Mixtape Miserablé

Time for another mixtape! The mixtape is becoming a regular feature on my blog where I gather together a compilation of songs to express a feeling, a theme or that the songs just fit right.

This week I've chosen to do a downcast version of the mixtape. I'm not having a particular bad weekend, actually its been in quite high spirits actually, but sometimes it just feels great to lie in bed and listen to incredibly melancholic music. If you find yourself spiralling down further and further into depression please pause and resume later when you're feeling a little less sadistic.

1. Raising The Fawn - Eta

This song isn't necesarily sad, it's actually quite hopeful, but if you're lying in bed on a particularly dreary day, it will make you cry long and hard. Plus it sounds so damn good at the beginning of a mix.

2. Cat Power - The Greatest

Like it or not, Cat Power can come off being very depressing. Especially this song which simply oozes all over your happiness and suffocates it.

3. David Bowie - Rock 'N' Roll Suicide
Well he's not typically who one thinks of when they think of sadness but in his more passionate moments, such as in this song he can really make you feel pretty shitty.

4. Elvis Costello - Tramp The Dirt Down
You know the songs you know you're one day going to want to play at your wedding or something. Well this song is the one I want played at my funeral (heck I could play this entire mix at my funeral). Mr. Macmanus wrote this one for the late Margaret Thatcher shortly after her death and included it on his album Spike and has unusual instrumentation (for Elvis anyhow) like the piccolo and perhaps the bagpipes too. Nonetheless, it's beautiful.

5. Tom Waits - Alice
This isn't the only time I've had a Tom Waits song in a mix, but the man does sing the blues well. I could listen to this song all day, if I didn't value my happiness that is.

6. The Constantines - Goodbye And Amen
This tune has a very slow start and takes a while for us to get started but once that lead singer starts, you're feelin' it. That heavy-stomached pitted feeling that is the only thing that holds down the tears.

7. The Dears - 22: The Death Of All Romance
At the risk of sounding like a sap, I can't tell you how many times I've cried to this song. Again, it's one that exudes so much passion in the vocals and string arrangement near the end of the song that breaks your heart.

8. Feist - Lonely Lonely
This isn't necessarily a depressing song but the soft, tiptoeing guitar line and Feists infamous voice creeping along turns out to be very downcast if you're in the mood to recieve it that way (which you will be in after you listen to all the songs previous to it)

9. Radiohead - Talk Show Host
This song was one of those songs you just can't stop playing for days straight, which explains why I was practically depressed those few days. It's hard when you find a song you like so much but it makes you feel so shitty.

10. Seu Jorge - Rock 'N' Roll Suicide
So yeah, I have two different versions of the same song on this mix (hey I could've also put the Rilo Kiley cover, couldn't I?) but it is a very sad song, especially when you take it back to basics like Seu does with his acoustic guitar and Portuguese vocals.

11. Neutral Milk Hotel - Two Headed Boy Pt. 2
This song I put near the end because although it is very sad, it also has tones of hope laced in which hopefully will pull you out of your depression before you stop listening to this mix. Everyone should listen to Neutral Milk Hotel.

12. Elvis Costello - God Give Me Strength
Again, I wanted to restore some of your hope with this last one which, also is pretty miserable because he cries about a woman who left him, it still is called "God Give Me Strength" (which is pretty evident when he passionately screams it nearing the end). This is a Costello favourite and usually wraps up the end of his albums, so I decided to follow his example and have it end mine.

Sunday Mixtape

This morning when I got up (after watching High Fidelity last night and getting in the mood for it) I put together a compilation of songs that I've been feeling lately. So may I introduce the first of the mixtapes that will be soon be a regular feature here. If you too have the songs, listen to them in sequence. I can't put all the tunes up for download because some are a bit older, so i'm not going to put up any for good measure. Enjoy!

1. Snowden - Anti-Anti
A good starter because it drives into the song without blowing out the whole compilation too early, and the song starts right away, none of that introductory baloney.

2. The Golden Dogs - Nineteen Hundred Eighty-Five
The piano riff at the beginning will blow your mind and stick with you all day long, but it's too long to start off with, so it makes a perfect second song to heighten the stakes a bit.

3. Dr. Dog - My Old Ways
So after we blow your mind, we're going to bring it down a bit with something a bit more mellow and foot stompin', like Dr. Dog's "My Old Ways", with a piano line that just skips along to the Beatles' like singing.

4. The Harlem Shakes - Carpetbaggers
This one is a real finger snapping, bop along down the sidewalk with headphones in your ears kind of song that meshes well with Dr. Dog before it, and what's to follow. I wouldn't put it anywhere else than in the middle because it ties the mix together pretty well.

5. Swan Lake - The Freedom
This song starts slow, but gains momentum into a driving song so it also wouldn't work anywhere else but in the middle. Plus, it's a damn good song, and the lead singer of Swan Lake sounds just like Dan Bejar on it.

6. David Vandervelde - Jacket
This is a great song, but works as more of a transition song on this mix because it has enough jangle to prepare us for the next track but the same zippy voice as the Dan Bejar sound-alike one before.

7. The Geraldine Fibbers - California Tuffy
This one is the real kicker. It is a pretty old song and not very well recorded, while all the others are new and well recorded so to make this song fit between all the others isn't easy. But with David Vandervelde's voice still sticking in your head, it prepares you so the Geraldine Fibbers can drop kick it right out again and blow your mind while doing so.

8. Cold War Kids - We Used To Vacation
I didn't believe the hype about the Cold War Kids for a long while because their name led me to believe that they'd be the same old young, kitschy band trying to hit home with heavy subject matter but when I finally listened to "We Used To Vacation", they sound like real professionals and the heavy subject matter works. I think it all hinges on their lead singer though. If he didn't have such a mature, professional sounding voice, this song would be all wrong. Anyways, it works into the mix because it is a heavy song and starts to bring you back down to earth after all those party songs.

9. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps
I am not a big YYY's fan, but I've always had a thing for this song and with the opening tremor of that high note, you could literally put it anywhere in a mix and it would work. That being true, I feel it works best at the end to contrast the CWK and whats to follow.

10. Bishop Allen - Corazon
You know those songs you hear and you just know, before looking at the album, that it's the song finishes the list. The "last listen" sound is a very distinct sound, and you only know it when you hear it. Well, Bishop Allen's "Corazon" couldn't be a better topper and goes out on a light, remember it until next week kind of tone.