Mad Mix

This was playing on a mix-tape when my buddy Sascha and I were driving to Mt. Holyoke (during our college days) in my old Hyundai Excel. We happened to hit this great downhill stretch just as the “4-3-2-1″ part occurred. It was like we were flying.

In a Korean rocket, but still. . .

Most-hated albums, as described by artists I’ve never heard of (except for a couple).

The 40th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band occurred a few weeks back. I don’t want to write ‘celebrated,’ because I think a lot of people were depressed that their favorite album was now 40 years old. I was raised on that record, and it actually comprises a double-anniversary for me. See, Sgt. Pepper’s was also the first CD I bought, which was released in honor of the album’s 20th anniversary. So now my anniversaries are having anniversaries, and I feel pretty ancient.

Here’s an anxiety-of-influence look at the album. Enjoy:

Today, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is so familiar, so encrusted with myth, that we can barely hear it. The album’s 40th anniversary has been greeted by scores of articles touting its historical significance, debates about whether it is “the greatest album of all time” (as if such a thing exists), and the usual talk about its status as pop music’s first “concept album.” The last notion is demonstrably false. Frank Sinatra was making concept albums back when John and Paul were still knocking around in knee socks, and compared to Sinatra’s LPs such as In the Wee Small Hours, the Sgt. Pepper’s “concept” is, to say the least, loose — the claim is based mainly on the framing device of the title track, which opens the album and is reprised before the stupendous finale, “A Day in the Life.” What cannot be denied is Sgt. Pepper’s influence on subsequent rock and soul concept albums. It’s unfair to blame a record so based in the rigors of pop songcraft, and so full of jokes and mischief and fun, for the ponderous music that was unleashed on listeners in the decades following. But the fact remains that there would have been no Dark Side of the Moon, and no dragons-and-warlocks-themed prog-rock epics, had the Beatles not decided to don epaulets for their lark of an album cover and impersonate a vaudeville band.

At the beginning of Talking Heads’ concert movie Stop Making Sense — one of the finest  movies in its genre — David Byrne walks on-stage, puts down a small boombox, says, “Hi. I’ve got a tape I want to play,” and presses play. It turns out to be the rhythm track for Psycho Killer, which he accompanies with vocals and acoustic guitar.

I was thinking of that moment this weekend when Mrs. Mix & I bought our new iPods. My previous one was from July 2004, and was showing its age; the battery life was terrible and it took some trickery to get stereo sound. Hers was in full give-up-the-ghost mode, refusing to boot up or mount in iTunes, its display only showing a folder and a frowning iPod.

Fortunately, the Apple store gives a 10% discount on new iPods with a trade-in, even if the trade is completely non-functioning. It’s a good recycling incentive. Rather than half-ass it, we bought 80gb iPods and proceeded to load them up with plenty of music.

But that gets me back to the beginning of that Talking Heads movie, and one of those “My, how things have changed” moments. See, a few months ago, my next-door neighbor tried to save my soul by giving me an audiotape of a sermon by a Jew for Jesus. She’s always been concerned for the state of our family’s souls, and I thanked her for the gift.

Once she was gone, I looked at the cassette and said to Mrs. Mix, “It’s a pity I don’t have anything to play this on.”

And it was true; there’s nothing in Chateau Mix that can actually play an audio cassette. Neither of our cars have tape-decks either; just radio/CD/auxiliary line for iPods or Sirius. So it looks like I’m darned to heck.

And it looks like the opening of Stop Making Sense will make less and less sense as the years go by. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a masterful intro to the concert, but I don’t think we’re too far off from a time when kids have no idea what an audiotape is. Meanwhile, I’ve got a device the size of a pack of cards and it holds more than 20,000 songs, plays video, shows photos, and has 20 hours of battery life.

Oh, and if Apple announces a fantastic update to the iPod line that renders the current models obsolete sometime in the next week, you have me and Mrs. Mix to thank.

This song reminded me of

1. a skit from The State where Michael Ian Black discovers pants;
2. a girl from high school I made out with once, whose name was very similar to that of the lead singer of The Breeders (Kelley Deal).

Yesterday, Mrs. Mix & I went shopping at the big-ass outlet mall about 30 minutes from home. In the past, they’ve had some pretty strange musical choices on the outdoor music system, so I decided to list everything they played while we were walking between stores. I offer you the Woodbury Common Playlist for April 14!

I’d have listed songs played in the stores themselves, but it seems Mad Mix has a tendency to browse in stores that play generic Eurodisco (see Boss, Hugo and Klein, Calvin). I can’t even begin to come up with commentary for all these tracks

(by the way: all these links open up the iTunes Music Store, so don’t click on them unless you’re interested in hearing the samples from iTunes)

Queen of Hearts - Juice Newton - Walking out of Banana Republic, we heard this song and I realized that I would need to keep track of the day’s music, rather than try to reconstruct it from memory.

I Love a Rainy Night - Eddie Rabbitt - So I was immediately rewarded by hearing a song that may not have been played anywhere on earth in the past 20 years.

When I Think of You - Janet Jackson - For some reason, there’s no iTunes version of this song, but they do have the video of it, if’n yer interested in seeing a more, um, voluptuous version of Ms. Jackson.

Beginnings - Chicago - I was afraid this would still be going on by the time we were ready to go home.

Breaking Us In Two - Joe Jackson - Fortunately, they played the radio edit, which is only 48 minutes long. It was followed by one of my favorite Joe Jackson tunes.

Wheel in the Sky - Journey - I marched in place for a second and pretended to be wearing incredibly tight nylon pants and a halter top, just like Steve Perry. (My favorite thing about this pic is that it came from an article about Journey’s music being ‘repackaged’.)

We Built This City on Rock and Roll - Starship - It should go without saying: this is the worst song in the history of rock.

American Pie - Don McLean - Interestingly, it was followed by a song that some consider the best in the history of rock.

Let’s Live for Today - The Grass Roots - La, la, la, la, la, la.

Frozen - Madonna - This was from her first good album in a bunch of years, back when Madge discovered Hinduism or something. I like most of this record, except for when she tried making some sorta pointed social commentary in that “Swim” song.

I Can’t Dance - Genesis - This is from a Genesis record that I never listened to. I used to dig them, in a stadium-rock kinda way. That is, “Turn It On Again” will still get my blood pumping. On the other hand, Mrs. Mix keeps hoping that “Illegal Alien” will go through a resurgence, since Phil Collins does the worst Mexican impression since Charlton Heston in A Touch of Evil.

Marrakesh (sp) Express - Crosby, Stills & Nash - When you want hash and you don’t want to wait!

Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around - Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty - I do a killer Tom Petty impression. It involves

1. singing very nasally
2. not separating my top and bottom front teeth while singing
3. tucking in my lower lip

It gets me laughs. From myself.

There She Goes - Sixpence None the Richer - A terrible cover. It’s never good to make bouncy versions of songs about taking heroin. At least Duran Duran were smarter when they made a synth-epic version of “Perfect Day.”

Faithfully - Journey - Holy crap! More Journey! This is the balladeering version that got all the girls to swoon for Steve Perry. I guess he seemed safe or something.

I Saw the Light - Todd Rundgren - I have to admit that I never really liked this song, but Lori Carson does a neat cover of it. It feels like one of those ’70s-specific tunes, about running around and screwing all over, but finally seeing the light and coming back to the one you sorta love.

Show Me - The Pretenders - This has that terrible Vegas/rodeo “loo-o-o-o-o-o-o-ve” section at the end. The Pretenders were already in decline when this record came out. You knew they’d never put out another “Tattooed Love Boys,” although I did sorta like “Time the Avenger.”

The Spy Who Loved Me - Carly Simon - I was surprised that this wasn’t on iTunes either. They have a bunch of orchestral versions, but that’s it. I think this was the Bond flick where he’s getting chased through the alps or something, and skis off a cliff. Fortunately, he’s got a Union Jack parachute to save himself. It was a Roger Moore one, and those are pretty forgettable.

More than This - Roxy Music - During one of our trips to Woodbury, we head about a million cover tunes, including the post-Natalie Merchant 10,000 Maniacs version of this one. Mrs. Mix pretended to fall asleep while we were walking.

Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinead O’Connor - She was in CK Women while I hung out on a bench and listened to the music. Such is the life of Mad Mix.

I.G.Y. - Donald Fagen - This is that “what a wonderful world it will be” when technocrats take over the world and impose their supersmart plans on the rest of us.

Evil Ways - Santana - It made me think about last week’s Idol, which was terrible.

I Go To Extremes - Billy Joel - Mrs. Mix retitled this “I Go To Extreme Sides of the Street When I’m Driving Drunk All Over Long Island.” Last week, we heard “You May Be Right,” which starts with the sound of a car crash, making it a much funnier song than it was when it first came out.

Levon - Elton John - I could post a whole series of WTF Lyrics about this song.

Bonus tracks from store-interiors!

(We did it all for) The Glory of Love - Peter Cetera (Neiman Marcus Outlet) - The only thing worse than having two Journey songs was hearing a second Chicago-esque song. This was from a Karate Kid movie, I think, which made me wonder what Ralph Macchio’s been up to. Not the actor; he was in Artie Lange’s Beer League, which was a funny movie, in a New Jersey way. No, it made me wonder what the other Ralph Macchio was up to. Now you know why Mad Mix has not gotten around to curing cancer.

So Emotional - Whitney Houston (Saks Off 5th) - Fortunately, she developed a self-medicating regimen.

Adrian Shaughnessy at Design Observer has a good post on the death of the album cover, and how the digitization of music is a lot different than the digitization of books:

And yet, is the determination of the micro labels to continue producing CD and vinyl packaging anything other than the remnants of a fanboy obsession with recorded music common amongst people who grew up in the pre-digital era? Most of the label owners I’ve interviewed for my book [on current record cover art] have talked about the usual teenage interest in band logos, enduring love affairs with New Order album covers, and fixations with the “smell of records.” But are we talking about something deeper here? Does music need some sort of physicality to maintain its intrinsic value? If our favourite music merely exists as a sliver of invisible code on a computer, do we lose something?

I remember lamenting the death of the album cover back when the CD achieved ascendence. I think it was my realization that the smaller size meant we’d never see a cover like Who Are You again:

Of course, the CD opened the door to other possibilities, like making a booklet that looks suspiciously like a sheet of blotter acid. Thanks, Plastikman!