BBB: Mix #2 - Somethinguncool, The Dungeon Master's Guide to Surviving High School.
The Dungeon Master's Guide to Surviving High School (And Everything That Falls Between) (mediafire link)
A mix by somethinguncool.
Summary: This is rough-sounding indie rock with a pop sensibility. The songs have rock guitar effects, but they have hooks and lyrics that pull you in. A really good example of this is the Ronettes cover, which has the sweet pop attitude of the Ronettes song done by an indie group. The songs closely relate to the content of the story.
1. In the Garage - Weezer
This story is really closely related to my high school experience in a lot of ways, so seeing a Weezer track on this mix made me feel like I had been found out; Weezer first started being popular when I was in middle school, and they were established as common knowledge among my peers when I was in high school. This song’s lyrics in particular are utterly perfect -- it’s about being a nerd in high school, and needing a place to escape - and could serve as a one-track summary of the group. It's a sing-along song, too. Every time I've listened to this mix I've ended up singing along to this track.
2. Tom Sawyer -Rush
He gets right on to the friction of the day. This is obviously a Frank song, even though it's not a Frank genre of music. He's a modern-day warrior! After I listened to this mix, I went back and read the story over, thinking about how Frank thought about himself, and it helped me revise a little bit more.
3. D is for Dangerous - Arctic Monkeys
Here's the part where I start wiggling around in my seat on the bus, tossing my hair back and forth like a drunk hipster at 80s night. I love this song, it's so bouncy and dark at the same time. And try and keep your trousers on makes me laugh every time.
4. Creep (Radiohead Cover) - Muse
I really love it when mixes shift back and forth between tempos; for some reason that's my favorite kind of style. (No comments about my hither and thither personality, please.) This is a perfect example of how the tempo shifts - the cover is slow and quiet whereas the previous track is a dancing one - but how the tone is the same.
5. Tear You Apart - She Wants Revenge
After a lot of contemplation - no lie, since I've received my mixes I've listened to all three on repeat when I'm not working or actively engaged in conversation - I've decided that this is my favorite song from all three mixes. Creepy, obsessive, sexy, dark, good to dance to, with monotone vocals. I think it gets at the way a crush can be about wanting to get all of the other person. It's only just a crush, it'll go away/It's just like all the others it'll go away/Or maybe this is danger and you just don't know/You pray it all away but it continues to grow.
6. Lousy Reputation - We Are Scientists
When I first heard the opening bars of this song, I cracked up. I love We Are Scientists, and this album (With Love and Squalor) is one of my writing albums. I won't let your lousy reputation throw me off is all about - at least for me - protesting vehemently that you don't care what people say about someone while secretly still totally caring.
7. Twilight Omens - Franz Ferdinand
The previous song clicks really well with the previous song, flowing smoothly into this track, but the vocals are really different. It's a fabulous love song, matched with how Gerard feels about Frank.
8. All Apologies - Nirvana
Really dorky overly-personal story time! When I was in elementary school, I was really unpopular, but occasionally the semi-unpopular girls would let me sit on the jungle gym with them. I was sitting there one day when they were making fun of this girl. I was totally silent, because I was a wimp who wanted to belong. The girl they were mocking walked up, and one of the girls on the jungle gym said, "Go away, we don't like you." The girl turned bright red and burst into tears; since I was a crybaby of epic proportions, I sympathized, and I dredged up the courage to say "you guys are way mean and you suck" and slide off the jungle gym to go be friends with that girl. It was a wise decision: she was too cool, pretty, and intelligent to be my friend without that kind of goad, and she introduced me to Nirvana before anyone else had heard of them. This is a song that still makes me sniffly. Okay then! Enough of that! This is totally an amazing song for the two of them, too, sarcastic and sharp and self-conscious.
9. Be My Baby (Ronettes Cover) - We Are Scientsts
I love the Ronettes and We Are Scientists. This song is a giant win for me. Like I said in the summary, too, this is a perfect example of the sensibility of the mix as a whole, how it's indie rock that holds on to that bubbly pop feeling. It's a sweet, yearning song, too, perfect for a yearning romance.
10. Hope You're Happy Now - The Sounds
I love this song so much, and it's perfect for the way that Frank feels after Gerard disses him in the locker scene. You can call me a slut, you can call me a liar goes into Hope you're happy now, but I'm not giving in/I hope you’re satisfied with your bullshit and your lies. You hurt my feelings, in other words, and now I am going to EAT YOUR FACE.
11. There's a Fire- Okay Go
I never say quite what I mean, and never mean quite what I say,/and how did that get out of me, and what the hell did I mean to say? It's a great, simple song about misspeaking, and how hard it is to get people to believe you, and how much it sucks when you don't quite say the right thing.
12. Walk Through Hell - Say Anything
This is so completely Gerard's song about Frank that I can't even get into it. It’s all about imagining yourself as a hero for someone, wishing you could have impossible situations where you prove yourself. It finishes perfectly, too, with the singer singingNow I’ve walked through hell for you/What's an adventurer to do/Than rest these feet at home with you. This was another candidate for my favorite song; it’s the kind of song I want to sing earnestly to strangers while I'm walking down the street. I have, in fact, sung it earnestly into my hairbrush a few times, completely unironically.
13. Love Song - Tilly and the Wall
A soft, sweet song. I wasn't sure about this at first, because it seemed almost too sweet, but I love the chorus, and it works well in contrast with the louder love song of the previous track. I love, love, love the lines, oh you and me will bloom/on the windowsill.
14. Rise Above- Black Flag
I mentioned before how much I love tempo changes, and this is a fantastic example of just that. Black Flag jumps up the energy (characteristically enough). It's a shouter of a song. I think it speaks to the sense of solidarity that I think Frank and Gerard both still crave and are able to recognize in their friends. It's kind of about the potential of rebelling against the people who have always picked on you, too, and it inspired me to keep a particular scene that I was thinking of cutting out.
15. Hysteric - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
I love the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to a ridiculous degree, and any time there's a YYY track on a mix for my story (see last year, thesamefire put "Art Star" on her mix, "You're the Answer to My What-to-Do"*) I flip out with joy. I think "Love Song" could be the song that Frank and Gerard slowdance to, but it could also be this song, and whenever I think about it I imagine this song playing for them.
16. Alright - Supergrass
This is a great, sweet ending to the mix as a whole, and gives a sense of how happily things can end for the two of them.
* - warning: if you do a mix for me, I will become obsessed with it and listen to it over and over again and keep it on my ipod and still be listening to it a year later.
---
Please leave feedback here for somethinguncool; it's an amazing mix, and I'm certain you're going to enjoy it.
A mix by somethinguncool.
Summary: This is rough-sounding indie rock with a pop sensibility. The songs have rock guitar effects, but they have hooks and lyrics that pull you in. A really good example of this is the Ronettes cover, which has the sweet pop attitude of the Ronettes song done by an indie group. The songs closely relate to the content of the story.
1. In the Garage - Weezer
This story is really closely related to my high school experience in a lot of ways, so seeing a Weezer track on this mix made me feel like I had been found out; Weezer first started being popular when I was in middle school, and they were established as common knowledge among my peers when I was in high school. This song’s lyrics in particular are utterly perfect -- it’s about being a nerd in high school, and needing a place to escape - and could serve as a one-track summary of the group. It's a sing-along song, too. Every time I've listened to this mix I've ended up singing along to this track.
2. Tom Sawyer -Rush
He gets right on to the friction of the day. This is obviously a Frank song, even though it's not a Frank genre of music. He's a modern-day warrior! After I listened to this mix, I went back and read the story over, thinking about how Frank thought about himself, and it helped me revise a little bit more.
3. D is for Dangerous - Arctic Monkeys
Here's the part where I start wiggling around in my seat on the bus, tossing my hair back and forth like a drunk hipster at 80s night. I love this song, it's so bouncy and dark at the same time. And try and keep your trousers on makes me laugh every time.
4. Creep (Radiohead Cover) - Muse
I really love it when mixes shift back and forth between tempos; for some reason that's my favorite kind of style. (No comments about my hither and thither personality, please.) This is a perfect example of how the tempo shifts - the cover is slow and quiet whereas the previous track is a dancing one - but how the tone is the same.
5. Tear You Apart - She Wants Revenge
After a lot of contemplation - no lie, since I've received my mixes I've listened to all three on repeat when I'm not working or actively engaged in conversation - I've decided that this is my favorite song from all three mixes. Creepy, obsessive, sexy, dark, good to dance to, with monotone vocals. I think it gets at the way a crush can be about wanting to get all of the other person. It's only just a crush, it'll go away/It's just like all the others it'll go away/Or maybe this is danger and you just don't know/You pray it all away but it continues to grow.
6. Lousy Reputation - We Are Scientists
When I first heard the opening bars of this song, I cracked up. I love We Are Scientists, and this album (With Love and Squalor) is one of my writing albums. I won't let your lousy reputation throw me off is all about - at least for me - protesting vehemently that you don't care what people say about someone while secretly still totally caring.
7. Twilight Omens - Franz Ferdinand
The previous song clicks really well with the previous song, flowing smoothly into this track, but the vocals are really different. It's a fabulous love song, matched with how Gerard feels about Frank.
8. All Apologies - Nirvana
Really dorky overly-personal story time! When I was in elementary school, I was really unpopular, but occasionally the semi-unpopular girls would let me sit on the jungle gym with them. I was sitting there one day when they were making fun of this girl. I was totally silent, because I was a wimp who wanted to belong. The girl they were mocking walked up, and one of the girls on the jungle gym said, "Go away, we don't like you." The girl turned bright red and burst into tears; since I was a crybaby of epic proportions, I sympathized, and I dredged up the courage to say "you guys are way mean and you suck" and slide off the jungle gym to go be friends with that girl. It was a wise decision: she was too cool, pretty, and intelligent to be my friend without that kind of goad, and she introduced me to Nirvana before anyone else had heard of them. This is a song that still makes me sniffly. Okay then! Enough of that! This is totally an amazing song for the two of them, too, sarcastic and sharp and self-conscious.
9. Be My Baby (Ronettes Cover) - We Are Scientsts
I love the Ronettes and We Are Scientists. This song is a giant win for me. Like I said in the summary, too, this is a perfect example of the sensibility of the mix as a whole, how it's indie rock that holds on to that bubbly pop feeling. It's a sweet, yearning song, too, perfect for a yearning romance.
10. Hope You're Happy Now - The Sounds
I love this song so much, and it's perfect for the way that Frank feels after Gerard disses him in the locker scene. You can call me a slut, you can call me a liar goes into Hope you're happy now, but I'm not giving in/I hope you’re satisfied with your bullshit and your lies. You hurt my feelings, in other words, and now I am going to EAT YOUR FACE.
11. There's a Fire- Okay Go
I never say quite what I mean, and never mean quite what I say,/and how did that get out of me, and what the hell did I mean to say? It's a great, simple song about misspeaking, and how hard it is to get people to believe you, and how much it sucks when you don't quite say the right thing.
12. Walk Through Hell - Say Anything
This is so completely Gerard's song about Frank that I can't even get into it. It’s all about imagining yourself as a hero for someone, wishing you could have impossible situations where you prove yourself. It finishes perfectly, too, with the singer singingNow I’ve walked through hell for you/What's an adventurer to do/Than rest these feet at home with you. This was another candidate for my favorite song; it’s the kind of song I want to sing earnestly to strangers while I'm walking down the street. I have, in fact, sung it earnestly into my hairbrush a few times, completely unironically.
13. Love Song - Tilly and the Wall
A soft, sweet song. I wasn't sure about this at first, because it seemed almost too sweet, but I love the chorus, and it works well in contrast with the louder love song of the previous track. I love, love, love the lines, oh you and me will bloom/on the windowsill.
14. Rise Above- Black Flag
I mentioned before how much I love tempo changes, and this is a fantastic example of just that. Black Flag jumps up the energy (characteristically enough). It's a shouter of a song. I think it speaks to the sense of solidarity that I think Frank and Gerard both still crave and are able to recognize in their friends. It's kind of about the potential of rebelling against the people who have always picked on you, too, and it inspired me to keep a particular scene that I was thinking of cutting out.
15. Hysteric - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
I love the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to a ridiculous degree, and any time there's a YYY track on a mix for my story (see last year, thesamefire put "Art Star" on her mix, "You're the Answer to My What-to-Do"*) I flip out with joy. I think "Love Song" could be the song that Frank and Gerard slowdance to, but it could also be this song, and whenever I think about it I imagine this song playing for them.
16. Alright - Supergrass
This is a great, sweet ending to the mix as a whole, and gives a sense of how happily things can end for the two of them.
* - warning: if you do a mix for me, I will become obsessed with it and listen to it over and over again and keep it on my ipod and still be listening to it a year later.
---
Please leave feedback here for somethinguncool; it's an amazing mix, and I'm certain you're going to enjoy it.