Mashups

I’ve been on an incredible mashup kick with songs. Something about combining disparate styles and attitudes grabs me – I can’t easily explain it; but put The Beatles and Metallica together in a song and I’m in love. And a lot of rap or pop songs I’ve hated suddenly become immensely catchy once they’re paired up with a good guitar riff and some Bonham-level drums, you know?

What can I say? I have a pretty pedestrian palate. When it comes to wine, I can rarely tell the good stuff from the vinegar, and so far have met very few bottles I didn’t find something to like about, even if my epiphany didn’t come until I was two glasses in. Subtleties just escape me, unfortunately. I’m pretty basic, and that goes for music as well. My brother has an encyclopedic knowledge of classical music and while he can appreciate a hot pop gem on the radio, he’s kind of horrified at my general musical peasantry, and who can blame him? A three-chord riff, a good honest backbeat, and lyrics about screwing and I’m a happy man. Anything more than that is just frippery, as far as I’m concerned.

I never said I was proud.

I’m also lazy, so while I’d like to find all sorts of new music to ooh and aah over and call my precious, I’m damned slow and useless about actually finding new music. I listen to some Internet radio. I tried Satellite radio but found it a little overwhelming–I’m lazy, remember? I don’t want to sift through 500 channels searching for one goddamn eclectic station I like.

A year or so ago someone sent me a CD in the mail with a bunch of songs they liked, and I actually found one or two of them pretty cool, and it reminded me of the old mixtapes I used to make and receive back in The Day. This was before MP3s, so it was me and friends with our double-deck cassette racks, making 120-minute mixes for each other, timed to perfection, complete with liner notes. When I made new friends, say in college, one of the first things that got done was the making of a new mix tape, and I now realize that for years I was getting lots of great leads on music from mix tapes made for me.

Nowadays, no one does that any more. Least not for me.

So, anyone want to trade mix-CDs? I’m down. Send me some songs and I’ll send you a CD back, all random and shit. Why not? Or, you could surf on over to www.muxtape.com and make a muxtape for me (and the world!) and check out mine. We could exchange muxtapes! HUZZAH!