Sunday Summer Playlist Turned Mixtape

I don’t know how it is in your neck of the woods, but around here the summer weather has finally hit and with a vengeance. As I puttered around the condo today doing things with which I’m unused to having to deal like replacing shower curtain rods and repairing closet handles — all of which is par for the course when you own your home, but home ownership is still a new animal for me — I decided I needed a decidedly summer playlist to go with my decidedly summer beer.

The process I followed was a simple one: I scrolled through my music collection in iTunes and pulled those songs that struck me as summer tunes into a playlist. Each artist was allowed only one entry and then I placed the list on shuffle and let ‘er fly. Below are the results (in shuffled order):

1. Phantom Limb – The Shins
2. Happy Phantom – Tori Amos
3. Rivers Of Babylon – Sublime
4. Scar Tissue – Red Hot Chili Peppers
5. Saving Grace – Tom Petty
6. Speak to me (Breathe) – Pink Floyd
7. Human Behavior  – Björk
8. Oliver’s Army  – Elvis Costello
9. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) – Bruce Springsteen
10. Summer Of ’69  – Bryan Adams
11. Dreams – The Cranberries
12. What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? – R.E.M.
13. Tangled Up in Blue  – Bob Dylan
14. Strong Enough – Sheryl Crow
15. Lions Of The Kalahari – Sam Roberts
16. The Boxer – Simon & Garfunkel
17. Let’s Stay Together – Al Green
18. Roadhouse Blues – The Doors
19. San Francisco – Brett Dennen
20. Elevation – U2
21. Brian Wilson – Barenaked Ladies
22. Viva la Vida – Coldplay
23. Can You Feel It – Michael Jackson
24. Tonight, Tonight – Smashing Pumpkins
25. Bold As Love – John Mayer
26. I’ll Take Care Of You / It’s A Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World – Van Morrison
27. I Did It – Dave Matthews Band
28. Under My Thumb – Rolling Stones
29. The Good Times Are Killing Me – Modest Mouse
30. Traveling Riverside Blues – Led Zeppelin
31. You Can Call Me Al – Paul Simon
32. Island In The Sun – Weezer
33. Any Road – George Harrison
34. I Can’t Stay – The Killers
35. 1 2 3 4  – Feist
36. Sure Shot – Beastie Boys
37. If I Ever Lose My Faith In You – Sting
38. Sleeping Sickness – City And Colour
39. Bandages – Hot Hot Heat
40. Angel – Sarah McLachlan
41. Friend Of The Devil – Counting Crows
42. My Doorbell – The White Stripes
43. Criminal – Fiona Apple
44. Mr. Wendal -Arrested Development
45. Wake Up – The Arcade Fire
46. Times Like These – Jack Johnson
47. Flightless Bird, American Mouth – Iron & Wine
48. Old Shoes (& Picture Postcards) -Tom Waits
49. Born Losers – Matthew Good
50. Mouthful Of Cavities – Blind Melon
51. Lets Stay Engaged – The Tragically Hip
52. I Try – Macy Gray
53. Honey – Moby
54. Kids – MGMT
55. Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down – Fall Out Boy
56. Hail, Hail – Pearl Jam
57. Exit Music (For A Film) – Radiohead
58. Say Hello, Wave Goodbye  – David Gray
59. July, July! – The Decemberists
60. Sunken Waltz – Calexico
61. Best Of You – Foo Fighters
62. Short Skirt Long Jacket – Cake
63. Let’s Go Crazy – Prince
64. Hook – Blues Traveler
65. My Sweet Love  – John Mellencamp
66. Remedy – The Black Crowes
67. One Man Army – Our Lady Peace
68. Nicotina (She’s All That) – Big Sugar

Some of the selections are obvious, others less so. Some selections will make heads shake, but I was happy to hear every one today. Feel free to offer your own suggestions for entries or take me to task for some selections you think are ridiculous, debating music would be a nice change from political wrangling.

Update: the title of this post has been changed because the contents’ un-mixtape-edness has offended the purists. Their offense is not without merit and so later today I will attempt to mixtape-ify the list by trimming it into a sixty minute selection with intentional ordering.

Explanation and Mixtape-ification

So fair call in saying that the selection above is too long to be properly called a mixtape, the selection was built for length. I basically wanted a playlist that would keep going for an extended period of time while I got everything I needed to accomplish done. This, I think, is the bonus of the playlist and iTunes/Windows Media Player/whatever you happen to use. Sure, on the face of it a playlist lacks the depth of a good mixtape (or CD), but the breadth it brings to the table is indespensible sometimes. Plus, it would be interesting to see someone try to craft a sixty-plus song playlist as carefully as they would a sixty-minute mixtape. That kind of length would give you a real run for your money in terms of coming up with, exploring and meshing together subtle themes.

That is not what I did with the above, it was a relatively quick and dirty job that I threw together for function and then decided to share. But the process of trimming it down and ordering it has been interesting after the fact and I kind of dig that you get to see what I started with and where I wound up.

Without all the songs here to accurately gauge for time, I decided to give myself fifteen tracks at an average of four minutes a track (some are more, some are less — it should average out roughly). And, of course, I only used what was originally in the list. As a qualifier, let me say that I don’t make any claims about this list’s definitiveness. And Will should be happy to see that Fall Out Boy did not make the cut (though I considered gaming the process to keep it on just to see if it would cause any prominent veins to burst).

The following would be my album art (via Flickere flyzipper)

The title would be: Tanqueray and Tall Tales – A Belly Dancer’s Delight.

And without further ado,

1. San Francisco – Brett Dennen
2. Born Losers – Matthew Good
3. Hook – Blues Traveler
4. Kids – MGMT
5. 1 2 3 4  – Feist
6. Friend Of The Devil – Counting Crows
7. Sunken Waltz – Calexico
8. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) – Bruce Springsteen
9. I Did It – Dave Matthews Band
10. Any Road – George Harrison
11. Sleeping Sickness – City And Colour
12. Lions Of The Kalahari – Sam Roberts
13. Strong Enough – Sheryl Crow
14. Flightless Bird, American Mouth – Iron & Wine
15. Rivers Of Babylon – Sublime

Tagged as: playlist, summer