Monday Mixtape, Vol. 152

Morning all. I think the world is reeling a bit with the deaths of Kobe, his daughter, her teammate and father, and another unannounced individual. While this may be a bit coarse, during his playing days, I did not like Kobe as a player or a person, but I, like almost everyone, respected his work ethic and devotion.

He certainly had his weaknesses, and the sexual assault case is the largest unknown, a criminal case which was dropped once the witness / alleged victim did not testify after bringing a civil suit, a case which was settled for a never disclosed amount.

It’s hard to reflect on a person’s life when you don’t know the person at all, yet he/she seemed like such a presence in mine, and all of their blemishes and mistakes are out in the public.

This brings me back to the hardest death I can remember of someone I never deal but genuinely cared about, Mac Miller. Miller pretty much finished the 2nd of what he wanted to be a three album cycle. The last album, never made, was supposed to be a straight rap album, showing the world he still loved to do what made him.

So the second album in this cycle, Circles, was released posthumously two weeks ago. Given how much I loved Swimming, I didn’t think it was possible to be as good or surpass it. But Circles is phenomenal. I need to listen more to make a final judgment as I still think Swimming is better, but time will tell. I’m blown away at the musicianship and the many pieces, sounds of different eras, styles, and ideas that floated through this guy’s head.

Miller was constantly getting better as a musician, and these albums are proof of the leaps and bounds he continued to make. He constantly worked on his craft as a producer, rapper, singer, etc.,, a devotion and love of his craft which sounded similar to Kobe’s. Always get better. RIP to the both of them.

As for the remainder of the mixtape, rapper Theophilus London released a new album which has some great tracks on it, a couple which are produced by Kevin Parker of Tame Impala. The two tracks on here are my two faves.

Have a good week all.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 151

Good Morning this Monday all! Hopefully, you all have a day off and can blast this music while enjoying yourself in the outdoors and reminding yourself this day who real agents of positive change in our history were.

So we have to start with Georgia. Seeking Thrills was the first album of 2020 that I hear, and I can guarantee this album is already cemented in the Top 10 albums of the year, if not Top 5.

Georgia has made an album that’s an amalgamation of my favorite female pop albums of the past decade. The comparisons to Robyn will be endless as “24 Hours” makes abundantly clear. There’s also Carly Rae Jepsen sounds (“About Work the Dancefloor” and “Till I Own It), Tegan and Sara (“Never Let You Go”), Purity Ring (“I Can’t Wait”), Grimes (“Feel It” and “Mellow” and “The Thrill”), MIA (“Ray Guns”).

You even get an homage to one of the greatest movies of the 1980s, the classic “The Goonies,” with the eerie and reverbed “Ultimate Sailor.” Just listen to the first 5 seconds, you’ll know EXACTLY what I’m talking about. Then she sounds exactly like Robyn the rest of the song.

Now, a critic of Georgia would say she’s just cribbing the best pop artists of the decade and making songs that sound a little too much like them, which I think is a fair critique. I don’t think this album is some NEW thing, but I’m impressed that it takes some of the best stuff from these artists and packages it all into one very cohesive album. I’ve been listening to it non-stop, and it will definitely be the life of the party. So, like the reference to “The Goonies,” the album seems like a homage the artists that came before her who were all cribbing sounds from the 80s.

It’s a great album regardless. So let’s just love it.

I also just started listening to Compton CA’s, Roddy Ricch, a guy you would swear was from Atlanta or the South by hearing his Future inspired sound. But he’s taking a lot of stuff and making his own little sound with it. “The Box” is his best track and then “Peta” with Meek Mill is another one that bumps.

So I haven’t even listened to the new Kanye album. That’s where this guy is an artist to me now. The SAME guy I defended back in 2015 but could care less for at this point. SAD! Anyways, I heard “Follow God'“ on Spotify’s Rap Caviar, and I loved it. I thought his new album was all gospel-like, and I’m pretty tired of all that thanks to Chance and Kanye’s last album, but this is just Kanye rapping (well) on a great beat. Good stuff.

Bombay Bicycle Club just released their fourth album (I don’t count Flaws), the oddly titled, Everything Else Has Gone Wrong. They’re a band I put up there with Young the Giant and Two Door Cinema Club, a band that I’ve listened to an INSANE amount over the past ten years. All of their albums have been really enjoyable, each with some phenomenal tracks. They’re upbeat and fun and totally have their own sound.

Anyways, I’ve been enjoying their new album, though I need to listen to it a lot more to give it a full thought. BUT I keep listening to “Good Day,” and I’m not sure exactly why. It seems so slow and simple, but maybe it’s Jack’s deep vocals, what I think is the lowest register I think he’s done on record. Whatever it is, I love it.

Finally, I never listened to Juice WRLD while he was living. He died a couple months ago, but I just started listening to him a bit. He reminds me a lot of Post Malone. “Bandit” is one track that stuck out to me. RIP.

Happy MLK Day.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 150 - Guest DJ's Christmas Mix!

Well ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for a rarity. In fact, I don’t think it’s ever been done on this blog before: a mixtape curated by a special guest!

That guest is none other than my mom. She gets most of the “gene” credit for my passion of music and has shown me the way on many fronts, particularly all the amazing music before my time AND Radiohead.

So it’s her time for Christmas Time in the form of a Christmas mix! This Christmas mix is one of TEN Christmas mixes she has. Dear…Jesus. There’s a ton of stuff on here I’ve never heard, so it will be great to dig in!

In her own words: “Christmas songs used to be only happy and solemn when I was a child in the 50s and 60s.  This one has a little modern melancholy, fitting for the Trump era.  But it ends with triumph.  With hope in the way. There’ll be one child born in this world to carry on, carry on.”

So amen to that and have a wonderful and Merry Christmas and happy holidays!!

And next week, I will be publishing the Top 100 Songs of 2019 and Top 25 Albums. So stay tuned!

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 149

OMG This is two times in a row - I just deleted my post again. So frustrating.

The long and skinny is go see the Netflix documentary, Echo in the Canyon, a homage to the great artists who lived in Laurel Canyon during the mid-60s, including The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, the Mamas and Papas, and so many more.

I learned so much in this doc. I never knew David Crosby was in The Byrds, I didn’t know Neil Young and Stephen Stills were in Buffalo Springfield (and by the way, I’ve been listening to more Buffalo Springfield, they’re freaking awesome), and although I know Brian Wilson, the singer and songwriter of pretty much all Beach Boys songs, was always revered as a songwriter, I never appreciated the love and awe other musicians have of him. His genius was thought to be on a level no one could even come close to. They were comparing him to Mozart and Beethoven.

Jakob Dylan brings a bunch of current artists together to recreate and honor all these musicians and their favorite songs via both an album and a concert. Check the film out, it’s great!

As for the other songs on this week’s mixtape, it’s pretty much a mix of artists you’ve heard many times before. Twin Peaks did a cool cover of Wilco, DJ Shadow released a record of some great tracks with rappers, and after seeing Spider Man - Into the Spider-Verse, I had to include the catchy track from Swae Lee and Post Malone.

Enjoy!

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 148

Well, damnit. I just wrote A WHOLE BLOG POST, and it got deleted. It went into how this new guy, Rex Orange County, reminds me of Frank Ocean while still having his own spin on the sound. Rex is English, he’s 21, and he’s got a unique style that could only be compared to Ocean. His new album takes a few rides through to get comfortable with, but I find those artists to be the ones who last!

This track by MyKey is one of my favorite songs of the year. From the second I first heard it.

Bakar is the man. Nod your head.

A lot of other stuff on here that’s great that I don’t feel like writing about, again. Damnit.

Have a good week!

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 147

Apologies for my absence, it’s been almost a full month with no mixtapes! What ever did you do??

To kick things back off, I’m going off the reservation a bit. I had the extreme pleasure of seeing Two Door Cinema Club at The Fox Theatre in Oakland on last week, and they blew away my expectations. I can’t remember whether I’ve seen them once or twice before, but they were festival shows which typically put a damper on the lights, production, sound, length of set, setlist, etc., so I don’t think too poorly of a band if their live performance at a festival isn’t super good.

All that being said, I remember the last Two Door show being good but not great. They sounded good but their performance was nothing too memorable. Cut to last week’s show, I went with a buddy who was a huge fan of theirs and had never seen them live and another buddy who wasn’t much of a fan but loves live shows. Needless to say, by the end of the show, all three of us were blown away.

First off, their visuals and light show were epic. Really mind blowing stuff, queued up for many songs to specifically cut in and out on different beats and parts of songs, while always showing lyrics to the beat of other songs. That alone was super impressive and better than most bands I’ve ever seen.

Secondly, and more importantly, their setlist was AMAZING. As a fan, you always wish you could create the setlist to the show you’re about to see (it’s a constant dream of mine), and I always leave a bit disappointed because 'I’m like, “Why did they play that song, this song would have been so much better. And they should have closed with this song!”

Two Door had pretty much the perfect setlist. The whole show was a banger with SO many hits. They played NINE of TEN songs from their best album, their debut, Tourist History. They started with one of the best songs on their new album, their fourth, called “Talk,” which was such a great way to start the show. The whole thing flowed seamlessly, and the band was doing some amazing transitions during songs which were a bit different than the recorded version. There’d be times they’d go on some tangent of the song and 'I’d have no idea if they were going into another song or what, but somehow they’d bring it back, with the light show and visuals aiding the whole thing, to the next verse or chorus of that song. “Whoa,” was all I could muster.

Sadly, Two Door is on the end of their US Tour, so if you didn’t see them already, you probably missed them on this ridiculously epic tour. Seriously, these kinds of tours where a band plays this good of a setlist with this kind of production is a rarity, and my assumption is I will never see another Two Door show as good as this one. I’ll let you know how the next one goes.

One other thing to mention before you leave me. My buddy (who loves them) and I were talking about how much we’ve listened to Two Door’s first two albums in the past decade, and Two Door has to be one of my top 5 most played bands of the decade solely because of their first two albums. Their second, Beacon, is a phenomenal album, a triumph to make something that good after a classic album where usually the sophomore albums are a regurgitation of the first. Both albums are beloved and will always be.

SO WITH ALL THAT BEING SAID, the mix this week is their setlist from the show! I’ve been listening to it non-stop, and I’d like you to come on a journey.

Long live Two Door Cinema Club.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 146

Harry Styles is this generation’s Justin Timberlake, but he may just be more talented. He’d still have to have an album on par with JT’s FutureSex / LoveSounds, but the potential is there. I love his new track, I thoroughly enjoyed his debut album, and maybe if you heard a few mixtapes ago, I even found some One Direction tracks I liked!

Quiet Hounds was a band that - waaaayyyy back in 2012 - I was totally obsessed with due to their album Megaphona. They haven’t lived up to any of my expectations as nothing they’ve released has touched what I thought was their best song, “Calling All Gamma Rays,” but they just released a new album that I’m digging. I’ve put two new tracks and two classics on this week’s mixtape to enjoy!

Phantogram and Will Joseph Cook have new tracks for you to snag, and I have been on a huge Third Eye Blind kick as of late, and in particular, I keep listening to the second tracks of their first two albums, “Narcolepsy” and “Wounded,” two of my favorite tracks Third Eye Blind has ever made.

Come to think of it, “Wounded” is my fave song by them. It has everything I love: great lyrics and a story which feels genuine, a great build up, some orchestral elements, harmonics!, great vocals, great guitar licks, awesome use of reverb (the climax of the buildup “WOOOOOoooo ooo ooo ooo”), I mean what else can you ask for?

And “Narcolepsy” is similar in that it has a slow start which leads to a great buildup but an even better transition into a super bouncy and rhythmic track, but I really love the lyrics of “Narcolepsy” and the part where I sing along with Jenkins, building up from a whisper to an excited chant to a yell into a SCREAM for the whole the third verse:

I read dead Russian authors, volumes at a time
I write everything down except what's on my mind
Cause my greatest fear is that sucking sound
And then I know that I'll never get back out
And there's a bone in my hand that connects to a drink
In a crowded room where the glasses clink
And I'll buy you a beer and we'll drink it deep
BECAUSE THAT KEEPS ME FROM FALLING ASLEEP!!!!

And I can feel this Narcolepsy slide………….