C'mon, boys!
This is the 17th version of my Muxtape, and it's a mix of calm, rockin', electronic, upbeat and hardcore tracks. You'll find it here as always. Enjoy!
1. Beastie Boys - "Alive"
Just before releasing their first greatest hits compilation, "The Sounds Of Science", the boys gave up this single. The video is brilliant, as are bits of the words that show how great they still were:
We got rhyme selections in a wide array J'ai des bonbons pour vous manger The party people scream, "oui oui, c'est vrai" 'Cause I got a remote for my bidet
2. Velvet Underground - "White Light/White Heat [live]"
This is a live version of this classic track, culled from the album "Live At Max's Kansas City", that I highly recommend. This song is influenced by amphetamine, if you must know.
3. Thin Lizzy - "Jailbreak [live]"
Even as I find Lightning Bolt and bands similar to them ((Even though no band is, in my mind.)) noisy and great, Thin Lizzy always had a clean, compressed hard rock sound which by the standards of today does sound light; it definitely works to their advantage. Even though comparing frontman Phil Lynott with Jimi Hendrix sounds racist, it's not, coming from yours truly. The former's way of singing is - as far as my limited knowledge of music stretches - quite similar to the latter's, and with blues as the base, that's as similar as they get. Thin Lizzy had a working class-background and the songs mirrored that instantly. Lynott's brilliant guitar-playing and skilled composition shows how this great track, the opening on the live album "Live and Dangerous".
4. The Bug - "Flying (feat. Ricky Ranking)"
Hard dub guaranteed to make your speakers go boom. I saw The Bug live less than a week ago at the Way Out West music festival, and they were good albeit a little too repetitive for my taste. In small amounts, I love the music-maker of the band, Kevin Martin.
5. Okkervil River - "Love To A Monster"
The lyrics are astoundingly simple and hence complex, of course, from the pen of Mr. Sheff, much in the same fashion as Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys constructed songs on their "Pet Sounds". This song is a frontal attack wrapped in lace, and you'll find a very different and loveable live-version done for the La Blogotheque right here.
6. Holy Fuck - "Casio Bossa Nova"
Prone to giving their tracks simplistic names, that sort of gives the nature of the music away; I cannot name another band that makes music sound this naà¯ve and at the same time as groovy. Wonderful. Boys, please play in Stockholm soon.
7. DMX Krew - "Glass Room"
Being the most well-known alias for Ed Upton, DMX Krew has mostly made pop-electro, as with this opening track on the album "We Are DMX". 1985 called to say it doesn't want its 808's and DX7's back.
8. U2 - "Seconds"
From the recently released deluxe edition of "War", this is one of the band's tracks most liked by me. The rhythm section works very nice with the semi-acoustic guitars. Mind you, The Edge sings on this one. I like the break with the taped voices circa 02:06.
9. David Holmes - "Sick City"
This track features Bobby Gillespie being a boogied-down civil disobedient again. I love the harsh guitar and deep bass. Could be a Primal Scream track, but hell no, as Holmes runs distorted synthesized arpeggi throughout the track. Paired with the sound from smashed bottles and Gillespie's modern-day trademark glissando in the chorus, this is just great, sexy, political and just what The Stooges would order.
The policeman isn't there to create disorder. The policeman is there to preserve disorder.
10. Atari Teenage Riot - "Destroy 2000 Years Of Culture"
Bobby Gillespie and Alec Empire are more similar than you may think; even though they work in different musical genres, their mindset is often the same, being quite anarchic and autonomous in lyrics and political action. See one of my favourite YouTube videos here, where ATR play during the infamous demonstrations on 1999-05-01, where police is seen hurting innocent civilians; ATR screaming "fuck the police!" and afterwards getting arrested. This, of course, is nothing in comparison with the year one of the artists on Empire's label, Digital Hardcore, had to experience as a result of these demonstrations; he was held in custody for an entire year, his family couldn't get a reply as to where he was being held or what he was being accused of, and when he was released his mental state was mush.
11. Depeche Mode - "Ice Machine"
The b-side for their very first single, "Dreaming Of Me", I like how the band used a cold sound and how the pretentious lyrics nearly work, yet enough to make this very different side from the a-track.
12. EC8OR - "I Don't Want To Be A Part Of This"
How about ending this compilation with your ear-drums in need of crutches? This is another band from the Digital Hardcore label, sadly now on hiatus.