Monday Mixtape, Vol. 210

I’m back for a second week in a row! It’s like Joe Dimaggio’s hit streak.

King Gizzard’s “Magenta Mountain” is the song-child of MGMT’s “Electric Feel” and “Kids.” These are two of the greatest (and even more influential) songs of the past 25 years, so I welcome all copycats.

Oracular Spectacular is now 15 years old…so that makes me…really old.

Sharon Van Etten’s new track is very outside her lane, which is great. Gives me Arcade Fire vibes.

The hell if I know who Lo Moon and Ceramic Animal are.

I’m a Wilco fan boy, always will be. At this point, they’re properly rated, maybe they have been since Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Why do I love Wilco? Because they do things like this! Sadly, I missed out on Wilc-O’s, the cereal. No longer available :(

Jeff Tweedy is properly underrated, always will be. He’s my Dylan. Yeah, I said it. I didn’t say he was Dylan, so cool out, but listen to “Ambulance” and soooo many songs before that. Listen to his solo albums. Listen to the album he made with his 16 year old kid! It’s all great, and Tweedy’s a poet every step of the way. That dude and a guitar is all I need.

Let’s end with Lupe, another wordsmith. His new album is good. It’s simply produced. It allows Lupe room to breathe. He exhibits his masterful wordplay while not trying too hard (there’s a bad line or two and couldn’t believe Lupe was cool with it, but that’s me being petty.). And his voice sounds like old Lupe.

Turns out Lupe recorded his album with a $100 microphone and GarageBand! Which is less than I spent on my album! And my album was SO MUCH better than Lupe’s. Ok ok, it was so much worse, which goes to show that money can’t buy talent. But then there’s the entire pop music industry which would say otherwise. So I guess that goes to show that money can buy you talent, but you have to have enough money to buy you talent, and I didn’t have enough money to buy me talent even though I had more than $100 but not as much as Iggy Azalea.

Enjoy the week.

Monday Mixtape, Vol. 149

OMG This is two times in a row - I just deleted my post again. So frustrating.

The long and skinny is go see the Netflix documentary, Echo in the Canyon, a homage to the great artists who lived in Laurel Canyon during the mid-60s, including The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, the Mamas and Papas, and so many more.

I learned so much in this doc. I never knew David Crosby was in The Byrds, I didn’t know Neil Young and Stephen Stills were in Buffalo Springfield (and by the way, I’ve been listening to more Buffalo Springfield, they’re freaking awesome), and although I know Brian Wilson, the singer and songwriter of pretty much all Beach Boys songs, was always revered as a songwriter, I never appreciated the love and awe other musicians have of him. His genius was thought to be on a level no one could even come close to. They were comparing him to Mozart and Beethoven.

Jakob Dylan brings a bunch of current artists together to recreate and honor all these musicians and their favorite songs via both an album and a concert. Check the film out, it’s great!

As for the other songs on this week’s mixtape, it’s pretty much a mix of artists you’ve heard many times before. Twin Peaks did a cool cover of Wilco, DJ Shadow released a record of some great tracks with rappers, and after seeing Spider Man - Into the Spider-Verse, I had to include the catchy track from Swae Lee and Post Malone.

Enjoy!

Jeff Tweedy of Wilco performs "One Wing"

I don't think it's quite accurate to call Wilco underrated because they've had some serious critical acclaim, none more so than their album that many critics viewed as their masterpiece, 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

But they are definitely under appreciated. I really don't know many friends my age that love Wilco. In case you'd like a primer on them, check out my "Best Of"

For some reason, they seemed to only have really stuck with a previous generation. Yet they still make great music. Their leader, Jeff Tweedy, just released a phenomenal and subdued acoustic album of some of Wilco's great tracks. I liken his voice to Bob Dylan. It's not good but that's exactly why it's so great. His soul is represented in his vocals, it's a scarred beauty.  

"One Wing" was not included on this album (no idea why either because this is such a cool interpretation of it), but Tweedy performed it at music fest, Pickathon. A remarkable performance, even more so as it highlights his penchant for lyrics:

We once belonged to a bird
Who cast his shadow on this world
You were a blessing and I was a curse
I did my best not to make things worse for you
It isn't true, I always knew this would be our fate
This is what happens when we separate
This happens to all dead weight, eventually
We may as well be made of stone
We can't be flown

One wing will never fly
Neither yours nor mine
I fear we can only wave goodbye