The Get Up Kids Mixtape

This entry deals with one of my all-time favourite bands, who also recently reformed and began putting out new material. Often considered to be among the founding fathers of emotional hardcore punk, and with a handful of the most influential early albums from that subgenre, including Four Minute Mile and Something To Write Home About, The Get Up Kids found a niche writing energetic, raw punk rock in the late 1990s, and began to pursue other sounds and influences as with 2004's gloriously poppy Guilt Show and the acoustic folk of 2002's On A Wire. The Kansas City 5-piece released a handful of EPs and LPs, a rarities compilation and a live record over a ten-year period before ultimately disbanding in 2005. Upon reforming in 2008, they began to record material for a new EP, Simple Science, which came out earlier this year.

This playlist spans the lifespan of the GUK through all their flirtations with different styles, but nonetheless represents a catalogue which remains remarkably cohesive.

1. Last Place You Look (Four Minute Mile)
2. The One You Want (Guilt Show)
3. I'm A Loner Dottie, A Rebel... (Something To Write Home About)
4. Close To Me (Eudora)
5. Man Of Conviction (Guilt Show)
6. Don't Hate Me [Live] (Live! @ The Granada Theater)
7. Action And Action (Something To Write Home About)
8. Woodson (Woodson)
9. Your Petty Pretty Things (Simple Science)
10. Washington Square Park (Four Minute Mile)
11. Sympathy (Guilt Show)
12. Coming Clean (Four Minute Mile)
13. The Breathing Method (Eudora)
14. Overdue (On A Wire)
15. Shorty (Four Minute Mile)

Rilo Kiley Mixtape

Before posting this, I checked it over with the biggest Rilo Kiley fan I know (yep, I take this blog seriously, yo) and we agreed it's pretty airtight. The thing about Rilo Kiley is that they don't really have any bad songs; it just matters what mood you're in. And so there may be one or two songs left out here that might otherwise have been included if not for reasons of length or tone, but that are perfectly great songs on their respective albums.

Because the band's repertoire is so strong, it was pretty easy to choose an even mix from all of their releases, starting with The Initial Friend EP and coming through to 2007's Under The Blacklight. There hasn't been a new release since then (with Blake Sennett and Jenny Lewis each concentrating on separate projects) and the band is currently on indefinite hiatus.

Anyway, the playlist is as follows:

1. The Good That Won't Come Out (The Execution Of All Things)
2. The Frug (The Initial Friend EP)
3. Wires And Waves (Take Offs & Landings)
4. Smoke Detector (Under The Blacklight)
5. Does He Love You? (More Adventurous)
6. My Slumbering Heart (The Execution Of All Things)
7. Don't Deconstruct (Take Offs & Landings)
8. Always (The Initial Friend EP)
9. It's A Hit (More Adventurous)
10. Give A Little Love (Under The Blacklight)
11. Go Ahead (Take Offs & Landings)
12. The Execution Of All Things (The Execution Of All Things)
13. It Just Is (More Adventurous)

Randy Newman Mixtape

Phew, it's been a while since my last post. I think I'm going to blame me moving back to the UK from New Zealand as the largest contributor in that supposed apathy. Not to mention several months of possibly the most hectic activity it's possible for an unemployed ex-student to get wrapped up with. Yep, that's it. But none of that is relevant here. I've still been formulating plenty of ideas for mixes, and will now kick off this wonderful little renaissance with the equally wonderful Randy Newman.

Not unlike, I'm sure, most people of my generation who have caught on to the brilliance of Mr. Newman, I was first introduced to his work through 'Toy Story'. You know that cracker of an opening tune which has successfully carried the soundtracks of two (and in a few weeks, three) 'Toy Story' films? Well that's not the half of it. Get past the film-score friendly sheen of the his music, and you have a fantastically eccentric sense of humour rarely, if ever, found in mainstream popular music. Randy writes most of his songs from various alternative perspectives: by turn xenophobic, nostalgic, defeatist, optimistic, money-grabbing, misanthropic, aggressively right-wing, and zambianoliangioticaloigisticologphobic (that's the fear of short people, says Google!), and turns the popular song format into something which walks the borderline between fantastical character prose and some sort of exaggerated (though ironic) confessional.

The tracklist goes as follows:

1. It's Money That I Love (Born Again)
2. Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear (Sail Away)
3. Mama Told Me Not To Come (12 Songs)
4. I Think It's Going To Rain Today (Randy Newman)
5. Short People (Little Criminals)
6. My Life Is Good (Trouble In Paradise)
7. Bet No One Ever Hurt This Bad (Randy Newman)
8. Birmingham (Good Old Boys)
9. Lonely At The Top (Sail Away)
10. Baltimore (Little Criminals)
11. You Can't Keep A Good Man Down (Randy Newman's Faust)
12. Political Science (Sail Away)
13. I Love L.A. (Trouble In Paradise)
14. Sail Away (Sail Away)
15. I Will Go Sailing No More (Toy Story OST)
16. Let Me Go (Guilty: 30 Years Of Randy Newman)

Morrissey Mixtape

Even though I would say I ultimately prefer songs from The Smiths' canon to the solo output of their former gladioli-wielding, bespectacled frontman, there's no denying that Morrissey's later work is far more interesting to look upon. As an artist who has fallen in and out of public favour multiple times in the two decades since leaving Marr, Rourke, and Joyce behind, and who has consequently made a habit of his own reinvention, his music covers an incredibly varied set of bases, both in terms of instrumentation and genre.

Yet at the same time, a Morrissey song can only be a Morrissey song. Marked by his witty and learned wordplay and intertextuality, injected with his morose worldview and introspective self-obsession, and cherry-topped with his uniquely off-kilter singing style, even the most contrastive of Morrissey's tracks nonetheless come together as one; they unite and take over, if you will.

For the purpose of consistency, then, the first half of this playlist focuses mainly on Steven's most recent renaissance trifecta, You Are the Quarry, Ringleader of the Tormentors, and Years of Refusal, while the latter half shifts back a little earlier to Kill Uncle and Vauxhall and I. There'll also be a Smiths playlist to follow (which works well on the b-side of this cassette).

1. It's Hard To Walk Tall When You're Small (Swords)
2. How Can Anybody Possibly Know How I Feel? (You Are The Quarry)
3. Something is Squeezing My Skull (Years of Refusal)
4. Irish Blood, English Heart (You Are The Quarry)
5. Hold On To Your Friends (Vauxhall and I)
6. Asian Rut (Kill Uncle) / You're The One For Me, Fatty (Your Arsenal)
7. I Will See You in Far Off Places (Ringleader of the Tormentors)
8. All You Need is Me (Years of Refusal)
9. Don't Make Fun of Daddy's Voice (Swords)
10. I've Changed My Plea To Guilty (My Love Life [single])
11. I Am Hated For Loving (Vauxhall and I)
12. (I'm) The End of the Family Line (Kill Uncle)
13. I Don't Mind if You Forget Me (Viva Hate)
14. There's a Place in Hell For Me and My Friends (Kill Uncle)

Weezer Mixtape

This playlist was fun to make as I got to totally ignore the fact that Weezer even existed after 2002. As a result, it leans prominently on their two best (and first) albums, The Blue Album and Pinkerton, while borrowing a few of their later pop-rock scorchers. Best of all, 'Hash Pipe' is nowhere to be found.

This is one of my favourite mixtapes to listen to, since it's almost as good as listening to Pinkerton.

1. Knock-Down Drag-Out (Weezer (The Green Album))
2. Getchoo (Pinkerton)
3. The World Has Turned and Left Me Here (Weezer (The Blue Album))
4. The Good Life (Pinkerton)
5. Holiday (Weezer (The Blue Album))
6. Photograph (Weezer (The Green Album))
7. Dope Nose (Maladroit)
8. El Scorcho (Pinkerton)
9. My Name is Jonas (Weezer (The Blue Album))
10. Why Bother (Pinkerton)
11. Keep Fishin' (Maladroit)
12. Only in Dreams (Weezer (The Blue Album))
13. Across the Sea (Pinkerton)

When googling 'Weezer', I came across this 8-bit covers album. Worth a listen if that's your bag.