The following is my first contribution to a mix CD swap that was organized by some friends. If you want a copy, send me your mailing address. I’d love to get a mix in return, but it’s not required.
I had two main goals with this mix. First, I decided to divide it evenly between older and newer music. There’s always a jump of at least 15 years from tune to tune. But I also wanted the mix to be coherent, so I was looking for a tone that could maybe be described as “Songs that might actually sound better if they were played on an old, hissing record player.”
Actually, I guess I also had a third goal: Like a Wes Anderson or Cameron Crowe soundtrack, I wanted to see if a good mix could help rediscover some kitsch-free relevance in “classic rock.” At one point, I gave myself the challenge of successfully integrating a Permanent Waves-era Rush song. No luck. The one song that didn’t make the final cut but that I really wanted to include is Hall and Oates’ “Sarah Smiles,” which, imo, is one of the most beautiful pop songs of the last thirty years.
- “Silence” by The Autumn Defense
- “Back of a Car” by Big Star
- “So It Goes” by Anders Parker
- “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” (S&G cover) by Aretha Franklin
- “The Eyes of Sarah Jane” by The Jayhawks
- “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” by David Bowie
- “I Will Internalize” by Martha Wainwright
- “Amelia” by Joni Mitchell
- “Nowhere Near” by Yo La Tengo
- “Ibiza Bar” by Pink Floyd
- “Bathtime” by Tindersticks
- “Generation Landslide” by Alice Cooper
- “Southern Belle” by Elliott Smith
- “Into White” by Cat Stevens
- “Great Waves” by Dirty Three with Cat Power
- “Ten Years Gone” by Led Zeppelin
- “Jesus Christ Was an Only Child” by Sun Kil Moon
- “Girl from the North Country” by Bob Dylan
- “The Shadowlands” by Ryan Adams