This week's mix CD is a bit of a weird one because I'm not sure exactly when I made it. #193 should make it the most recent mix CD I've made but it wasn't on the spindle when I was numbering them and I found it in another disc box recently. The tracklisting suggests late 2013 to me, maybe songs that didn't make it onto the monthly review mix I used to do for a few years when I downloaded a lot. It's heavy on AFI and side-project Blaqk Audio and those were the bands I was listening to the most in the wake of the release of AFI's Burials album at around that time.
1. Blaqk Audio - Bite Your Tongue 🟢
This is the first of a number of Blaqk Audio b-sides on this CD and is as good as anything on the first couple of albums. I'm not sure when this song came out - Google suggests it might have been a b-side on their 2nd album Bright Black Heaven - but it's a decent BA song. I particularly like the pre-chorus: "Oh my paper rose, strike a borrowed pose and they'll never know your frail truth". This is a BA song that sounds like it could have made it onto an AFI album if it had some guitars on it. It's not exceptional but it's a good enough average BA song with a cool abrupt ending. I'm not sure about the pew-pew-laser sounds though.
2. Brigitte Bardot - Moi Je Joue 🔵
How charming! This is total perfume ad music but it's so lovely and bright and evocative. It's a sunny beach on the Riviera with Brigitte and it never fails to make me smile. I don't speak enough French to understand what it's about or sing along but I like it all the same. It's much too short, though.
3. AFI - This Time Imperfect 💜
From the beach to the darkness but just as evocative. We are knee-deep in my 2013 'second honeymoon' AFI phase here but This Time Imperfect is actually one of my favourite songs from my 2006-2007 AFI phase. On this mix it's been torn from the other pieces which make up a full suite at the end of the 2003 album Sing The Sorrow and I'm not sure why it's track 3 on here when it is so clearly a closing number. I love the 2nd chorus where the everything becomes more intense, I love Davey Havok's vocals on this song and especially the classic Davey "oh!" before the final choruses. It's sad and beautiful and I get a big hit of nostalgia from it. However, despite the outro being super atmospheric and nice to bask in at the end of an album, it feels way too long in this context.
4. Falling In Reverse - Caught Like A Fly 🟡
Now to a phase I regret! This song is basically a diss track with Ronnie Radke airing his feelings about his former bandmates in Escape The Fate (particularly bassist Max Green) moving on with their careers while he was in prison. I usually love everything with this cabaret-style rhythm but this song is not good. The Escape The Fate saga was like watching a soap opera and I always felt like these personal grievances should have been dealt with privately rather than by putting lines like "your grandfather would roll in his grave" on your comeback album. From this distance, and probably at the time, I got the feeling that Ronnie and Escape The Fate were using the drama of their story to sell records and keep the publicity machine rolling, and I wonder how genuine it really was. Ronnie Radke, of course, doesn't seem like a very nice person in general, and even if this song was good - and it's not, it's just sad - I wouldn't rate it any higher than this because I would be happy to never hear it again.
5. Blaqk Audio - The Ligature 🔵
This feels more like an intermission piece than a song - I could imagine hearing it while the band nip off stage for a quick break. It might be a Jade Puget experiment with vocal effects but it's still great. A little melancholy but somehow soothing, and one of my favourite Blaqk Audio non-album tracks.
6. Jason Mraz - I'm Yours 🟢
This song was everywhere for a while but it has almost entirely disappeared now. Weirdly the only time I remember hearing it in recent years is when it was played in a nightclub I was in a couple of years ago and it felt like a very odd choice for that atmosphere. It's twee, one hit wonder singer-songwriter pop but that doesn't mean it's not a nice love song. I must have listened to this a lot when it was ubiquitous as I still know all of the words. Unlike a lot of the music on this disc it's positive and laid back and I just 😊😊😊
7. AFI - Totalimmortal 🔵
This song makes me miss live concerts so much even though I wasn't going to shows like the ones I imagine when I hear this song. I feel like I deserve to be thrown around and climbing on people in a sweaty club while AFI play in 2000, but alas. It's a great, dark hardcore punk song and the gang vocal chorus is a delight. I've known this song for over a decade and read the lyrics only yesterday but after the first line I have no idea what they are.
8. Paramore - Native Tongue 🟢
Another b-side but this time by Paramore. This song is kind of like a bridge between their albums Brand New Eyes and the self-titled Paramore. I haven't listened to this as much as the other b-side from this era, Escape Route, but the chorus is catchy. The album it was dropped from ended up being so much better than this though. This might just be an average Paramore song but Hayley Williams is a brilliant singer and lyricist and I adore her.
9. Touché Amoré - DNA 🟢
Touché Amoré is another band that makes me yearn for packed hardcore shows and I wish I'd gone to see them at this time. This is heavy and urgent and I love that they pack as many notes as possible into every bar - guitar, bass and drums are all operating as fast as they can until they drop out, which is thrilling.
10. Blaqk Audio - If Only 🟢
Another Blaqk Audio intermission track. The lyric that repeats in this one: "If only you knew, would you save me?" forms the outro of one of the songs on the first album so I wonder whether this is an alternative outro that they were playing with and chose not to use. It's a nice little piece of music but I don't think I could call it a song.
11. Phoenix - 1901 🟢
This indie tune is instantly recognisable from a million soundtracks but I don't think I can confidently name it - when writing a draft of this blog I put '???' next to the title as I was kind of guessing it was this. 1901 sounds like Vampire Weekend crossed with every landfill indie band the UK produced after Alex Turner made it look easy and it's an average song with a pretty keyboard part. I guess if it was really good I would know for sure what it is, but on this mix it feels like a bit of filler since I genuinely wouldn't have recognised it without that hook.
12. AFI - 337 🟢
I thought this was Blaqk Audio again but it's actually an AFI instrumental that preceded the debut of Blaqk Audio as a side-project. It's all atmosphere and I think it was made to be a bit of background music on their website or something. It's fine but again, not really a song as such.
13. Street Drum Corps ft Bert McCracken - Happy Xmas (War Is Over) 🟢
I love Bert McCracken's cliché emo boy voice and he sings this well. I'm not sure about the "war. is over." robotic intro and outro and I find the acapella middle bit odd - I know it's a cover but it sounds like they sort of ran out of song and needed to fill the space. I don't know anything else about Street Drum Corps but I assume they're a band and not an actual drum corps as I've been imagining for the last 10 years. There are at least some strong drums in it. It's a nice cover if you're an emo but I don't really need this in my life now. I'll eventually get round to talking about the John and Yoko original which I think is an underrated Christmas hit.
14. Blaqk Audio - The Switch 🟢
This has a really good Davey Havok vocal and great Blaqk Audio erotic lyrics - it would fit in well on their first album, Cexcells, in fact I wonder why it didn't make it onto the album. It's got super heavy bass and soaring synth sounds and it really takes me back to 2013-14.
15. Pat Boone - Moody River 🔵
The mp3 I used for this mix has been ripped from vinyl as you can hear the needle drop and the crackle of the record, which I love. This song is so sad and mournful with the back-up singers; I love a 'splatter platter'. The sweet tinkle of the piano is jarring against the rest of the song, just like this song itself sticks out on this mix. I'm sure Pat Boone is really unhip but I can't help but like this song.
16. Panic! At The Disco - Nicotine 🟡
I couldn't identify this song from the intro alone as I'd fallen away from P!ATD by the time this came out. I didn't realise Brendon had gone for EDM beats as early as this but I'm not especially fond of it. I don't like to be one of those people but I don't really get on with modern P!ATD or Fall Out Boy - the old stuff was better. It's catchy but it's not clever, and P!ATD's lyrics used to be full of clever wordplay and references. It's very pop, but not in a good way.
17. Elvis vs JXL - A Little Less Conversation 🟢
This song was everywhere in 2002. It's fun and upbeat and I think this would have been around the time I became aware of Elvis as a cultural phenomenon... well, this and Lilo & Stitch. It's a cool take on the song but Elvis is timeless and doesn't really need this. I don't know how to categorise the song - it's dance music but at the same time it's not? It's kind of like dance music for older people, dance for people who don't like dance music, I guess.
18. Mark Ronson ft Lily Allen - Oh My God 🔵
Lily Allen does a really good job of this Kaiser Chiefs song, giving an attitude-filled, more spoken than sung performance. I can remember the video for this song was really cool with a cartoon Lily performing the song in a club. I also remember that I wasn't allowed to like this album because it was all covers and therefore wasn't a creative work. I think we can all agree now though that Mark Ronson is an impressive producer and the way he took indie songs and made them jazzy and cool is a real talent.
19. Tegan & Sara - Now I'm All Messed Up 🟢
Twins Tegan & Sara really know how to put a song together and harmonise - they sound so good together. It's a sad break up song disguised as a big pop ballad and they deserve all of the acclaim that they get. When they add 'please stay' to the last 'go if you want, I can't stop you' chorus it breaks my heart.
20. Motionless In White - Ghost In The Mirror 🟡
This is a standard metalcore emo song. I don't remember listening to this at all when I was into MIW but it's a very predictable exercise in genre. It's from the EP that preceded their first album Creatures and I was never able to get into any of their pre-Creatures work. It does absolutely nothing for me now. Also it took me three choruses to realise he's saying "tell me dear" and not "tell me dad", which is what happens when you listen to Metal Mickey by Suede a lot.
21. Tonight Alive - Lonely Girl 🟢
I've unfortunately burned a terrible quality (probably YouTube) rip of Lonely Girl to this disc. Jenna MacDougall has a great voice but this is a fairly average pop punk song, not that there's anything wrong with that. The song reminds me of rain so it's possible that the video features them performing in a storm but I can't remember anymore.
22. AFI - Breathing Towers To Heaven 🔵
This song starts with a really cool intro and I didn't recognise it as AFI until Davey started singing. He sounds amazing, as if he's singing in an empty room with sparse drums and bass backing him up. The excellent 'disappear with me here' chorus is familiar to me but I've never spent a lot of time with Breathing Towers To Heaven and I'm not sure why because it's really good! A pleasant discovery from this disc.
23. Vampire Weekend - Hannah Hunt 🟡
A final mystery song. I figured it out as Vampire Weekend upon hearing the distinctive voice of Ezra Koenig but it took him singing the song title to click in my brain. It's indie filler material again - I would download this stuff when I came across it online and then never listen to it. It's okay but I feel like I waited for 2:40 before the song actually started and I'd already made my mind up that I wasn't interested by then. He has a nice voice and Vampire Weekend have a really interesting and pretty sonic palette but this song isn't really anything.
Overall a pretty average disc with few gems.
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