Like James McNew Said…

...is the name of my new mixtape for summer. You may wonder if it isn’t a bit early for such things, but I think astute readers will recall a line from Yo La Tengo’s “Stockholm Syndrome”: Summer’s what you make it. I compiled last summer’s virtual mixtape late in the season, so it functioned more as a response to summer ’09 as I already knew it, rather than an anticipation of summer yet to come. This year I wanted to get a head start and—with some of the shiniest gems of 2009, the hits of yesteryear and more as my guide—create summer ’10 in my own image. The songs on Laughing With An Ear Of Pop, though hardly the ones I listened to most, have a strange way of taking me back to my un-reclaimable existence on Summit Ave, especially when heard in sequence. I hope I can say the same about Like James McNew Said… this time next year.

A

Deerhunter, “Game of Diamonds”
Quadron, “Slippin”
Engineers, “Sometimes I Realise”
Joanna Newsom, “Good Intentions Paving Company”
The Joy Formidable, “Austere”
Sinead O’Connor, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”
Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, “I Can’t Dance To That Music You’re Playin’”
The Radio Dept., “Memory Loss”
Janet Jackson, “Love Will Never Do (Without You)”
Basement Jaxx, “Raindrops”

B

Atlas Sound, “Criminals”
Laura Veirs, “July Flame”
Patrick Wolf, “Tristan”
A-Ha, “Living A Boy’s Adventure Tale”
Julee Cruise, “Rockin’ Back Inside My Heart”
Best Coast, “When I’m With You”
Rogue Wave, “Right With You”
Concrete Blonde, “Joey”
Girls, “Morning Light”
N.W.A., “Express Yourself”
Gorillaz, “On Melancholy Hill”
Yo La Tengo, “Return to Hot Chicken”


Note: This is a proper mixtape, not a bundle of mp3s. If you’d like a physical copy mailed to you, e-mail gstueven@gmail.com. And follow me here, where I will explain each of my choices.


New (real) post coming very (very) soon.