Music to drink tea by
Posts tagged Ben Folds
Mix: The World Is A Mess, But Our Hair Is Perfect
06 years ago
in MP3s
There is just about one thing that I find more interesting than music in this world: politics. Now I realise a ton of you have just written me off as being entire insane, but I can live with that. Nor do I particularly hide my politics, being a card carrying (literally) liberal of the (hopefully) non-loony variety. As such, it seemed fitting that the first mix I’d put together on here would be a combining of my politics into what I usually do here.
So in celebration of another glorious raping of our civil liberties that the public don’t give a shit about, Another Form of Relief is proud to present The World Is A Mess, But Our Hair Is Perfect. This is an updated edition of a mix I originally made last year, and seems depressingly more relevant than that. I know there’s a certain irony in most of the songs being by American bands about American issues, but god knows British bands aren’t getting political which would make this thing pretty damn short.
Note: This will only be available for a limited amount of time, so if you want any part of it, get it now, as I’ll be taking it down within a week of this post.
MP3 01 – The Robot Ate Me – The Genocide Ball (expired)
MP3 02 – Koufax – Why Bother At All (expired)
MP3 03 – Actionslacks – This Damn Nation (expired)
MP3 04 – The Rakes – Terror! (acoustic) (expired)
MP3 05 – Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – Counting Down The Hours (expired)
MP3 06 – The Decemberists – Sixteen Military Wives (expired)
MP3 07 – Ben Folds – All You Can Eat (expired)
MP3 08 – The Wading Girl – Amber Waves (expired)
MP3 09 – Stars – Celebration Guns (expired)
MP3 10 – Elliott Smith – A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free (expired)
MP3 11 – Ben Kweller – Jerry Falwell Destroyed The Earth (expired)
MP3 12 – Desaparecidos – Greater Omaha (expired)
MP3 13 – And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead – Worlds Apart (expired)
MP3 Bonus – The Rakes – The World Was A Mess, But His Hair Was Perfect (expired)
The additional Rakes song doesn’t really fit the rest of the theme, but the title fits perfect and it’s a rather good song, so I thought I’d throw it in there. There’s an 18 minute version of it with a massively extended pub conversation, but that seemed a tad overbearing so I kept it to the shorter version.
I’m not sure how well it flows together, but I tried to assemble it the best I could so it had some sense of cohesion to it at all. I know it can be a little preachy at times, and this may grate for some people, but I like my music to actually have a message, and everything here certainly has one.
I’m going to try and put up some kind of new mixtape every fortnight, but seeing as I’m exceedingly lazy it’ll probably end up being every couple of months instead. Still, enjoy. Normal service will resume sometime tomorrow.
And until then, Good Weather For Air Strikes have a complete Belle & Sebastian concert up in awesome quality that is certainly worth your time.
A few covers
1I’m pretty tired tonight (it’s amazing just how exhausted I get from bowling and then working, but no matter) so this’ll be a brief one. We’re also going for a non-standard type post, and I’m just going to post a bunch of covers that I’ve been enjoying a lot lately. I’ll admit now that I’m a massive fan of covers. As such, this’ll probably become a regular feature. By regular I mean when I can be botherd, not having a set day for them or whatever. I’ll leave that to Chad at Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands (saturdays in case you are wondering). I know there are a bunch of people that hate them as if they take something away from the original song or something, but I always like hearing what artists can do with other people’s material. Covers that I’m currently liking a lot:
MP3 The Mountain Goats – The Boys Are Back In Town / Ignition Remix (expired) (Thin Lizzy / R Kelly)
Sorry for the slightly crappy quality on this one, but it seems to have been recorded from a French radio stream. It’s worth it though as not only do The Mountain Goats turn Thin Lizzy’s rocking song into something considerably more laid back, but they also suddenly burst into a cover of R Kelly’s Ignition Remix toward the end, which has to be one of the strangest medleys in quite some time.
MP3 Arctic Monkeys – Love Machine (expired) (Girls Aloud)
When I said I was a fan of covers, I forgot to mention that I’m particularly a fan of ones that really shouldn’t work, but somehow end up being rather awesome. This is a prime example of that. Take a generic pop song by a rather crappy girl band (I know they have their fans, but come on), give it to this weeks “saviours of rock and roll” (copyright NME 1995-2006) and you get an alarmingly catchy outcome. I still think the song is still rather dire, but the way the Monkeys give it their all, play it straight (mostly) and actually manage to pull it off is quite an incredible feat.
MP3 Ben Folds – Bitches Ain’t Shit (expired) (Dr. Dre)
Yet another “shouldn’t work, but somehow does” cover. Quite how one would go about turning a gangsta rap song into a pretty mellow piano song. It’s one of the most foul mouthed things you’ll ever hear (unless you listen to gangsta rap regularly I guess), yet somehow it’s entirely great. I can’t stand rap on the most part yet I really like this, despite the song itself being pretty dire. I suppose it’s more respecting the achievement of it than anything else, but I like it a lot.
MP3 Stars – This Charming Man (expired) (The Smiths)
I’m not a massive Smiths fan, no matter how much I try to appreciate them. However, This Charming Man is one of the few songs that I really enjoy. Which made me slightly worried about this cover of it given Death Cab’s complete and utter slaughtering of it on their You Can Play These Songs.. album a few years ago. I shouldn’t have worried though, as Stars don’t make the mistake of trying to be Morrissey. Instead, the make the song their own, turning up the electronica and slowing down the pace. It’s not as good as the original, but it’s dares to be different, and that’s what a cover should do.
Seeing as this blog is becoming my primary place to write, I’m going to use it to occasionally vent about other things given I’m not updating my regular blog anymore. As such, I’d like to register my disappoint with HBO’s Big Love. I guess it’s mostly my fault for expecting it just be a pologamy themed Six Feet Under. I was really getting my hopes up after another awesome HBO credit sequence (honestly, have they ever made a bad one?) but it collapsed quickly after. It was just kind of a nothingness. With the addition of a little comedy it could be something great, but played entirely straight it just doesn’t really work without coming off as dull. It might improve, and I’ll give it a few episodes, but I’m really not convinced so far.
Ok, so that ended up being far more than just a brief one. Now I’m going to go to bed before I collapse and wake up tomorrow morning in a heap on my floor.
