Spreading music via Internet memes: A mix

So I got tapped to participate in Stennie's latest CD mix challenge. Given the nature of the playlists that have been posted so far, I'm guessing that some of the material on my mix is going to stray a bit afield from the other participants. Hey, variety is the spice of life and all that, right? Anyway, here's what I sent, along with various thoughts about the songs.

1. First song (on the first side) of the first album you ever purchased: Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

I know, if you're of a certain age, that's unforgiveably cliche. But it's true -- Nevermind was the first album the greasy-haired youth who would become me ever purchased. I'd gotten a thing or two as a gift* in prior years, but Nirvana's breakthrough album represents the first time I ever walked up to a music-store counter, money in hand, and walked out with a tape. It started a sickness for purchasing and listening to music (especially louder stuff) that has only festered to this day. Thanks, Kurt. (Incidentally, Kurt Cobain's body was discovered on my birthday. Now that's a way for a superfan to lose his innocence, no?)

2. Holiday song, for the holiday of your choice: The Rugburns, "I Hate Christmas"

A gloriously cantankerous swan song for the alt-country jokers, this shows up as a hidden track at the end of their mediocre disappointment Taking the World by Donkey. I used to think the title was "I Hate Fuckin' Christmas" until iTunes told me otherwise, if that says anything.

3. Geographical location song: Jello Biafra & D.O.A., "Wish I Was in El Salvador"

Jello ragging on the cops while D.O.A. churns and thrashes behind him. What's interesting about this is that, while it's a standard snotty protest song, Jello briefly (and probably inadvertantly) taps into a lot of the resentment and anger that leads to the creation of uniformed mini-Hitlers like Darryl Gates and Justin Volpe: "I stare at you and smolder with my nightstick and my shield / Little kids throw rocks at me, their moms call me a pig." Also, it just plum rocks my socks, especially the "people are pouring into the streets" interlude.

4. A medley: The Pogues, "Medley: The Recruiting Sergeant/The Rocky Road to Dublin/Galway Races"

Well, yeah. It says 'medley' right there in the title. How could I not, etc.

5. A dance song: Dwight Yoakam, "The Loco-Motion"

Stumbled across this on iTunes, and do I even need to explain? It's Dwight Yoakam. Singing "The Loco-Motion." Somewhere in there, I think the meaning of life can be found.

6. Song with a woman’s name in the title: PJ Harvey, "Me-Jane"

My favorite track off PJ's seminal Rid of Me, back when her gender politics were considerably more caustic than they are now. Shame about the hollow Steve Albini production (the future didn't belong to the analog loyalists after all), but it still rips.

7. Song you would like to have played at your funeral: The Arcade Fire, "Wake Up"

God, listen to it soar! Every time I hear Win Butler shriek, "I guess we'll just have to adjust," I get goosebumps. I've been listening to this album a lot lately.

8. Song by your friend’s band: Rat Byte, "Fun"

Connecticut hardcore skatepunk. It's fast, it's loud, and it's over pretty quick. I saw these guys play about two feet from me in a record store once. Their entire catalog took them about six minutes to play.

9. A drinking song: The Reverend Horton Heat, "Beer:30"

Some drinking songs are wallows and some are celebrations; this is the latter. The Reverend has a lot to choose from on this count, but this, off his early The Full-Custom Gospel Sounds Of... (an album that, IMO, he never topped), is probably my favorite. It's a boogie-woogie number that makes you want to do what the song tells you to do: party, get naked and throw furniture.

10. Kickass cover song - with a twist! Okay, here’s the guidelines on this one: For this round of kick-ass cover songs, I want to hear the lesser-known original version of a song that’s better known for its cover: Robert Johnson, "Traveling Riverside Blues"

Led Zeppelin later 'borrowed' this (as they did with much of Johnson's catalogue) and turned it into "The Lemon Song," but I think I prefer the original. It's done with a wink rather than a bucket of sleaze.

11. Song with a man’s name in the title: Mclusky, "Alan Is a Cowboy Killer"

These guys were poised to be the new heroes of fierce, dangerous rock 'n' roll. Then they broke up. Damn. Andy Falkous wrote some of the best lyrics ever, and they're all the more fun for the fact that half the time they don't mean a goddamn thing.

12. B-side: Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, "Re-Educating Rita"

The two incurable wiseacres who comprised Carter USM were one of the most consistent songwriting teams in modern rock -- their B-sides (of which there were many) were often just as good if not better then their album tracks. (They knew it, too -- check out how many of their B-sides became concert standards.) This was probably their most popular B-side. Appearing initially on the "Bloodsport for All" single, it's a fizzy, buzzy bit of the band's trademark electropunk. I could have also used the astonishing "Glam Rock Cops" here, but I've used that on too many mixes lately.

13. Song about the weather: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, "Tupelo"

The two obsessions that fueled the early stages of Cave's career -- God and Elvis -- get sewn together here in this tale of The King being born in "a clapboard shack with a roof of tin" during a Biblical downpour. This song makes you feel wet inside your bones.

14. Musical question—that is, a song with a question for its title: Cop Shoot Cop, "Where's the Money?"

Not so much a song as a brief sound collage. Yeah, I kinda cheated on this one, but give me a break -- I was running low on space. If you genuinely feel screwed out of a song, download "Does He Love You?" by Rilo Kiley, which is what I would have put here.

15. Your Cheatin’ Heart—a song about cheating: The Afghan Whigs, "Now You Know"

It's only track nine of eleven on the band's masterpiece Gentlemen, but it certainly feels like the climactic moment. (The last two songs, a cover and an instrumental, might as well be epilogues.) Taking the role of a cheating cad, Greg Dulli's lyrics and delivery might seem unforgiveably callous ("Bit into a rotten one, now didn't you? / I can watch you chew it up"), but it's what he's not saying that is as important as what he is saying. Underneath the snidery and the taunting of this poor girl for being foolish enough to get involved with Dulli is the implicit, painful admission: I'm no good as a human being, and this girl probably deserves better than I. And in the context of the album, its scorched-earth rhythms and all-inclusive castigation seems only appropriate: The war of the sexes is over and both sides are losers. The most bilious expression of Dulli's fucking-and-getting-fucked aesthetic.

16. Song about violence and/or death: Okkervil River, "Westfall"

I really, really wanted to use Nick Cave's gleefully sadistic psycho-polka tune "The Curse of Millhaven" here, but I'm not one to repeat myself. So instead I went with this chilling country-tinged dirge about a boy who is not like you or I. The lulling jangle of the tune only makes the left turn it takes halfway in punch that much harder; the closing marathon moan of "Evil don't look like anything" could cause a sleepless night or two.

17. Song you like by a band or artist you normally can’t stand: Rob Thomas, "This Is How a Heart Breaks"

I find Matchbox Twenty audio vanilla of the worst sort (mopey, whiny, seems crafted just to make girls think the lead singer is a sensitive soul), so the idea of a Rob Thomas solo project excited me about as much as a proctology exam might. Cut to a couple months later, when the second single (after the ubiquitous "Lonely No More") drops, and suddenly it's stuck in my head. And I'm liking it. It's altogether peppier, groovier and more alive than anything he's ever done before. Rob Thomas is still something of a pantywaist, but for the near-four minutes that "This Is How a Heart Breaks" spans, he's also something else: a genuine goddamn rock star.

18. Song you like to play air guitar to: Karma to Burn, "Thirty-Two"

Three guys from Virginia and a whole buncha monster riffs. Air guitar was invented for stuff like this.

19. Amnesty Song—any song you wanted to use in this or either of the previous mixes, but were unable to fit in anywhere: Aesop Rock, "Battery"

Mainly because I had to work a hip-hop song on somewhere, and what better use of the Free Space category than the best track of what might be the best album (not just hip-hop album but album period) of the decade? I love this moody little number with all of my heart, and it contains maybe my favorite hip-hop lyric ever: "There's smoke in my iris / But I painted a sunny day on the insides of my eyelids." Hip-hop is the new poetry. Love it.

20. Last song (on the last side) of your favorite album of all time: Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, "The Chrome-Plated Megaphone of Destiny"

We're Only in it for the Money is not only the best rock album ever recorded, it is possibly the best rock album that will ever be recorded. Full stop.

So there it is. We'll see if I get invited back for the next round... :-)
.
.
.
.
.
.
(*The first tape I ever owned was Door to Door by The Cars. Shut up. No, seriously, shut up. I hear you laughing.)