Mine was made by Mark over at LifeOnPlanetMe and I've now had it for a few days and a few listens. Reviewing each of the 23 tracks individually could get a bit tedious, so I'll just give a tracklisting and then discuss my particular high and low points. I won't pull any punches on the stuff I don't like as I don't believe in pretending to like music that I hate, so please don't take that side of things personally Mark - the whole point of music is to evoke emotions!
Tracklisting:
- Let there be Rock - Henry Rollins & the Hardons
- Whole Lotta Love - Prince
- Where's Captain Kirk? - R.E.M.
- Teenage Kicks - Therapy?
- It's Not Unusual - The Wedding Present
- Alphabet Street - Jesus and Mary Chain
- Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue - Metallica
- What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?
- Been All Around the World - The Pixies
- Instant Karma - U2
- Keep the Car Running - Foo Fighters
- Love Will Tear Us Apart - The Cure
- Crazy - The Flaming Lips
- Hot In Herre - Beck
- Thriller - Ian Brown
- Girls and Boys - Pet Shop Boys
- Can't Get You Out of My Head - Coldplay
- Street Life - Morrissey
- Union City Blue - Suede
- Nobody Does it Better - Radiohead
- Dark Globe - David Gilmour
- Straight To Hell - Moby
- So Long and Thanks for Al the Fish - The Divine Comedy
Whole Lotta Love - Prince. I remember at school there was an urban myth that Prince had some ribs removed so that he could auto-fellate. It seemed believable at the time, partly because of Prince's ludicrous-yet-entertaining sex-dwarf persona, and partly because when you're a teenage boy you want such things to be true. I now realise that it's certainly not true, because if you could suck yourself off, WHY WOULD YOU BOTHER WANKING IN PUBLIC LIKE HE DOES ON THIS SONG? Please, Prince, put it away.
Love Will Tear Us Apart - The Cure. I love the original, and I'm quite fond of The Cure, so I was quite surprised at how bad I found this. Where the original makes you empathise with the bleak subject material by being heartfelt and catchy, this version just makes you want to smack Robert Smith and tell him to cheer the fuck up. I feel a bit absurd for criticising a Joy Division cover for being too dreary, but this sort of thing does give sad music a bad name.
Girls and Boys - Pet Shop Boys. I just don't get the Pet Shop Boys at all - everything they do just sounds lifeless to me. And I hate the original. This made me want to superglue earplugs into my ear canals forever so that I don't accidentally hear it again.
Street Life - Morrissey. Oh, he's just a cunt, alright?
It's not all bad, though. INdeed there's some superb little numbers on there:
Teenage Kicks - Therapy? For me, Therapy? will always represent all of the unsavoury aspects of being a teenage boy. Here, they've made the song their own and turned it into a terrifyingly sinister stalker-dirge. It's actually scary to listen to. And at the end you can just about hear Andy Cairns' distorted voice saying 'Sorry Fergal' but not really meaning it. Ace.
Crazy - The Flaming Lips. The Lips always seem to do brilliant covers, often replacing many of the lyrics with their own seemingly ad-libbed words. In contrast to Gnarls Barley's dense original, this version is a far more spartan arrangement, but the quality of the song isn't dented one bit by this or by Wayne Coyne's alternative narrative.
Keep the Car Runing - Foo Fighters. Having picked one of the criminally over-rated Arcade Fire's truly great songs, Grohl and co. go for a fairly straight cover version, with an accordion taking the place of the original's strings etc. As usual, Dave Grohl's innate likeability shines through and makes this a real treat to listen to.
Hot in Herre - Beck. On just seeing this in the tracklisting I realised that 'Hot in Herre' is really a Beck song that just so happened to have been released by Nelly. The whole song is essentially one long shit chat-up line but as Beck shows here (and Nelly on the original) if you deliver it properly it can be brilliant.
There's a few other songs that I really enjoy (Radiohead's cover is a bit of an old favourite, and Coldplay use their earnestness to bring a heartbreaking quality to theirs) and some that leave me cold (Suede, Metallica, Audioslave, Ian Brown). There's some annoying niggles with a couple of tracks ending a bit abruptly and the sound levels all over the place (I really hate having to fanny about with the volume al the time to hear the songs properly). They're not critical flaws, but things that the dedicated mixtape nerd can fix easily in this glorious digital era.
As you'd expect with a mixtape for a complete stranger, it's a bit of a hit-and-miss affair for me. There's plenty on here that I don't like or am indifferent to, and I doubt I'll be listening to it much. There are, however, a few absolute corkers on here that I'll probably end up ripping and using in a mixtape of my own at some point. The main thing is that Mark's obviously put together some songs he loves and wants others to hear, which is all that you can ask for. So cheers, Mark - the CD may not have completely rocked my world but it did at least get me spastic dancing round my room to Beck.
As for my mixtape, that'll be revelaed soooooooon.
8 comments:
Oh, and I know they're not really 'mixtapes' any more but old habits die hard and 'mix CD' just sounds shit.
spastic dancing is good. I'd settle for spastic dancing....
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Sorry about the abrupt cutoffs : there were some rather obtrusive crowd screams I was trying to a void.
I was unhappy about the Volume levels too - I tried to fix it, but it wasn't having ANY of it.
Not knowing your exact taste I figured I put a bit of most styles in, and something might hit the spot.
Good review. I like the fact that you've pulled no punches over stuff you don't like.
I haven't heard any of this and suspect I'd have hated it all, which makes me _very_ nervous about posting out my own offering.
The comments on The Petshop Boys and Morrisey make me believe we're long lost brothers.
When ever I hear Morrisey I think of my favorite slogan T shirt - "No I don't have Tourette's, I really do think you're a cunt!"
Glad folk liked the review.
I've always thought that once you start sitting on the fence about music then you might as well go out and buy a James Blunt album.
What a great review - it is possible to hate some stuff, be under-impressed by others and only love a few tracks and yet still acknowledge the attention given to the compilation (apparantly unavoidable annoyances in technical issues aside).
I tried to make my contribution last night: it supposedly worked but then just wouldn't play. My partner did the same process and it was fine. I have come to the conclusion that sometimes technical glitches ARE personal.
Haven't got round to making up my mixtape yet, but the idea of choosing only covers was one that I flirted with. Would definitely be keen to hear the Therapy? cover of 'Teenage Kicks' - and also Foo Fighters doing 'Keep The Car Running', if only to see if they manage to bland it up as they have with all their own stuff ever since The Colour And The Shape came out.
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