Today we're going to take a short break from analysis and instead do something that is very near and dear to my heart: make a mix CD. Everyone who's anyone knows that you can't just slap random songs on a disc haphazardly and expect people to like the music you've given them. A good album, one that you can listen to from start to finish, has natural ups and downs, ebbs and flows-- like an expanded version of a really good song. Whenever I'm making a mix, my goal is to bring the disparate songs together to form a whole that flows musically from beginning to end. If I can somehow have get it to flow thematically as well, all the better, but that's obviously a rare occurrence.
So let's take the ten songs we've talked about here and lay them out to see what we've got. In my humble opinion, ten songs is just about the minimum acceptable length for an album: any less, and the listener feels cheated. The optimum length is probably somewhere around 12-13, but ten is what we have, so that's what I'm going with.
The Smashing Pumpkins- Muzzle
fun.- Be Calm
Jets to Brazil- Perfecting Loneliness
The Smashing Pumpkins- To Sheila
Jimmy Eat World- Kill
The Decemberists- Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)
Fall Out Boy- It's Hard to Say "I Do" When I Don't
Panic! at the Disco- When the Day Met the Night
The New Pornographers- Crash Years
Death Cab for Cutie- Company Calls Epilogue
The first order of business is to pick the songs that are going to go first and last on the mix. For the first track, I like to find something that introduces the listener to what they're about to hear without totally immersing them in it. Something that gives a hint of the musical goodness to come without being overwhelming. And the last song, ideally, will serve as a coda, a reminder of what they've heard while transitioning out into nothingness (or, even better, back to the beginning of the mix again).
Presumably, the people who created the albums from which we pulled the source material were thinking about song order as well; as such, a good starting point is to pick out the songs that were put first and last on their respective albums. From this list, we have "To Sheila" and "Be Calm" as first tracks, and "It's Hard to Say 'I Do' When I Don't" as a closer. While "Be Calm" is a perfectly viable option, I'm going to start with "To Sheila" for the moment due to its quiet nature. There's nothing wrong with an opening track with some pop to it, though. Meanwhile "It's Hard to Say 'I Do' When I Don't" gets slotted last by default. It rocks a little harder than an album ender should, in my opinion, and was really only the final track on some random special edition of Infinity on High, but we'll leave it for the moment. The audio bit at the end of the song that says "Now press repeat" makes it hard to put it anywhere else.
1) The Smashing Pumpkins- To Sheila
10) Fall Out Boy- It's Hard to Say "I Do" When I Don't
Now that we have the bookends, it makes it easier to fill in the middle. What I like to do with the second track of a mix is to switch up the tempo somewhat. Since we began with the slow, dreamy "To Sheila", our second track should capture some energy and rachet up the intensity. Probably the best choice to do this would be "Muzzle", but there's no reason to have the two Smashing Pumpkins tracks grouped together. If the listener thinks they're going to get a whole album of Smashing Pumpkins, they may not continue listening. This is the same reason for the tempo change; we don't want to give the impression that this is a mix full of ballads.
"Perfecting Loneliness" also seems like it might be a good choice, but its extended ending makes it difficult to place. While this didn't deter Jets to Brazil on Perfecting Loneliness (it was track four), we'll cast it to the side for now.
A number of the other songs we've analyzed maintain a quiet tone, so almost by default I'm going to put "Crash Years" down as track two. It doesn't rock out as much as I'd like, but it is a good tempo change and that should serve our purposes well enough.
The third track should, in a perfect world, take the momentum of the second and continue with it. Since we had enough trouble finding one track like this, finding two will be pretty impossible. However, "Be Calm" is extremely upbeat and frenetic. Even though it's going to sound a little wrong, since in my head it will always be the first track of an album, let's experiment and throw it down as track three.
This gives us great momentum going into song four, where we're going to switch it up again with something a little bit softer. "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)" seems perfect for this. It's not a total drop-off into mellow oblivion, but the harmonies and acoustic guitars keep it measured.
So now we have:
1) The Smashing Pumpkins- To Sheila
2) The New Pornographers- Crash Years
3) fun.- Be Calm
4) The Decemberists- Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)
10) Fall Out Boy- It's Hard to Say "I Do" When I Don't
Halfway there! Sort of. But with this many songs placed, the rest becomes easier. "Kill" and "When the Day Met the Night" are perfect middle-of-the-mix songs, uptempo and introspective, but not particularly extreme. Slotting them at five and six seems reasonable. We'll put "Kill" first just because it has more of an edge to it and will probably sound good coming off of the lightweight "Yankee Bayonet".
Let's take a look at the three songs we have left:
The Smashing Pumpkins- Muzzle
Jets to Brazil- Perfecting Loneliness
Death Cab for Cutie- Company Calls Epilogue
Two of these songs are pretty hard rockers, while one is on par with "To Sheila" for its soft-spokenness. Since we know that "It's Hard to Say 'I Do' When I Don't" is going to close the album, we'll put the quiet "Company Calls Epilogue" right before it in order to offset it. That leaves "Perfecting Loneliness" and "Muzzle". Both songs feature roaring guitars, but I'm reticent to put "Perfecting Loneliness" before "Muzzle" due to its extended and understated ending; I feel like that will bring the energy to a standstill before "Muzzle" brings it up again, only to bring it back down for "Company Calls Epilogue"...I realize that the mix is based on soft vs. loud dynamics, but arranging the tracks that way is too much bouncing around for my tastes. So we'll go "Muzzle", then "Perfecting Loneliness", then "Company Calls Epilogue".
Now we've arrived at what is basically a first draft:
1) The Smashing Pumpkins- To Sheila
2) The New Pornographers- Crash Years
3) fun.- Be Calm
4) The Decemberists- Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)
5) Jimmy Eat World- Kill
6) Panic! At the Disco- When the Day Met the Night
7) The Smashing Pumpkins- Muzzle
8) Jets to Brazil- Perfecting Loneliness
9) Death Cab for Cutie- Company Calls Epilogue
10) Fall Out Boy- It's Hard to Say "I Do" When I Don't
Given the time to do so, this is the point at which I'd like to go back and listen to the whole mix, front to back, to get a feel for whether or not it really does flow, as well as to listen for any obvious problem spots. Barring the time to do that, though, the best alternative is to listen to the first and last 15-30 seconds of each song. This will give a good idea of how the songs mesh.
Doing that with this mix yields a number of problems that we'll have to go back and fix: While "To Sheila" and "Crash Years" go well together, it's just wrong to have "Be Calm" as the third track. It doesn't work and gives the impression of the mix rebooting itself. Further, the end of the song, featuring trailing off violins, doesn't really fit with the beginning of the next track, "Yankee Bayonet". "Kill" and "When the Day Met the Night" are, as expected, just fine as tracks five and six, but the momentum that they start carries through all the way until the end of "Perfecting Loneliness" at track eight. Four tracks is too long of a time to carry on that energy, and it makes the drop into "Company Calls Epilogue" very precipitious.
So, easiest thing first. We'll move "Be Calm" into track one and cast aside "To Sheila". "Crash Years" no longer really works as track two anymore, coming off of the outro to "Be Calm", but we can switch "When the Day Met the Night" in the as new track two. This will relieve some of the pressure on that block of four energetic songs that I outlined above. "Crash Years" does, however, come off of "When the Day Met the Night" nicely, so we have a new first three tracks.
This, of course, has ruined nearly everything else. This new opening trio is very nice, but lacks any real punch. Despite the "now press repeat" bit at the end of "It's Hard to Say 'I Do' When I Don't", I've never really liked it as the final track. What if we put it after "Crash Years"? The answer is that it offsets the calm of the first few tracks, and I like it enough in that position to ignore the stupid ending. Dialing down the energy only a little bit, "Kill" is a logical choice for the next track.
After those two stronger songs, I'm very tempted to slot in "Yankee Bayonet", but "Company Calls Epilogue" absolutely killed the flow last time, placed near the end as it was. If we have a song energetic enough as a later juxtaposition, we can put it in the middle here as song six. And we do-- "Muzzle", roaring the mix back to life with song seven. What we have so far, then, is:
1) fun.- Be Calm
2) Panic! At the Disco- When the Day Met the Night
3) The New Pornographers- Crash Years
4) Fall Out Boy- It's Hard to Say "I Do" When I Don't
5) Jimmy Eat World- Kill
6) Death Cab for Cutie- Company Calls Epilogue
7) The Smashing Pumpkins- Muzzle
with these songs left over:
Jets to Brazil- Perfecting Loneliness
The Decemberists- Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)
The Smashing Pumpkins- To Sheila
I'm very tempted to place "Perfecting Loneliness" last. The way that the song spirals out into space would be a great way to end the mix-- but then that would leave us without a spot for "To Sheila". Maybe we can use the soft ending of "Perfecting Loneliness" as a bridge to "To Sheila", which will cap off the mix rather than begin it. Given no other choice, then, we have to put "Yankee Bayonet" before both of those-- and hope that the energy, while a step down from "Muzzle" and "Perfecting Loneliness", doesn't completely halt the momentum we have going. Second draft time:
1) fun.- Be Calm
2) Panic! At the Disco- When the Day Met the Night
3) The New Pornographers- Crash Years
4) Fall Out Boy- It's Hard to Say "I Do" When I Don't
5) Jimmy Eat World- Kill
6) Death Cab for Cutie- Company Calls Epilogue
7) The Smashing Pumpkins- Muzzle
8) The Decemberists- Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)
9) Jets to Brazil- Perfecting Loneliness
10) The Smashing Pumpkins- To Sheila
And it's back to the same process as before, listening for what works and what doesn't, paying close attention to the transitions between songs. You'll notice that almost nothing stayed in its position from our first attempt. That doesn't make what I said invalid, though; putting the songs in a certain order with certain dynamics in mind let us see what worked and what didn't work with this particular group of tracks.
This one turned out much better! Tracks 4-7 in particular really fit together well. "Be Calm" works much better to open the album, and "Perfecting Loneliness" transitions into "To Sheila" in the hoped-for manner.
Only a couple of things still bother me: one, I can't get used to "To Sheila" as a closer rather than an opener, though it does loop into the first track nicely. Second, "When the Day Met the Night" doesn't quite follow "Be Calm" as well as I'd initially thought. Finally, while "It's Hard to Say 'I Do' When I Don't" works really well positioned where it is, that damn audio bit at the end annoys the hell out of me.
Do these things need to be addressed? If I had the time, I would literally edit out the "now press repeat" on "It's Hard to Say 'I Do' When I Don't". It's not song-specific (it appeared at the end of every edition of Infinity on High, regardless of the song that preceded it) and adds nothing, so I wouldn't feel bad lopping it off. While "To Sheila" irks me as an ending song, it actually doesn't sound bad-- and someone unfamiliar with the song's original placement would have no idea.
That leaves us with only one real issue, the transition between our new songs one and two. I'm not about to rearrange everything just to solve one minor problem. It's good enough as is. Time to burn it and draw in a new listener!
And remember, people-- always provide a tracklist with your mix so that people know what they're listening to and can ask you for more when they're done.
Whew, that was a long one, and as usual, took much longer than I expected. I hope it was an interesting one for everyone, as well. Next week we'll return to our usual programming with Nate Ruess' old band, The Format. Stay tuned!
0 comments:
Post a Comment