The Mix Tape Challenge : #1 "A" to #287 "Another Love Story"

I'm about four days into "The Mixtape Challenge", and still sort of unclear as to how exactly I'm going to document it. However, here are a few things I do know:

1) Holy cow, I have a lot of songs: Obviously I knew the number was upwards of about 9,000, but I guess I thought I consumed more songs on average than I actually do. I've had my iPod on during my morning and evening commutes, as well as at work most of the day, but I'm only about to break 300. This might take a while.

2) I'm not always conscious of what I'm listening to: Although I'm not consuming like I thought, I must listen to enough music on a regular basis that it's often just background noise. As I mentioned before, I work in an office that encourages listening to music, and most of my jobs, all the way down to when I was a hostess or cashier, involved music playing at all times. I'm able to function easily with all four of my department/office mates playing music and listening to my own. But between phone calls, getting into a project, etc, I'll have passed 20 songs and not known what they were.

3) I have some really bad music: I'm still very much an "album" person, so most of the time if I like one song, I'll grab the entire album. But sometimes, someone really does just write ONE good song, and I came across a few of those. I'm sorry Nick Cave, but "Abbatoir Blues" starts off great, but is unlistenable after.

4) I have a short attention span: Which is why this project came to be in the first place. This almost came to a halt at the start when I realized that "A" by Cartel, my very first song, was 9:45 seconds long. And then one sleepy morning I just didn't feel like rocking to "All Downhill from Here" by New Found Glory or some afternoons needed something more upbeat than "Alone Apart" by The Swell Season". But I stuck through most of it, regardless of my mood.

So there's that. In the interest of time, if I'm more conscious of the music, I'll give a lot of these songs the "3/4 rule", and if it's something I don't really dig, I might skip over it after a long enough point. At least then, I gave it somewhat of a shot. Again, I'm not sure how to articulate this process, but for now I'm going to go through some of the songs and what came up as I heard them again.

"A" by Cartel - "Another Love Story" by Jeffrie's Fan Club

• I have five different versions of Elliott Smith's "Angeles". What's funny is I got to thinking that he's one of my only Top 10 artists that I have never and will never see live, yet that's never bothered me until now.

• I have sooo many songs that begin with "All". I thought it would never end.

• I really looked forward to when I hit "Alternative Baby" by Reel Big Fish. What a great song.

• I got really into the band Centro-matic in high school, but despite their expensive discography, I could never find their older albums at my local record stores. It wasn't until I went to LA and browsed the Ameoba Records candy shop that I found at least three of their records, including Distance and Climb. The funny thing is, I never really got into the rest of them, although hearing "Actuator's Great" makes me want to revisit.

• Drew Danburry is the MAN, and "Accidentally" is a great song.

• For a lot of the songs, the Daytrotter.com version comes before the album version, and it's really cool to hear them back to back. They are still one of my favorite out-of-the-box music developments in years.

• I probably should have been in college in the 90's, because I LOVED when Goo Goo Dolls "Acoustic #3" popped up.

• Further Seems Forever "How to Start a Fire" was such a great record.

• I felt the need to apologize when Dashboard Confessional came up, even though no one said anything.

• The Hippos still have one of my favorite covers ever with "Always Something There to Remind Me"

• Mostly Bears' live version of "Airports" breathes an entirely different life into the song than the album version. I suggest starting with their live album "Team of Spirits" and then circling back to the records.

• I had to skip over "American Idiot" by Green Day because there's a good chance I heard it in a grocery store or salon recently anyway. That song is STILL everywhere.

• I unapologetically listening to ALL 8:34 of "American Pie" at my desk.

• I have an old demo of Dear and the Headlights that I still have named "Andrea" (because I didn't have any of the tracklisting back then and they say 'Andrea's in the room kickin her shoes off). I know it's "Daysleeper", but I will always use the original file name I made up.

• While I skipped some of my duplicate songs (ie-if I had a live version and album), I listened to ALL three versions of Matt Nathanson's "Angel".

• I skipped the bootleg I had of Annuals at Bowery Ballroom from '08 because the quality just isn't that good. I should probably just delete it. (still an awesome band though! just bad recording)

• Lucky song #222 is "Analog Boy" by RX Bandits, and it still rules.

• Band of Annuals is a nearly perfect band. "Amy's Great Escape" from their first record is excellent.

• "Ambling Alp" is STILL the only Yeasayer song I like.

• In a time where a lot of bands are getting back together (Something Corporate, No Doubt) hearing Jeffrie's Fan Club say "Only because we're never gonna play this again" from their Last Show at The Glasshouse was really sad, knowing they never did.

• Apparently I have just as many songs that start with "Another", which is where I pick up again tomorrow. Til then . . .

The Mix Tape Challenge

One time, when I was in college, I was walking across campus to go home when I ran into my good friend Adam Pah skating to class. I almost always had my iPod and headphones on me, as did he, and we exchanged conversation about what we were "rocking". (I literally say it that way, I'm kind of embarrassing) He mentioned that he was trying out a challenge to listen to his iPod on shuffle and NOT skip over anything, and challenged me to do the same. I took my iPod and put it in my purse, getting through about half the parking lot before a song I didn't really like came on and I skipped right over it.

I think about this encounter a lot as I go through my day to day. I live in New York and since 99.9% of my commutes involve public transit, I ALWAYS have my iPod on me. I'm also fortunate to work in an office that encourages music-listening at our desks, often inciting a hilarious "speaker war" between our respective offices. I am constantly around music, only recently replacing my morning music shuffle routine with watching the morning news.

The funny thing is, despite how much music I constantly consume, I still find myself skipping songs over and over and over, even if it's a song I know I love. I've ended up with about 9,500 songs total, which according to my iTunes is about 25 days worth of music. I can't even imagine how many songs are buried deep within my library. There are probably records I don't even remember buying and since I upgraded to the 160gb, I loaded on records I hadn't had room for but were still on my hard drive. It's sometimes overwhelming.

Today I was listening at work and shuffling through, laughing to myself that it would be funny if I finally reached the end of ALL of the songs. And then I remembered Adam, and our conversation, and I was suddenly inspired.

What if I listened to every song on my iPod uninterrupted?

I realize this is twice as daunting as my "The Loop" series (where I wrote about my top records of the last decade - about 150 or so) I am going to make myself listen to each song - the entire song - no matter what it is. However, I'm not necessarily going to put a time limit on it, which should make thing a little easier/rational. I initially thought I'd just hit shuffle and go, but I know my iPod will restart itself if I plug in to add a new record, etc. The only real way to do this is to go through my songs in alphabetical order - that way I can jot down where I start and stop. I know I'll be adding new music during this process (it's amazing how you can "accidentally" end up with about 6 or 7 new albums thank to Amazon.com's $5 deals) and taking breaks to listen to full records, which will probably be necessary. However, this is more about revisiting songs that I had forgotten about. This means every embarrassing ska song, live bootleg, half-demo and emo ballad that exists in my catalog. I had them for a reason at some point, and I want to remember why.

So there you have it. I'm not sure what form this will take quite yet, most likely checking in periodically, talking about songs from one stopping point to another, digging up videos/streams/memories/etc.

I issue this challenged to YOU as well, if you're up to it. I'm honestly sort of nervous about it even now that I've fleshed it out, but I'm excited to see what I discover.

First up : "A" by Cartel

Ready. Set. Go.