They Might Be Giants)
2. I Fight Dragons - 'Why Bother?' (Weezer (The 8-bit Album)) (Weezer)
3. Ted Leo - 'I'm Looking Through You' (This Bird Has Flown: A 40th Anniversary Tribute To The Beatles' Rubber Soul) (The Beatles)
4. Teen Heroes - 'Manta Ray' (Where is My Mind?: A Tribute To Pixies) (Pixies)
5. Lily Allen - 'Mr. Blue Sky' (La Musique de Paris Dernière, Vol. 6) (Electric Light Orchestra)
6. OK Go - 'This Will Be Our Year' (Future Soundtrack For America) (The Zombies)
7. Death Cab For Cutie - 'Dream Scream' (The Late Great Daniel Johnston: Discovered Covered) (Daniel Johnston)
8. Mates of State - 'These Days' (Wicker Park OST) (Nico)
9. Basia Bulat - 'Touch the Hem of His Garment' (In the Night EP) (Sam Cooke)
10. Karate - 'Strange Fruit' (In the Fishtank 12) (Billie Holiday)
11. Madeleine Peyroux - 'Between the Bars' (Careless Love) (Elliott Smith)
12. Beck - 'Everybody's Got To Learn Sometime' (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind OST) (The Korgis)

Pixies Mixtape

I'm back from Melbourne (which was amazing!), and so I'm revved up and eager to start contributing some more playlists. First up, something appropriately raucous and energetic: Pixies.

I was leafing through a copy of '1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die' in Wellington Library this afternoon, and as far as I could tell, every Pixies album was featured (except for possibly Trompe Le Monde, which I feel has always been unduly overshadowed by its older brothers). In a similar vein, I made a Pixies mixtape some weeks back, for which I tried to borrow a little from each one of their albums in succession - even grabbing the great version of 'Hey' featured on the Live at the BBC compilation - so as to illustrate the consistently impressive genius of the alternative Boston four-piece.

Sticking to this site's standard 45-minute 'mixtape' motif, the Pixies nonetheless have ample time to knock out as many as 20 songs, such is the lightning-fast delivery and frenetic fury with which they pound the listeners' ears. Incidentally, this is one of my favourite traits of Black Francis' songwriting; his insistence that a 2-minute track has no less force than a song twice that length (a philosophy about composition he drew, I gather, from Buddy Holly). As you'd expect, the songs featured here also showcase his music's other instantly notable characteristic: visceral and often graphic lyrics portraying sex, violence, abduction, rape, incest, and the supernatural, among other bedtime-reading topics.

A few notes about the selected songs: firstly, I kicked off the mix with 'I'm Amazed', which, aside from being one of my favourites from the back-catalogue of Pixies' disjointed songbook, is also recognisable for its eccentric opening skit ("All I know is that there were rumours..."), something which seems to work equally well as an introduction as it does a mid-album intermission. Following that, the playlist visits several of the band's heaviest numbers ('Rock Music', 'Planet of Sound', 'Tame', 'Something Against You'), interspersed with some cooler breathers (the introductory and final verses to 'Mr. Grieves' and 'Havalina' being the notable rest-periods); my attempt at doing Francis' loud-quiet-louder dynamic some justice.

Finally, I noticed that the songs on this mixtape seemed to come together much more naturally than the tracks on some of my other playlists do. Maybe it's a testament to the unique style of Pixies that means that their songs just sound right at home alongside one another, regardless of whatever album they originally called home, but whatever the reason, it's definitely a lot of fun to listen to.

1. I'm Amazed (Surfer Rosa)
2. Cecilia Ann (Bossanova)
3. Dead (Doolittle)
4. The Holiday Song (Come On Pilgrim EP)
5. Isla de Encanta (Come On Pilgrim EP)
6. Rock Music (Bossanova)
7. Mr. Grieves (Doolittle)
8. Allison (Bossanova)
9. Planet of Sound (Trompe Le Monde)
10. Tame (Doolittle)
11. Wave of Mutilation (Doolittle)
12. River Euphrates (Surfer Rosa)
13. I Bleed (Doolittle)
14. Where is My Mind? (Surfer Rosa)
15. Havalina (Bossanova)
16. Debaser (Doolittle)
17. I've Been Tired (Come On Pilgrim EP)
18. Hey [live] (Pixies at the BBC)
19. Something Against You (Surfer Rosa)
20. Nimrod's Son (Come On Pilgrim EP)