Mux005: September 2008, the reissue

It's finally over.

Dropped.

1. Interpol - Untitled
2. Oxford Collapse - Electric Arc
3. Jay Reatard - See/Saw
4. A Place To Bury Strangers - To Fix The Gash In Your Head
5. Andrew Bird - Fake Palindromes
6. The Magnetic Fields - I Don't Believe You
7. The Ting Tings - Great DJ
8. Cut Copy - The Twilight
9. The National - Available
10. Chin Up Chin Up - Collide the Tide
11. Born Ruffians - Kurt Vonnegut
12. The Walkmen - New Country

Mux022: May 2009, the reissue

Working backward now given that I listened to most of the middle muxes at work the other day. Also: This is a nice reprieve from Arc and good background music for making shot lists.

Stream it, download it, whatever.

1. Metric - Help I'm Alive
2. Japandroids - Wet Hair
3. Rage Against the Machine - Guerrilla Radio
4. Franz Ferdinand - Ulysses
5. The Thermals - When I Died
6. The Sea and Cake - Car Alarm
7. Radiohead - Blow Out (Remix)
8. The Ting Tings - Be The One
9. Atlas Sound - Springtime Instrumental
10. Why? - The Hollows
11. Neko Case - This Tornado Loves You
12. Camera Obscura - French Navy

Mux022 / Re-examining The Red Album

Just in time for Mother's Day. And one year after my first mux, when Muxtape used to be worthy of creating muxes. I don't even know what they do now. Not even worth linking. Or checking.

Download the full mix via drop.io. The tracks:

1. Metric - Help, I'm Alive
2. Japandroids - Wet Hair
3. Rage Against The Machine - Guerrilla Radio
4. Franz Ferdinand - Ulysses
5. The Thermals - When I Died
6. The Sea And Cake - Car Alarm
7. Radiohead - Blow Out (Remix)
8. The Ting Tings - Be The One
9. Atlas Sound - Springtime Instrumental
10. Why? - The Hollows
11. Neko Case - This Tornado Loves You
12. Camera Obscura - French Navy

Also, I gave this neglected album an impromptu listen earlier:



Seriously, it's not that bad. Sure, it disappointed all post-Blue Album, post-Pinkerton expectations in which everyone expected it to be as good as The Blue Album or Pinkerton, but there are some good tracks here. And forget all the ridiculous stuff Rivers and the band said about how "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" was the best thing Weezer has ever recorded.

I listened to it as a reaction to Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown last night, which I think is a resounding Eh at best. I pinned it down pretty easily: even if some songs are catchy power-chord pop-rock, Green Day positions themselves as some saviors of everything, which comes off as condescending, obnoxious, and really pretentious. With regards to the latter, it doesn't help that the over-arcing "opera" is some impenetrable, impossible-to-follow-without-liner-notes narrative.

So here's why, at the root of things, I like the Red Album: it doesn't take too itself seriously. "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" isn't an unnecessary statement about the state of things; it's a huge, proggy, silly song. "Troublemaker" is fairly innocuous. "Porks and Beans" is downright solid. "Thought I Knew" is the only downright-bad track, mostly considering that a song not sung or written by Rivers, by definition, isn't a Weezer song. The rest are fairly mild on the ears.

I don't recall ever downright-trashing The Red Album, and now there's further reason not to: it's passably good.