Mixtape #7 - Christmas Mixtape for an Emo Dumbass

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Mixtape #7 - Christmas Mixtape for an Emo Dumbass

Christmas time for an emo dumbass, the most beautiful season of all. I mean, who doesn’t love going back home, seeing all your buddies, eating too many cookies, and playing video games for two straight weeks? While there’s certainly no shortage of Neck Deep-style Decemberism out there, I wanted to take a slightly more DIY emo approach to the music of the holiday. Therefore, my gift to you is an album-length collection of Christmas rippers and festive riffage that hopefully falls a bit outside your usual listening habits. 

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Mixtape #6 - Halloween

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Mixtape #6 - Halloween

Happy Halloween to all the boys and ghouls reading this. Despite my predilection towards the holiday season, I love this creepy time of the year that precedes it. Maybe it was my parents showing me Signs at a formative age or watching dozens of B-rate horror movies on an early iteration of Netflix throughout high school, but whatever the case, I love the black-orange-purple affectations of Halloween. I love the candy, I love the movies, and I love dressing up as some esoteric character that reflects some inner part of yourself. 

Like any good music dork, I have a Halloween playlist ranging from all the classics, like “Thriller” and “Werewolves of London,” to absolute stretches like “Counting Worms” and songs that happen to mention vampires, even if they’re metaphors. There are full releases here, like All Hallows Eve, Famous Monsters, and The Devil Wears Prada’s Zombie EP. This is all to say my Halloween playlist is wide-ranging and includes every vaguely spooky song I’ve encountered since 2019, and I hope you enjoy.

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Mixtape #5 - Sufjan Stevens – Made In Oregon

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Mixtape #5 - Sufjan Stevens – Made In Oregon

Early on in his career, folk hero Sufjan Stevens made a name for himself with the fabled “50 States Project.” After releasing one of my favorite albums of all time with Michigan, Stevens gained attention by making a far-fetched promise to write an equally detailed record about every remaining state. While Illinois came out two years later, it quickly became apparent that this proposal was little more than a PR hook, but that didn’t stop people from wondering what the rest of the state’s albums would sound like. 

Today, I present you with “Made In Oregon,” a would-be album about the Beaver State pulling from the Carrie & Lowell era and structured similarly to both Michigan and Illinois with a sprawling hour-plus runtime and intentional “sides.” Becauseevery song on C&L references Oregon in some way, I had no shortage of material to pull from. Still, I wanted to mirror the listening experience of those two records as closely as possible, jumping from local landmarks and historical events to famous figures in Oregon’s history. Not to toot my own horn, but as a native Oregonian, I love this little fake album, and it’s probably the closest we’ll ever get to another States album.

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Mixtape #4 - Animals

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Mixtape #4 - Animals

God save the animals, literally. Ever since hearing TTNG’s Animals in college, I’ve always been fascinated with songs named after animals. In the case of the UK math rock band’s debut album, each song attempted to capture and embody the energy of each respective critter, and they did a great job. Outside of TTNG, the trend of naming a track after an animal is a surprisingly pervasive approach to song titling. In this playlist, I attempt to collect any instance I stumble across, resulting in a sprawling, genre-less collection of songs with nothing more than a superficial connection to the animal kingdom. 

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Mixtape #3 - Porch Beer Albums™

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Mixtape #3 - Porch Beer Albums™

Hope you’ve got a beer in-hand and a few more on-deck. One of my most prized playlists, Porch Beer Albums™ was conceived one spring day in 2019 when I was listening to Alex G, Trace Mountains, and Wild Pink in excess. I feel like the title is pretty self-explanatory, but this playlist is filled with over a hundred hours of lightly twangy indie rock that has a sweeping, naturalistic quality that makes this music feel like a breeze on your neck. Because it’s a full-album mix, you could shuffle it for literal days or just scroll until you find an album to your liking. Ultimately, the hope is that this playlist offers a collection of records that would sound good if you were kicking back on a porch during a hot summer day. I’ll leave you with my fake words of wisdom: Give a man a beer, and he’ll be happy. Give a man a porch, and he’ll be content. Give him both, and he needs nothing more.

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Mixtape #2 - Ewaldism

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Mixtape #2 - Ewaldism

Jake Ewald is a man of many words and styles. From his humble beginnings as an awkward, jilted romantic in Modern Baseball to the love-drenched adoration of Slaughter Beach, Dog and his recent forrays into lounge, folk, and earnest singer-songwriter exposition. 

The man has always known how to turn a phrase, and with Ewaldism, I attempt to collect some of his most iconic tracks into one career-spanning playlist. Segmented by the two bands that make up his body of work, this playlist presents a movie-length way to witness Ewald’s writing develop in real-time from the dejected and confused-in-love MoBo to the self-assured maturity of SBD.

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Mixtape #1 – Yo La Sleepy

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Mixtape #1 – Yo La Sleepy

If you know Yo La Tengo at all, you’re probably familiar with the “sleepier” side of their sound. While they’re certainly prone to long-winded jams and feedback-seeped rock tracks, I got into the band with Fade, so some of my favorites have always been their slower, more relaxing songs. 

Yo La Sleepy is a loosely ordered collection of Yo La Tengo's calming songs that I’ll often throw on as I drift off to sleep. For best results, pair this playlist with a cup of Sleepy Time Tea and pretend you’re floating off to dreamland in a cloud.

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