Now That's What I Call Indie Rock!

I've started making mix CD's for my car. I used to just listen to whole albums all the way through. I'm a firm believer in the rock album as opposed to the individual song - I like artists that can come up with 10-15 interestingly related songs that work separately or together in equal measure. This is one of the things I respect the most about my favorite band of recent memory, Radiohead. They come up with great singles ("Creep," "Just," "High and Dry," "Karma Police," "Knives Out," "There There" to name just a few) but the songs take on greater meaning when listened to all together.

But I got seriously into listening to music on my mp3 player. Yeah, I know, just the other day I wrote a tirade against mp3 player wearing assholes who ignore everyone and everything around them. I'm not in favor of oblivious mp3 player usage. But it is a handy device for when you have to walk somewhere or have a long plane ride or something. And I used to walk around more when I lived in Hollywood. You can't walk anywher in Culver City. You can grow Bin-Laden-length facial hair faster than you can walk anywhere in West LA.

So, inspired by the very handy "shuffle" item on my mp3 player (it's a Dell, by the way, not the iPod...you bunch of conformists), I've been making up my own mix CD's to listen to of new music. And I've made one that's, quite honestly, totally freaking awesome. I take a great deal of pride in coming up with an excellent mix of songs, even though all I'm doing is arranging the creative work of others. I had a friend in college who wanted to be a museum curator when she grew up, and this always struck me as odd about that potential job. Your greatest aspiration is to show off other people's work in the best possible light...weird...I guess it's better than being a film critic, where your greatest aspiration is to tear down the painstakingly created work of others.

But I digress. Without further ado, here's the tracklist of my latest mix CD offering, complete with information on where to find the songs should you wish to obtain them (legally, like me!)

1. Xiu Xiu - I Luv the Valley

This was a recommendation from Pitchfork's 50 Best Singles of 2004 List, which inspired several selections on this here list. It's a completely deranged, completely original, thoroughly creepy and terrifically accomplished electronic rock song about...um...well, something about loving the Valley and something about a pill that you have to take. Anyway, it's pretty much totally psychotic, much like the rest of Xiu Xiu's 2004 full-length "Fabulous Muscles."

2. The Faint - Worked Up So Sexual

I'd like to nominate this song for Stripper National Anthem. Not only would its smooth electronic grooves and 80's synth lines perfectly set off the recently tattooed gyrating ass of a fetching co-ed, but it's also actually about making a career of stripping. "Smaller tits and younger limbs/Can cause a fit of rivalry." From the Faint's delightfully sleazy 1999 album Blank-Wave Arcade.

3. Beck - Hell Yeah

Okay, so you can't actually buy this song yet legally. It's going to be the first single from Beck's newest LP, March's "Guero." But I have obtained it early, because I'm a horrible person. It reminds me of a stripped-down Odelay track. Very catchy, full of new Beckisms ("Fax Machine Anthems!/Get Your Damn Hands Up!") and wacky samples. Good stuff.

4. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Shake the Sheets

From Ted's recent release of the same name. It's kind of a grab bag for every social/political issue on Ted Leo's mind at the moment, particularly the President and his ill-advised venture into Iraq. But even if you disregard the witty and thoughtful words, it's just a killer pop song, with a really terrific hook and more of Leo's spastic, memorable guitar work.

5. Bloc Party - Banquet

This is a truly wondrous track from South London breakthrough artist Bloc Party, off of their as-yet-unreleased-stateside debut album "Silent Alarm." You may have to wait another month or so to get this album legit-style, but when you do, a return to the glory days of 90's Brit Rock awaits you.

6. Guided by Voices - My Valuable Hunting Knife

Yeah, they're not all new songs. I never said they were! This is a slight little pop gem from GBV's overall phenomenal 1995 full-length Alien Lanes. Like many kooky, memorable Robert Pollard songs, it's got trippy, surreal lyrics tied to a pretty, Beatlesesque melody, recorded in a scratchy lo-fi style that gives it a warm, homemade quality. This is among my favorite Guided by Voices songs, maybe because it's so simple and it all fits together so well.

7. Beck - Asshole

7 tracks and 2 Beck songs. I know what you're thinking...this is a lazy mix-tape. Well, Mr. Hansen's the only repeat artist on this thing, and I just couldn't resist the teaming of GBV's lo-fi wonder "My Valuable Hunting Knife" with Beck's bedroom anthem "Asshole," off of his One Foot in the Grave album. I first heard this song on a Tibetan Freedom Concert box set CD, and I've always liked it. It's gruff, a little weird, a little dark, very folky. A perfect acoustic Beck song.

8. Fiery Furances - One More Time

The Fiery Furnaces are a controversial band at the moment. Some people, like myself, think they're as good as any recording group working today, turning out 2 albums now of innovative, catchy, eccentric indie rock. I didn't hear an album in 2004 as challenging, interesting or fun as their "Blueberry Boat." This is an unreleased cover of The Clash's "One More Time," originally off their "London Calling" follow-up "Sandanista!". The Clash's original's a great song, totally reinvented here by the Furnaces with crashing cymbals and looping production effects. Sounds a lot like all their songs sound when they play live. Exciting and disorienting, organized and chaotic at the same time.

9. Lou Barlow and Friends - Needle in the Hay

A live recording I found from the Elliott Smith Tribute set by Sebadoh and Folk Implosion frontman Lou Barlow. It's from last year's All Tomorrows Parties rock festival. Smith died before the concert of what was ruled to be a self-inflicted stab wound to his chest. Seems an odd way to kill yourself, no? Stabbing yourself in the chest? But then, Smith was a dark cat. I took to his music from a rather early age, back when he was with the post-punk outfit Heatmiser. This was from his second, self-titled solo CD. It's probably best-known for its appearance in The Royal Tenenbaums in the scene where Luke Wilson, um, tries to kill himself. Man, that Wes Anderson...he's a perceptive guy...

10. Pavement - Westie Can Drum

90's college rock legends Pavement famously recorded dozens of awesome B-sides, songs that rocked the house whenever they played them live, but which for some reason never made it on to proper albums. This one's among my favorites. It appeared on the single for "Stereo," off of the band's super-terrific 1997 album "Brighten the Corners." It ends with one of those raucous Pavement repetitive crescendos, with frontman Stephen Malkmus repeatedly insisting "I got a knife" over wailing power chords. Kickass.

11. Camera Obscura - Suspended From Class

This song is basically a direct rip of Belle and Sebastian's songwriting style, a pleasantly old-fashioned piece of twee chamber pop directly influenced by Phil Spector's Wall of Sound work. But who cares? It's so soothing and easy to enjoy, the best track off of the group's charming "Underachievers Please Try Harder" from 2004. I put it here to kind of cleanse the pallatte after the messy shenanigans of Pavement and the Fiery Furnaces, to divide this unruly mix into two neat and tidy halves. Thank you, Scotland, for birthing not one but two bands to supply me with laid-back folk tunes ideal for midsections of mix tapes.

12. TV on the Radio - Freeway

On the original version of this mix disc, I put the Grateful Dead's classic "Cumberland Blues" from their immortal countrified "Workingman's Dead" album. But it's just a touch TOO antiquated...its bluegrass twang threw off the more contemporary sounds on the rest of the album. So I swapped it out for this urban barbershop (?) number from this Brooklyn ensemble's debut (and demo tape, really) "OK Calculator". Urban barbershop's about as good a description as I've heard - these guys can harmonize as well as any rock group I've heard, and the song's nothing but a vocal workout. Weird and fabulous stuff here.

13. The Decemberists - The Soldiering Life

The version I have on my CD is a live cut of the D'Rists playing this tune at Bumbershoot last summer. But you could just as well use the album cut, from their 2003 release "Her Majesty." Like the best Decemberists tunes, it tells a rather intricate story. This one's about the warm filial love a soldier comes to feel for his brothers in arms during the height of WWI. But it's a catchy pop song! And it includes weird antiquated referecnes like "swaddled in our civvies" and "soldiers and the steveadors." You gotta love obscurity like that!

14. Flaming Lips - Lightning Strikes the Postman

Before they were the clown princes of indie pop, amusing the kids on the "Spongebob Squarepants" soundtrack and hosting late-night movies on IFC, the Flaming Lips were a messed up psychedelic punk band, turning out mind-bending, hard-rock spectacles like "Lightning Strikes the Postman," off of their majestic 1995 head trip "Clouds Taste Metallic." Along with "Evil Will Prevail" from that same album, this is one of the highlights of the Lips entire catalog, a shimmering surrealist gem about nothing and everything, in that order. It sounds terrific live as well, as I discovered when they played it at the Pantages during their 2003 tour.

15. Yeah Yeah Yeah's - Maps

One of the few radio cuts on this mix tape (there's another big one later on down the list). I'm not a huge fan of the Yeah's, really. I tend to find Karen O's posturing obnoxious and obvious. She's just not appealing, her voice is nothing much, and so I kind of have to weed through the songs to find the bits that I like. But everything comes together sensationally in this song, an ode to unrequited love off of their debut full-length "Fever to Tell". It builds perfectly, establishing a subtle mood and then demolishing it with a bevy of crunchy guitar noise. To my mind, it's the best song in their catalog thus far.

16. Arcade Fire - No Cars Go

When I checked out The Fire at the Troubadour in January, they played a few amazing songs off of their still-unreleased debut album and some B-sides. It made me immediately want to go and get this CD, until I remembered that no one's gotten around to releasing it Stateside. Despite the fact that Canada's just north of us, and they have it, and it's online anyway in case an unscrupulous people wanted to just log on and obtain it, saving themselves the trouble of waiting around for months for a proper release and then shelling out $14 for it. But this is a thoroughly enjoyable tune, fitting in pretty well with the major themes of the Fire's immaculate, assured proper debut "Funeral." It's mournful yet exuberant, telling a dark, grim tale through the eyes of a child.

17. The Ponys - Sad Eyes

There's a cheesy 70's tune already named "Sad Eyes," from the same whiny douche who did "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." Why would The Ponys take the name from such an infamously weak-ass AM turd? I mean, obviously the retro reference is welcome, as The Ponys style borrows heavily from the New Wave bands of the 1980's, The Cure in particular. It's rowdy, dynamic garage rock that's bizarrely being compared in some circles to The Velvet Underground. It doesn't sound like The Velvet Underground at all. But let's not hold that against it.

18. Ladytron - Blue Jeans 2.0

Originally, this slot went to Annie's song "Heartbreak," a Kylie Minogue-derivative pop ballad that bizarrely received the #1 ranking in Pitchfork's Best 50 Singles of 2004. I got bored of that song after a few spins, so I replaced it with this crackling electronic dream pop from Ladytron's sylishly icy 2003 collection "Softcore Jukebox." Cause, you know, they're both techno-ish songs with chick singers. Okay, I'll admit it. I'm running out of good adjectives to describe cool music. This is why I usually stick to movie reviews.

19. Gwen Stefani - What You Waiting For?

I told you there was another radio hit on here. This is the smash first single from Gwen's debut solo outing, the apparell-themed "Love Angel Music Baby." Get it? Her clothing line's name is L.A.M.B.! It's, like, synergistic or something! Anyway, I like the silly 80's vibe on this track a lot. It's essentially just a jumpy update of Cyndi Lauper's sound, but since Cyndi Lauper's no good at making this stuff any more, why not Gwen Stefani? I can't really think of a better use for her specific talents than coming up with a bouncy radio hit like this every couple of months. Plus, I like ending a mix with kind of a goofy song, to let the listener know I'm not taking myself so seriously, you know? If I had even better taste, I'd have closed the thing out with Ashlee Simpson's "La La," but I didn't think of it at the time. That'll be waiting for Now That's What I Call Indie Rock 2, coming soon, maybe, if I ever feel like devoting this much time to a post again.