16.4.08

A tale of pantomime salad.

Part I:
Ah, the mixtape. It's diminished in the face of the Internet's all-night buffet with a chocolate fountain, but there's still a healthy amount of respect out there for those who take the time to do one up right. Matching the gains, balancing the rock anthems with the ballads, digging out the B-sides that should have been A-sides, and squeezing as much as possible into one album... it's an art.

And in high school, we were all artists. Not that we were all equal -- those who took the time to throw some choice movie quotes into the mix were superstars -- but we all spoke the language. And as artists, the mixtapes were our gallery showings. Critics would come from everywhere, and analyse the reasons for your choices as much as they'd listen to the music itself. A baring of the artist's soul, best navigated by those with a prior understanding, but wide open for any fool to tread upon. Just like art.

And last night, while digging through boxes of memorabilia, I found one such cassette buried among some 3.5" floppy disks. Its title is "The Altruistic Voyage", and I'd never seen it before in my life. My best guess is that it's something my brother cobbled together in 1995.

Part I:

The Waltons - The Boxer
Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me
Gandharvas - Downside
Wannadies - You and Me Song
U2 - Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me
Our Lady Peace - Big Dumb Rocket
Live - Lightning Crashes

Part II:

Smashing Pumpkins - Today
Oasis - Wonderwall
Gandharvas - Watching the Girl
Neil Diamond - I Am I Said
Genesis - Mad Man Moon
Song 2 - Blur
Sarah McLachlan - Ice Cream
Genesis - More Fool Me

Yow. Was there any mixtape in 1995 that didn't have "Lightning Crashes" and "Song 2" on it? That kind of shoots down my original argument a bit... on the other hand, our parents didn't like Neil Diamond half as much as we did, and mom hated Paul Simon.

You take your rebellion where you can find it, I guess.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It makes me happy that there are other Neil Diamond fans under the age of 50.