don't try to get made. make your own.
THE MEGAN FOX SYNDROME
mix for march 2011
01. Sleigh Bells - Tell 'Em
02. MEN - Credit Card Babies
03. Exotica - Desorbitee
04. Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch
05. Teenage Bad Girl - Keep Up With You
06. Lykke Li - Rich Kids Blues
07. Lilly Wood and the Prick - Cover my Face
08. Metric - Gimme Sympathy (iTunes session)
09. Tesla Boy - Rebecca (Estate Remix)
10. Benoit & Sergio - Boy Trouble (Visionquest Remix)
11. Cinnamon Chasers - White Flag
12. Cut Copy - Pharaohs & Pyramids
13. Beat Connection - Silver Screen (Dreamtrack Diamond Sound)
14. Spokes - Everyone I Ever Met
>> download <<
Originally this mix was entitled "Songs for Girls Who Don't Say They're Sorry", and then I read In which we teach you how to be a woman in any boy's club, so the Megan Fox Syndrome it is. I mean, really, originally this mix was going to be entitled "all the lyrics to 'Boy Trouble' because I too like legs like a Ferrari" but that was just a working title. But anyway: 7 female vocal tracks, 7 male vocal tracks, and almost neatly gender segregated, except for where Teenage Bad Girl sneaks in before Lykke Li.
This mix is really heavy on.... sort of techno/electro/synthpop, with noise pop to start out and attempting-to-be-shoegaze to end it. I spent fruitless hours trying to arrange the track order so that they worked together in one swath of sound, but "Silver Screen" was so difficult to fit in, and I had to cut out a track by the Acid House Kings because there was just no way it was going to work. Likewise, a track from the latest Gorillaz and a track from the latest Iron and Wine had to go, so I slung in Metric and Ladytron to patch the transitions, and it still didn't really work. Which teaches me to make mixes on the fly. This isn't really even a mix per se; it's just a general overview of what I've been listening to recently, and basically sounds like an extended playlist from my Tumblr, haha.
So "Tell 'Em" is from the same people who did "Kids" (the one used in the MTV Skins ad). I don't really think they're that great, but I'm sure if I were 14 and actually cool, I would. MEN is apparently made up of the same people who were in Le Tigre, and Talk About Body is supposed to be about sexual/body politics, which is really, really, really obvious in "Credit Card Babies", but it's not only the politically(?) aware that can dance to "I'm gonna fuck my best", yeah?
I can't really seem to find much more on Exotica besides that they're a French guy-and-girl duo, but "Desorbitee" is so unbelievably catchy, you have no idea. It should be illegal how toe-tappingly, shoulder-poppingly amazing that backbeat is. "Destroy Everything You Touch" needs no introduction. "Keep Up With You" has a thousand different remixes. The Louis La Roche "Disco vs Distortion" Remix is actually really, really nice, but because it's a little more downtempo, I think it wears on my nerves a bit. "Rich Kids Blues" is not my favorite by any stretch from Wounded Rhymes, but it's probably the best way to demonstrate how far Lykke has come since "Dance. Dance. Dance."
"Cover My Face" is another Lilly Wood and the Prick track. Sorry, I just really like them, even though they're really not that remarkable. "Gimme Sympathy" has stuck with me despite its general, you know, blandness, just because the chorus is such a great question: Who would you rather be, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones? And this is slowed down, with a little bit more bare bones orchestration, so that it sounds oddly Coldplay-ish, but not necessarily in a bad way. My amateur infatuation with Metric aside, the iTunes sessions has so many songs that instantly bring me back to being in high school and rocking out to "Hustle Rose" on a portable CD player. The only song that session was missing was "Wet Blanket."
Tesla Boy is so, so, so 80s. The remix actually hides it a little bit. And it goes over long, I think, but such is what you get with EPs. "Boy Trouble" is actually the whole reason why I made this mix. Give it some time develop. It's a little slow to start (almost two minutes) but the song itself, I think, is a self-lacerating, ~lol irony~ work of art, in that you don't know if the words "You need poetry to turn these girls on" is uttered in admiration, sarcasm, or both. The remix is incredibly sparse and repetitive. The original track, which you can hear here, has more structure and substance, but there's a kind of detached charm in the remix. It's kind of like, the original track is someone's house party, and you're chatting with this kind of cute but kind of full-of-himself hipster about his bad luck with girls, and the remix is you waiting in line at a club, listening to a cute but kind of full-of-himself hipster in line behind you explain ~his views on dating~.
"White Flag", though, is perfectly straightforward and earnest, like most of Cinnamon Chasers in general. Cut Copy is less so with "Pharaohs & Pyramids," and so they're harder to listen to, but more rewarding, as the track builds and builds before it doesn't so much break as just... kind of.. hang there... until it ends. The Dreamtrak Diamond Sound remix of "Silver Screen" is more tropical, more, well, dream-like, innocent and sweeter than the original, which I think is a better fit for the song. And "Everyone I Ever Met" walks, talks, and acts like an ambient/shoegaze track, but then at almost the 5 minute mark, it changes its mind. I think I like it because it reminds me of The Album Leaf but with more Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire thrown in. It also doesn't really belong in this mix. But then, this mix doesn't really belong in this mix.
Happy listening. ♥
mix for march 2011
01. Sleigh Bells - Tell 'Em
02. MEN - Credit Card Babies
03. Exotica - Desorbitee
04. Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch
05. Teenage Bad Girl - Keep Up With You
06. Lykke Li - Rich Kids Blues
07. Lilly Wood and the Prick - Cover my Face
08. Metric - Gimme Sympathy (iTunes session)
09. Tesla Boy - Rebecca (Estate Remix)
10. Benoit & Sergio - Boy Trouble (Visionquest Remix)
11. Cinnamon Chasers - White Flag
12. Cut Copy - Pharaohs & Pyramids
13. Beat Connection - Silver Screen (Dreamtrack Diamond Sound)
14. Spokes - Everyone I Ever Met
>> download <<
Originally this mix was entitled "Songs for Girls Who Don't Say They're Sorry", and then I read In which we teach you how to be a woman in any boy's club, so the Megan Fox Syndrome it is. I mean, really, originally this mix was going to be entitled "all the lyrics to 'Boy Trouble' because I too like legs like a Ferrari" but that was just a working title. But anyway: 7 female vocal tracks, 7 male vocal tracks, and almost neatly gender segregated, except for where Teenage Bad Girl sneaks in before Lykke Li.
This mix is really heavy on.... sort of techno/electro/synthpop, with noise pop to start out and attempting-to-be-shoegaze to end it. I spent fruitless hours trying to arrange the track order so that they worked together in one swath of sound, but "Silver Screen" was so difficult to fit in, and I had to cut out a track by the Acid House Kings because there was just no way it was going to work. Likewise, a track from the latest Gorillaz and a track from the latest Iron and Wine had to go, so I slung in Metric and Ladytron to patch the transitions, and it still didn't really work. Which teaches me to make mixes on the fly. This isn't really even a mix per se; it's just a general overview of what I've been listening to recently, and basically sounds like an extended playlist from my Tumblr, haha.
So "Tell 'Em" is from the same people who did "Kids" (the one used in the MTV Skins ad). I don't really think they're that great, but I'm sure if I were 14 and actually cool, I would. MEN is apparently made up of the same people who were in Le Tigre, and Talk About Body is supposed to be about sexual/body politics, which is really, really, really obvious in "Credit Card Babies", but it's not only the politically(?) aware that can dance to "I'm gonna fuck my best", yeah?
I can't really seem to find much more on Exotica besides that they're a French guy-and-girl duo, but "Desorbitee" is so unbelievably catchy, you have no idea. It should be illegal how toe-tappingly, shoulder-poppingly amazing that backbeat is. "Destroy Everything You Touch" needs no introduction. "Keep Up With You" has a thousand different remixes. The Louis La Roche "Disco vs Distortion" Remix is actually really, really nice, but because it's a little more downtempo, I think it wears on my nerves a bit. "Rich Kids Blues" is not my favorite by any stretch from Wounded Rhymes, but it's probably the best way to demonstrate how far Lykke has come since "Dance. Dance. Dance."
"Cover My Face" is another Lilly Wood and the Prick track. Sorry, I just really like them, even though they're really not that remarkable. "Gimme Sympathy" has stuck with me despite its general, you know, blandness, just because the chorus is such a great question: Who would you rather be, the Beatles or the Rolling Stones? And this is slowed down, with a little bit more bare bones orchestration, so that it sounds oddly Coldplay-ish, but not necessarily in a bad way. My amateur infatuation with Metric aside, the iTunes sessions has so many songs that instantly bring me back to being in high school and rocking out to "Hustle Rose" on a portable CD player. The only song that session was missing was "Wet Blanket."
Tesla Boy is so, so, so 80s. The remix actually hides it a little bit. And it goes over long, I think, but such is what you get with EPs. "Boy Trouble" is actually the whole reason why I made this mix. Give it some time develop. It's a little slow to start (almost two minutes) but the song itself, I think, is a self-lacerating, ~lol irony~ work of art, in that you don't know if the words "You need poetry to turn these girls on" is uttered in admiration, sarcasm, or both. The remix is incredibly sparse and repetitive. The original track, which you can hear here, has more structure and substance, but there's a kind of detached charm in the remix. It's kind of like, the original track is someone's house party, and you're chatting with this kind of cute but kind of full-of-himself hipster about his bad luck with girls, and the remix is you waiting in line at a club, listening to a cute but kind of full-of-himself hipster in line behind you explain ~his views on dating~.
"White Flag", though, is perfectly straightforward and earnest, like most of Cinnamon Chasers in general. Cut Copy is less so with "Pharaohs & Pyramids," and so they're harder to listen to, but more rewarding, as the track builds and builds before it doesn't so much break as just... kind of.. hang there... until it ends. The Dreamtrak Diamond Sound remix of "Silver Screen" is more tropical, more, well, dream-like, innocent and sweeter than the original, which I think is a better fit for the song. And "Everyone I Ever Met" walks, talks, and acts like an ambient/shoegaze track, but then at almost the 5 minute mark, it changes its mind. I think I like it because it reminds me of The Album Leaf but with more Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire thrown in. It also doesn't really belong in this mix. But then, this mix doesn't really belong in this mix.
Happy listening. ♥