::REVIEWS:: 2013 Secret Mixtape project

[AndySlash]

Need to use Shazam on a couple of these.

but, that's not the point... you find out AFTER you post the review.

speaking of reviews, mine will come this weekend. sorry to whomever is waiting!

[LetMeSleep]

Need to use Shazam on a couple of these.

but, that's not the point... you find out AFTER you post the review.

speaking of reviews, mine will come this weekend. sorry to whomever is waiting!

okay then. half of my review will be quite random then.

[Dr. Van Nostrand]

Tracklist:

Half Moon - Blind Pilot
Down in the Valley - TH&TH
Birmingham - Shovels and Rope
Hang On - Dr Dog
Everyone Gets a Star - Albert Hammond Jr
Barracudas - Devil Whale
Morning Thought - Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr
Chemicals Collide - Cloud Cult
Back in Your Head - Tegan & Sara
Call an Ambulance - Albert Hammond Jr
Fit Against the Country - Horse Feathers
Cats & Dogs/Coeur d'Alene - TH&TH
The Rabbit, The Bat, & The Reindeer - Dr Dog
Standing at the Threshold - Deer Tick
Gotta Have Rock & Roll - Heartless Bastards
LA - Elliott Smith
We Are the Tide - Blind Pilot

That's a fun mix, Doc. I ended up picking up that Devil Whale Young Wives EP and a couple of other tracks from Dr. Dog. Good stuff.

Make sure to get teeth from devil whale, its a fantastic album, and as far as Dr dog, everything from fate to b room are great albums from beginning to end, easy beat is good and the earlier stuff is much different from what they are currently doing and not as easy to get into, but still some nice tunes

Can anyone share the link to this mix? I'm intrigued.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/flt26ujhns19ijo/RmMix2.mp3

[Dr. Van Nostrand]

i cant seem to find that devil whale album....

No? Pm me your email and ill get it to you

[doone]

Tracklist:

Half Moon - Blind Pilot
Down in the Valley - TH&TH
Birmingham - Shovels and Rope
Hang On - Dr Dog
Everyone Gets a Star - Albert Hammond Jr
Barracudas - Devil Whale
Morning Thought - Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr
Chemicals Collide - Cloud Cult
Back in Your Head - Tegan & Sara
Call an Ambulance - Albert Hammond Jr
Fit Against the Country - Horse Feathers
Cats & Dogs/Coeur d'Alene - TH&TH
The Rabbit, The Bat, & The Reindeer - Dr Dog
Standing at the Threshold - Deer Tick
Gotta Have Rock & Roll - Heartless Bastards
LA - Elliott Smith
We Are the Tide - Blind Pilot

That's a fun mix, Doc. I ended up picking up that Devil Whale Young Wives EP and a couple of other tracks from Dr. Dog. Good stuff.

Make sure to get teeth from devil whale, its a fantastic album, and as far as Dr dog, everything from fate to b room are great albums from beginning to end, easy beat is good and the earlier stuff is much different from what they are currently doing and not as easy to get into, but still some nice tunes

Can anyone share the link to this mix? I'm intrigued.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/flt26ujhns19ijo/RmMix2.mp3

Thank you!

[Lament]

I promise to get my write-up posted soon. I haven't forgotten...

[stip]

Okay, I'm sorry for the delay. here is my review:

Overall: There was one song I really liked. A little less than half the mix was decent. Half of it I hated. The problem was that the mix was dominated by low-fi indie pop grunge garage punk songs. Just keep the low-fi and add any two of those other adjectives and you have almost every song. And it was the middle of the mix. 1-3 and 16-22 (excepting song 19) were a solid block of songs. But there were 13 songs in the middle that I couldn't stand, which is killer for a mix. Weak singers, uninteresting songs, and a general exploration of what felt like every facet of a genre I could care less about. It made for a tedious listen after a promising beginning and was probably more than a reasonable ending could redeem. Having said that, what was here was well sequenced and flowed well, and for all I know these are excellent representations of a style of music I really don't like.

There was also a heavily 80s sampled rap song, which I liked only if it was parody.


Regardless, thank you to the person who made my mix, and I look forward to seeing who most of these artists are, especially the two or three I might check out further.


Song 1: I like the singer’s weak scratchy voice. The guitars are a bit too loud and it turned the end into something of an anti-climax, but it was an interesting approach, since this kinda felt like something you’d normally get on an acoustic guitar, rather than a grunge wash. Still, this is someone I might want to hear more from and I liked the song.

Song 2: Low-fi epic feel to this. I’ve come to enjoy this one more and more each time I hear it, and this might be another keeper. The flourishes between the verses were really nice. Not sure this needs to be 7 minutes long, though. Another band I might be curious to check out

Song 3: I like the electric sandpaper groove in this song. The music was good in a subtle relentless way. I didn’t enjoy the singer, though. Nothing compelling about him, and it was even slightly offputting, although I’m having some trouble figuring out exactly what it was. Too bad. This was a song I wanted to like.

Song 4: This sounds like a garage band covering an early soundgarden song--the same unappealing sludgeyness. And then the singer comes in with a weak voice to give this a boring martial punk cadence. There’s a snottyness to it that is a real turn off. Did not like this one at all.
Shit, I hope none of these are songs by RMers.

Song 5: Man, this is just three crap singers in a row. This, plus the low end production just makes this an unappealing sonic wash. This song is hitting anathematic notes I should like, except the overall production (the singer, plus the guitars) just makes me not want to care when they happen. Plus there is a faux-heaviness to this I could do without.

Some of these songs sound like they are copies of copies of copies. I don’t know if the songs are necessary supposed to be this washed out.

Song 6: Bright grungey pop punk with the same sound problem. This sounds like a Foo Fighters demo, but not in a good way. There is a fun wanky solo I would probably enjoy in a better song.

Song 7: The mix continues to slide down. This is a high pitched, less grunge, more new wave take on what feels like the same song I just heard. It’s a catchy song without actually being catchy, like it was assembled based on second hand descriptions.

The singers really make or break songs for me and this is 5 in a row I just don’t like

Song 8: Make that 6. Beatles meets Violent Femmes. I bet some people will really love this one. Not me, though. In fairness, I think this is probably a good song, genuinely catchy, that just doesn’t appeal to my tastes, whereas I just didn’t think songs 4-7 were good at all.

Song 9: Some heavily sampled rap song. I almost always hate it when songs do this. It’s stealing someone else’s good ideas to cover the absence of your own. Interesting choices though: Sledgehammer, Sussusiddio, Jack and Diane, Another Day in Paradise, and some Barry Manilow song whose name is escaping me. I can’t tell if this is genre parody, in which case it is brilliant, or serious, in which case I think it sucks, but then again I’m not really well positioned to judge whether or not a song like this is any good.

On the plus side it at least felt like something new after that previous run.

Song 10: Some more garage punk--this has a bit more of a 70s feel to it. I like the riff, but the singer’s high scratchy voice kills it. This sounds like it could have been an early White Stripes demo, actually. But I didn’t start liking them until their 3rd record, so it’s another miss. However, with a different singer, this could have been a song I would have liked. The spacey solo at the end is kinda neat

Song 11: More grunge punk pop. Could also have been a foo fighters demo. Again, this is not a good thing, since I really don’t like the foo fighters. Singer is boring, and the music is unremarkable and the slacker optimism isn’t in the least bit compelling. This is probably the kind of music people who want to listen to green day but find them too mainstream would listen to. But I’m not one of those people

Song 12: More garage punk. I kinda despise this genre, and I feel like this mix is exploring every single facet of it. This singer was particularly annoying, and the music didn’t really have anything worth fixating on. But somewhere there is a high school gym where people really enjoyed this one.

Song 13: Okay, this is starting promising--if nothing else it is a change of pace. The female backing vocals help offset the nasally quality of the lead singer. I like the music, and it’s a fun song that is probably elevated by not being the 9 songs that preceded it. I don’t think this is going to make it onto any playlists but I get the appeal

Song 14: and we’re right back where we left off...this is the discordant out of tune version of the garage punk genre. Stock song.

Song 15: Basically the same song I’ve been listening to for the last hour, but with an echo on the vocals. I kinda like the descending tones on the guitar, and wish the same sound was in a better song. The vocal melody reminds me slightly of the Beatles.

Song 16: Bass heavy grunge indie rock. the singer at least sounds distinctive, which helps a ton. I kinda like this one. I think it’s harmed by ear fatigue at this point.

Song 17: Garage pop with a female singer. I also kinda liked this one (other than the strangled scream at the end). Like song 16 I might like it even more if it was sandwiched between some different songs, rather than the first succesful move after 14 failed attempts

Song 18: Okay, some gentle singer songwriter stuff. A nice change of pace, and a pretty song. These two singers sound better together than they do on their own--they play off each other nicely. Overwritten though and the lyrics don’t really fit well into the melody. This singer really wanted to write a Leonard Cohen song. Still, this was good.

Song 19: Okay, more garage punk, but it’s live this time! Actually, the live sound probably improved this one. I don’t like the song, but it at least felt at home. I did like the funhouse keyboards in this one. If any of these people could sing this would all go down easier.

Song 20: I like the desolate electronic background music in this one. The singer doesn’t have a good voice, but there is a weary authentic quality to it that plays well in this song, and the music isn’t what I would have expected in this kind of song. It makes this all feel a little surprising. This is probably the artist I am most likely to check out. This was good. I think maybe the best compliment I can pay it is that it was a 7+ minute song that I wasn’t anxious to end. The hypnotic drone in this song compliments the lost characters really well.

Song 21: There is kind of an Unforgettable Fire era U2 feel to the music at the start of this. I really like the music here. I wish it wasn’t an instrumental. I need singers to tell me a story.

Song 22: A roady weary traveller kind of closer. It feels a bit out of place in a mix so dominated by brash, disposable songs. A decent song, though. Would be a good song if I liked the singer a bit more.

[VinylGuy]

nice review Stip, im dying to know the actual Tracklist...

[Jorge]

That was Super Nintendo Chalmers's mix and it's one of my favorites in this whole shindig. Every song is good.

[EJ]

Did Jorge make one of these things?

[Jorge]

I did not. I was going to, but then someone dropped out and I thought I had to do so too, to keep the number of participants even. Now I know I could've made it work anyway, but whatevz. Next time.

[EJ]

I would be interested to hear what you'd put together.

[Jorge]

Some of these songs sound like they are copies of copies of copies. I don’t know if the songs are necessary supposed to be this washed out.

This is like how Americans travel out of the country and are astonished by the taste of bread. You've been listening to overproduced Pearl Jam records for too long.

[stip]

That was Super Nintendo Chalmers's mix and it's one of my favorites in this whole shindig. Every song is good.

well the fact that you don't like a lot of lightning bolt makes a LOT more sense now.

Can you post the tracklist?

[Jorge]

I don't have the tracklist, SNC needs to post that.

[Malloy]

yeah snc, let's see it!

[Alex]

SNC making a mix for stip. jesus.

[super nintendo chalmers]

That was Super Nintendo Chalmers's mix and it's one of my favorites in this whole shindig. Every song is good.

Thanks, appreciate that.. Needless to say, It was a bit of a tall order. So I just compiled a bunch of stuff that came out this year. It got me though the crunch of finals and provided some parameters to make this thing.


http://www.sendspace.com/file/20atyt
Here's the tagged version.

[Malloy]

yes

[stip]

SNC, were there any songs on there that you thought I'd go for or that were aimed for me, or was it a 'this is my favorite stuff from the last year' mix? If the former, which ones?