The Annotated Beukemix 2019

.

Finally getting my thoughts out on the mix from two years ago. I considered skipping it, since it's more than a year since I made it. But, realizing I use these writeups for my own later reference, here we are.

If you want a copy of this, drop me a line -- I will happily send you a CD or a rip. I did put the mix on Spotify, but it has a replacement for Track 11 because the Spidey Bugout Megamix isn't on there -- sorry..

Who has time to tally horn sections or hand claps or Twin Cities bands anymore? Not me! 

1. OYAHYTT - The Coup ft. LaKeith Stanfield
Watched The Coup co-founder Boots Riley's absurd anti-capitalist satire SORRY TO BOTHER YOU early in January '19. OYAHYTT plays throughout the early movie, an engine to get us up to the appropriate level of frenetic, holding-on-by-a-thread energy that is to come.

2. Can't Run But - Paul Simon
Paul Simon had returned to SNL as musical guest in October 2018, joined by the modern chamber ensemble yMusic. I really liked their performance of this restless, half-sung song, a rework of a song from 1990's "Rhythm of the Saints." Finally dug into the associated album "In the Blue Light" early in 2019.

3. The Eye - Brandi Carlile
As I mentioned in the 2018 mix, Carlile's "The Joke" had knocked me on my ass. Listening to that mix on the way home from a date with Melissa early in the year, she mentioned that she really liked this song, which was making the rounds on a couple Twin Cities stations despite being a few years old at that point. We stayed in the car in the driveway to listen through this gorgeous song, with lush harmonies layered under Carlile's warm, clear voice.

4. Sisyphus - Andrew Bird
This one snuck up on me over the course of several listens on The Current. One day I started to pay more attention, and thought I'd finally found a Father John Misty song I really liked. That wasn't quite right -- it sounded like the midpoint between FJM and Alex Ebert from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Turns out that I really like when folky indie rock artists like Andrew Bird lean a little farther in the rock direction, make the sound bottom-heavy and give the vocals some gauzy, ghostly reverb.

5. Heads Gonna Roll - Jenny Lewis
Love the Beatles-esque orchestrations and chord progressions here, including a solo in the bridge that I'm legit not sure whether it's a guitar running through effects pedals, or an organ. Lewis' vocals are in the fine tradition of 1970s pop-rock singer/songwriters, in a vein similar to some of my favorite songs from her Rilo Kiley days. (EDIT: I have learned that, Beatles indeed, Ringo Starr plays drums on this track. Also, the keys are Bentmont Tench from The Heartbreakers; still couldn't tell you if that solo is his instrument or not)

6. Saw Lightning - Beck

A little slice of apocalypse. The shouts in the background throughout make it feel like the recording studio is under attack and they're trying to get the thing recorded before it's overwhelmed. Or, if you think about the dark forebodings of the lyrics, maybe it's a tent revival on the precipice of getting out of hand.

7. The Bleeding Heart Show - The New Pornographers
This was on The Current's list of 893 Essential Songs Since the Year 2000 that spring. The build on this thing is so slow and careful. The three-against-four rhythms, and chords that never quite resolve, are layered and layered, and you get AC Newman's vocals first, and then Neko Case coming in on harmony, and it backs further away from resolution... until it FINALLY lands in a major key ("We have arrived") and STAYS there in a glorious, life-affirming anthem.

8. Tennis Ball - Hello Peril
ALWAYS BE MY MAYBE was a sweet and funny if somewhat by-the-numbers romcom, but one of my favorite things was Randall Park's character's live hip hop band. The songs we hear are musically legit with really funny, clever lyrics. This is one of them.

9. Los Ageless - St. Vincent
Also from The Current's post-2000 song list comes this cri de coeur from Annie Clark, lamenting a lost love and having weird feelings about Los Angeles (I assume this was about actress Cara Delevigne, with whom she had recently ended a multi-year relationship). It's an amazing, digital creation, with an absolutely killer chorus: "How can anybody have you? / How can anybody have you and lose you? / How can anybody have you and lose you and not lose their mind, too?"

10. Harmony Hall - Vampire Weekend
Speaking of killer choruses. This was something like a song of the summer for me in 2019, but <rueful laugh>, little did I know that it would become the song that best exemplifies the sentiment of 2020. "I don't wanna live like this / but I don't wanna die," but wrap that sentiment in a beautiful, uplifting arrangement. In the summer of 2020, I drove to Eat Street to pick up some food, and this song came on. The location and the music took me back to an amazing meal I'd had in the neighborhood for my 40th birthday a year before. The sense of loss and isolation and fear came crashing in, and I had to pull over and just be devastated for a little while. 

11. Spidey Bugout Megamix (Expectations Remix) - DJ KiddLove
INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE knocked my socks off, and the graffiti scene in the subway was the moment I locked into the movie. This is the music from that scene, a tremendous mashup of "Apache" and "Hypnotize" and "Mary Mary" and some samples from a half-dozen things (including Red Leader shouting "It's away!" in the Death Star trench run). The vibe reminded me a lot of DJ Shadow's "The Number Song" off of Endtroducing, and it turns out there's a good reason, as this mix also samples a remix of that song. Those many sources and samples are probably why this song hasn't been officially released in any purchasable fashion.

12. Cuz I Love You - Lizzo
My favorite cut off of Lizzo's major-label debut was the title track, with its growling big-band sound, and Lizzo pushing her voice to the absolute limits.       
                                                
13. Hungry - Paul Revere and the Raiders
ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD reminded me of this song that I instantly remembered, but which my brother and I had somehow overlooked in our big Oldies Download Project years ago. Dig that ultra-fuzzy guitar in the post-choruses, and the wordless vocals in what seems like the coda until they jump back into the chorus and fade out. Generally, I loved how music, and especially pop radio, threaded throughout that movie. 

14. Dark White - Joshua Redman & Brooklyn Rider (w/ Scott Colley & Satoshi Takeishi)
Heard this on the jazz station one day and really liked it. You've got saxophonist Redman, the Brooklyn Rider string quartet, and Redman's usual bassist and drummer Colley and Takeishi, straddling the jazz/classical line on a composition by Patrick Zimmerli.

15. Right - David Bowie
"Right" was used in the end credits of an episode of "Mindhunter," David Fincher's Netflix serial killer drama, and you know, any excuse for another Bowie track on a mix.

16. Mariners Apartment Complex - Lana Del Rey
Music critic Matthew Perpetua jumped out in December '18 with a hard stance in favor of this song as the best of 2018. Somehow I didn't see that tweet until late in 2019, but finally checked out the track, which is indeed quite good. Meanwhile, Rolling Stone had connected it spiritually & thematically to Leonard Cohen, which once upon a time might have been a major contraindication for me (my feelings on Cohen's music are complicated for dumb reasons). But Cohen never drenched his songs in as much atmosphere as Del Rey.

17. Last Train - Allen Toussaint
I didn't know much about Allen Toussaint before catching this on the radio, let alone his legendary status in New Orleans R&B. This is a funky little track from 1975 that starts relatively simple, but gathers instruments and textures as it goes. Made me want to hear more Toussaint, for sure.

18. Israelites - Desmond Dekker & The Aces
Already loved this from hearing it occasionally on oldies radio as a kid and later being re-exposed to it by some list of best songs of the 1960s. Its somewhat non-sequitur use in HBO's "Watchmen" miniseries renewed my appreciation.

19. Gelaye - Radio Tehran
Watched the Iranian/American vampire film A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT for my usual pre-Halloween horror viewing and was not disappointed! The music, in particular, was great, and this track stuck out to me.

20. Comin' Thru - Chali 2na
I remember Kumail Nanjiani saying on Twitter early in the run of "Silicon Valley" that Mike Judge had ridiculously good, deep taste in music, and especially in hip-hop. This one from the Jurassic 5 veteran Chali 2na, used over the credits in an episode of the last season, supports that conclusion.

21. Colors - Black Pumas
Damn, this is great. I love how spare the groove is when it starts, with just a chattering guitar line, and the organ just faintly sneaking in underneath, and then the drums as just a click, and layering and layering until it's a big, beautiful, celebratory, soulful anthem.

The Annotated Beukemix, 2018

Life gets in the way! Anyway, better late than never. Hit me up if you want a copy.

What a moody musical year! It was hard not to be, given [arm sweep in the direction of the internet and news media], and that was absolutely reflected in the music that struck a chord with me.

(Hey, I'm writing this in the future! 2021! Donald Trump isn't president anymore but some other bad stuff happened, but you can also listen to this mix on Spotify!)

1. Drive - REM
I finally got Automatic for the People at the end of 2017, and early in the new year, I was on a late-evening errand, driving the dark, wooded back roads of a Minneapolis suburb, locked into this song's atmosphere. I'd heard it dozens of times on the radio over the years, but this time it kicked my ass. The layering of elements, starting with Peter Buck's spare ostinato guitar, adding sequentially the bass, the vocals, the drums, and piece-by-piece, the string section, before the bottom drops out and we're left with the core group, gives the whole thing a dark, Southern Gothic feel. The lyrics, meanwhile, are preaching self-motivation and participation; reportedly Stipe was inspired to write it by his involvement encouraging youth voting in the early 90s. So we're kicking off the year with grim, politically tinged determination. FEELS ABOUT RIGHT.

2. Finesse (Remix) - Bruno Mars ft. Cardi B
New Jack Swing was the style of pop music when I began listening to current pop music, and I love the textures of the beat programming, the characteristic sampled orchestra hits. Two of my favorite cassettes of the day were Rhythm Nation and the Ghostbusters II soundtrack. So this song was a tidy little pile of catnip. That the video pays tribute to In Living Color, which I spent years sneakily watching in the basement on Sunday nights, is a cherry on top.

3. Modern Love - David Bowie
Another familiar song that grabbed me anew, this time while watching a trailer for Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig's "Frances Ha" during a Letterboxd crawl. One of the most danceable Bowie tracks.

4. An Insult to the Fact Checkers - They Might Be Giants
TMBG have been so prolific in the teens that they've been hard to keep up with. This was my favorite track off the first of three (!) albums they released last year.

5. The Joke - Brandi Carlile
Absolute stunner of a song, my favorite of the year. Play it loud. Carlile has described this as a response to the 2016 election, and the sense of shock and defeat that so many of us felt. It's beautifully hopeful at a time when signs of hope are scarce. Writing this in September of 2019, I can say: Congressional Dem leadership, you are letting this song down! Get your head in the game!

6. Maria Tambien - Khruangbin
The spacey, reverb-heavy, mideast-inflected instrumental funk I didn't know I needed. (See also this fun video on youtube of them playing through a dozen hip-hop hooks and other influences.)

7. Make Me Feel - Janelle Monáe
2018's horniest summer jam continues Monáe's streak of excellence. There were several excellent tracks on Dirty Computer, but I gotta go with this one for its clear Prince influence and tick-tock tongue-clucking.

8. Under the Wheels - Calexico
Saw a reference describing Calexico as "desert noir," which I like. This song is a mood piece of fear and anxiety in a threatening, unstable society, set to a reggae beat that reminds me of the first Gorillaz record.

9. Keep Yourself Alive - Queen
This jumped out at me during a rewatch of Freaks & Geeks, in the scene in which a terrified Sam climbs a pyramid of cheerleaders. It was an excellent non-literal use of what I sort of considered a backbench Queen song. (This was months before Bohemian Rhapsody used the song for the band's first gig with Mercury.)

10. Nothing Compares 2 U - Prince
Given Prince's reticence to open his vaults for public consumption, I have mixed feelings about his estate's mining of same. BUT! There is so much good stuff in there, and I love being able to hear his original demo for this song. This means that the Sinéad O'Connor version we almost all heard first was chronologically the third significant recording, after this one and the obscure album version by The Family. I still think O'Connor's is the best, but it's interesting hearing these different interpretations and what they choose to emphasize. Not surprisingly, the demo bears a lot of resemblance to the live version Prince released as a duet with Rosie Gaines a few years after the big hit.

11. Over and Over and Over - Jack White
Jack White can keep releasing bottom heavy, fuzzy, guitar-hook driven songs, and I'll keep enjoying 'em.

12. Lash Out - Alice Merton
Merton's got a hell of a voice, similar in range and power to Florence Welch, and here it's well-suited to belt out an anthem of frustration and anger. Again, something to which I responded strongly 2018.

13. Street Fighter Mas - Kamasi Washington
I enjoy that saxophonist Kamasi Washington is crossing jazz over into the pop world, and especially dig the cinematic sweep of this track. Washington describes this as his personal theme song for his hypothetical career as a professional arcade gamer. Check out the video, which is absurd and funny, and while you're at it, check out Washington's statement about his background with Street Fighter.

14. I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You) - Aretha Franklin
Wasn't super familiar with this one prior to Franklin's passing in August, but a college classmate posted it on Twitter. I'm very grateful for that, because it's tremendous.

15. Curtains - Elton John
The end credits of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" tend to be anachronistic for the show's 1950's setting, which is fine, as it introduced me to this song that feels like it's all a grand, slow-building intro for four and a half minutes, and then feels like a grand outro for two and a half minutes.

16. A Better Son/Daughter - Rilo Kiley
Hannah Gadsby's "Nanette" special drew my attention to this moving, anthemic march about finding the strength to go on through highs and lows.

17. A Pearl - Mitski
Mitski's sound on this track seems to have stepped out of a time machine from 1995 and hooked up with a horn section, and I love it.

18. Suspirium - Thom Yorke
Gentle and creepy. I didn't see the movie until earlier this year. It was ok. Honestly, the opening credits sequence, set to this song, was one of my favorite bits.

19. Humility - Gorillaz ft. George Benson
A sunny, summery track about loneliness. There are hints of a political subtext, given that writer/singer Damon Albarn has spoken out against the isolationist strain of recent western politics. Despite adoring the Gorillaz first album, each subsequent one kind of has to sneak into my attention. This time around, that came via Matthew Perpetua's characteristically fine writeup of the song.

20. Love It If We Made It - The 1975
And we end with this song's observation on our troubled times, structured a bit like a narrowly-focused "We Didn't Start The Fire," though less on-the-nose. It strikes a hopeful, if not exactly certain tone for the future, and I cannot think of a better way to finish this mix of my musical 2018.

(Bonus track: Into The Trap - John Williams / London Symphony Orchestra
I don't usually list out all the also-rans that I cut from the mix, but I did want to note a song that I had on for most of the year but finally cut when I was finalizing the playlist. Both kids got into Star Wars this past year, and this is one of my favorite pieces of music from the original trilogy. As such, I listened to it A LOT.)

The Annotated Beukemix, 2017

Liner notes!

If I know you and you'd like a copy of the mix, hit me up however you might normally do so.

Listen to (most of) the mix on Spotify!

1. Soothing - Laura Marling
A sultry, string-rich song in which Marling wrestles with the choice of letting an ex-lover (apparently Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons) back into her life, or not.

2. Heaven - Talking Heads
Appeared in the season two finale of "Halt & Catch Fire," a criminally-underseen cable drama that finished its run with its fourth season this year. It's an amazing show and uses music really well: songs chosen never pull you out of the moment by either being too obvious a choice or too out-of-place.

3. Come - Jain
Jain is a French singer who spent musically formative years of her childhood in the Middle East & Africa. I went back & forth on whether to go with the airy bounce of "Come" or the bass-heavy "Makeba." Both are fun.

4. Many Moons - Janelle Monáe
This is from Monáe's debut EP "Metropolis: Suite I (The Chase)," though I didn't stumble upon it until hearing it on The Current this year. It's terrific, which is no surprise considering how much I loved her two full-length albums. The vocal hook at the beginning felt very familiar -- it's the Pointer Sisters' "Number Pinball" melody ("1-2-3 4! 5! 6-7-8 9! 10! 11-12.") from Sesame Street.

(Incidentally, I still really want a sci-fi RPG set in Monáe's Metropolis -- her world building on her albums and in her videos is amazing.)

5. Demon in Profile - The Afghan Whigs
There are moments where I feel like I'm settling into the dad rock stereotype. But when there's a straight-ahead rock tune with some horns and a few strings and lots of ride cymbal and a sweet little guitar solo backing up the chorus, and that great major-key shift near the end, how can one resist?

I don't know what I expected from the video, but it wasn't a starring role for Har Mar Superstar.

6. Rain in Soho - The Mountain Goats
Doom. And. Gloom. And sideways references to Smiths lyrics. I love it. The referenced "Batcave" is a seminal London goth club (so that answers the question of which Soho we're talking about).

7. Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards - Billy Bragg
And now the clouds part for a very sunny anthem about socialism, capitalism, and Bragg considering his own politics and music career. I saw Bragg perform at my college my junior (?) year, and it was a great show (I probably saw him perform this song), but I haven't really dug into his music. I should.

8. Track Suit - Minor Mishap Marching Band
The third season of Fargo was not as immediately pleasurable as the second. It seemed to be dealing with stickier themes that happened to resonate with our present political moment: corporate rule, extreme inequality, Russia... And where the second featured about a dozen covers of songs used in Coen Brothers movies, this one used styles and moods connected to each major character, even winking at this by using the music from Peter and the Wolf in an episode. Nikki Swango, the good-hearted grifter played by Elizabeth Winstead, generally gets music with a lot of swagger, like this.

9. Let The Mystery Be - Iris DeMent
This was the opening credits music to most of Season Two and one episode of Season Three of "The Leftovers," which ended its phenomenal run this year. After the emotional wringer of the first season, the song feels at first like a joke, and then like a lifeline. And it fits better as the series goes on and gets more comfortable being weird and funny in addition to heartbreaking.

10. Junk Bond Trader - Elliott Smith
I didn't listen to Smith's last album released in his lifetime until a couple years later, during the semester of grad school that remains the most stressful time in my life. I would listen to it when I would stay up until 2 in the morning correcting 60 Linear Structural Analysis problem sets or working on my own heavy load of homework. Around the same time that I discovered the record, we went to Washington DC for my grandmother's 80th birthday. My grandfather was not himself: his chronic pain had sapped his outgoing nature. I don't know if I expected it would be the last time I saw him, but the lush arrangements of Smith's songs paired well with the emotional melange of that time. (We lost my grandfather four months later, and I miss him a lot. Coincidentally, the world lost Smith another eight months after that.)

Anyway, one day in 2017 I was riding the bus home after work and this song in particular struck me as beautiful, so here it is.

11. The Morning Papers - Prince & The New Power Generation
Had one of those SIRE (Sudden Instantaneous Recall Effect) moments hearing this on the radio during the Current's top 89 Prince songs marathon, and realized that I'd heard it as a single on KDWB back in junior high. The song is apparently about when Prince fell in love with Mayte Garcia, who he would eventually marry. The Revolution remain my favorite Prince backing band, but they didn't have the NPG's horn section, so nobody's perfect.

12. Snake Eyes - Trouble
13. No Stars - Rebekah Del Rio
With a David Lynch project, you know you're going to get some combination of the following in the soundtrack:
a. 1950s throwbacks (bonus points for guitar arpeggios)
b. Spaced-out singing
c. Emotional ballads, potentially involving Roy Orbison
d. Heavy, aggressive, and/or sleazy instrumentals
e. Saxophone freakouts
So, here are two songs that were performed in the 2017 revival of Twin Peaks. The first, by David Lynch's son Riley's band, Trouble, is (d) & (e). The second, a beautiful song by Rebekah Del Rio touches on (a) and (c), but unlike her jaw-dropping Spanish performance of "Crying" in Mulholland Drive, this one does not involve Roy Orbison, though it does feature Moby on the guitar arpeggios.

14. Riding (Night) - Manaka Kataoka & Yasuaki Iwata
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild contains a lot of references to the previous games in the Zelda series, including in its music, but the score is very stripped-down, stepping away from orchestral bombast in favor of small, pointilist arrangements led by a piano. This piece, which plays if you're riding a horse at night in the game, includes one of the few statements of the original musical theme of the series. Given the scarcity of the melody, it gave me goosebumps the first time I heard it.

15. Fatal Gift - Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Great multi-part rumination on success and its trappings by Emily Haines of Metric in her solo side project The Soft Skeleton. I already liked the simple piano-driven opening, but smiled broadly when the electronics kicked in halfway through.

16. Can I Sit Next To You - Spoon
If this had just been another fine Spoon song in the same vein as some of my earlier favorites, like "I Turn My Camera On," it would have been lovely. But! Then we get these amazing string bits in the bridge and the outro, with these fantastic, long, sustained notes that *slowly* bend into a resolution.

17. Bellbottoms - Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
Before I'd seen Baby Driver, I was listening to Matthew Perpetua's Fluxblog 1990s Survey Mixes. This Jon Spencer cut appeared 1994 mix, and was a standout among the songs I didn't already know. Then, it was the basis for the fun-as-hell opening robbery and chase scene of Edgar Wright's movie. Wright has said in interviews that he fully conceived of the scene the first time he heard the song, shortly after its original release.

18. Dear Life - Beck
Perpetua also hipped me to this great new song from Beck. I'm glad he did, because I've otherwise been having a hard time with how, as Perpetua put it, "the surface of Beck’s Colors is glossy and upbeat, as though Beck and his collaborator Greg Kurstin went out of their way to make a record that would sound mainstream and contemporary." The vibe of songs like "Wow," and "Up All Night" just don't compute in my brain with the idea of listening to a Beck song. My problem, not Beck's, I suppose.

Perpetua also said something on Twitter (I'm having a hard time finding it to link to now) to the effect of how this song's piano and guitar make it sound like Beck stole it from the Scissor Sisters. Works for me.

19. Anyone Who Had A Heart - Tim Curry
My brother let me steal this from his 2017 mix CD, having selected a different song from his 1978 debut album, Read My Lips. We all knew Curry could sing -- we're all familiar with Rocky Horror and The Worst Witch, after all -- but this Bacharach and David interpretation kind of knocked me on my ass. (I was unsurprised to learn that Pink Floyd's The Wall collaborators Bob Ezrin and Michael Kamen produced Curry's album, given his turn as the Crown prosecutor in the 1990 performance of the album in Berlin.)

The Annotated Beukemix, 2014

I want to try something new this year. Instead of writing up one great big post with notes on each of the songs that grabbed me anew this year, I'm going to serialize it, with one new chunk of the post each workday (and probably the Thursday and Friday of Thanksgiving). This way I can write in coffee-break-sized chunks instead of blocking off lunchtimes.

(2021 Edit: you can listen to most of this on Spotify now, with a replacement track for #21 -- the Serial Season Two theme in place of the one from S1.)

Liner notes!

1. Heart of Gold - Charles Bradley & The Menahan Street Band
I'm not a big Neil Young guy, but when I heard the opening riff of this great soul cover, I knew exactly what song it was going to be. I first put Charles Bradley on my radar a couple years ago, and I look forward to hearing more. His version feels much more "lived in" and painful than Neil Young's ever did to me (I should note that I don't actually dislike Neil Young). (HS)

'I used to hate it when it came on the radio. I always liked Neil Young, but it bothered me every time I listened to "Heart of Gold." I think it was up at number one for a long time, and I'd say, "Shit, that's me. If it sounds like me, it should as well be me."' - Bob Dylan

2. Step - Vampire Weekend
Melissa and I heard this one while waiting in a long line of cars at the MSP Humphrey Terminal last December. This was the first time Vampire Weekend had really grabbed me. I love how dense the lyrics are in this song, and now that I'm digging into it, I find that it's full of sideways references to other bands, songs, etc. For someone who geeks out on hyperlink songs like "American Pie," this is catnip. One theory, which I like, is that the "girls" referenced in the song are musical tastes. Every time I see you in the world, you always step to my [music]. That titular line, and the melody of the chorus, are taken from a Souls of Mischief song called "Step To My Girl," which is also good. Maybe that's why Melissa dug the song when we first heard it -- it's got underground Oakland hip-hop in its DNA.

3. Asleep at the Wheel - Band of Skulls
Heavy, riffy, hard blues rock from an English trio. Not a lot going on under the hood, but I don't really pay much attention to lyrics anyway. The reviews I've read like to compare it to later White Stripes or, as Allmusic puts it, Muse playing a Black Keys song (or vice versa). But I'm reminded more of Sabbath.

4. Savion Glover - P.O.S.
P.O.S. spits the anxieties of the late Bush era into a restless and efficient track from Doomtree's 2007 album. Great hook, great wordplay and lyrical pivots. I also love the metaphor of the last line and the title as regards the architects of the Global War On Terror (GWOT, TM) and the invasion of Iraq. (TC)

5. Chain My Name - POLIÇA
A track I really liked the sound of from local synthpop outfit POLIÇA. Looking at the lyrics just now, it reads like it's about a crumbling marriage. I just enjoyed that it sounded like 16-bit video game music. (TC)

6. Far From Any Road - The Handsome Family
I didn't think the finale really stuck the landing, but True Detective's deep sense of dread really stuck with me, and I found myself more affected after watching any given episode of the HBO miniseries than anything I'd seen in a long time. The opening credits music by the Handsome Family contributes greatly to the foreboding (helped further by the haunting visuals -- I don't know why, but I found the oil industry landscapes to be some of the visually creepiest things in the show). I know I'm not the only one who thought the opening verse referenced "the poisoned Creole soul," in reference to the story's Louisiana setting, but it's "the poison creosote," in keeping with the desert imagery of the rest of the lyrics. I wonder if the second season, set in California, will keep the song. (Bonus: check out the opening from this season of Key & Peele.) (HS)

7. Turn-of-the-Century Recycling Blues - And The Professors
I just found out yesterday that the singer & songwriter here is Adam Levy, formerly of the Honeydogs, who joined us for Show X back in January and with whom I had a good chat about his love of film composer John Barry. I've sent him some questions about this song, so I might have more to say soon, but for now: My first reaction to this song was just how pleasant and sunny the arrangement was. But then the competing undercurrents of good-old-days nostalgia and the ugliness that lurks throughout history shone through in the lyrics. Very Randy Newmanesque, in both music & lyrics. It's almost like a far more musically interesting, less on-the-nose We Didn't Start the Fire for the 60 years preceding that song's time span. It brought to mind things like Ragtime and Bioshock Infinite and the idea that the happy times that the winners of history remember fondly have some blood stains on them. (TC)

8. Hey, Girl - Sonny Knight & The Lakers
Just... damn. I want to learn the horn part. I love the overall sense of propulsion, and the way the downward horn figure continues for several more notes than expected going into the bridge, and the drum break that seems to be a hat tip to the Amen Brother break, and Sonny's enthusiastic talking bit, and the shout-outs to the soloists, and that the trumpet player bobbles the first couple notes coming out of the bridge, and all of it. (HS, TC)

9. GMF - John Grant
First heard this on The Current. The radio version's chorus refers to "The Greatest Living Person". Something about the syllabic scan of that line suggested to me the song was edited. When I heard the title was GMF, I knew I was right. I love songs where the protagonist is the jerk (the antihero trope is far less played out in music than it is in prestige TV dramas). Paired with lush production, I'm sold.

10. Busy Earnin' - Jungle
High-energy music that makes me happy. The dancing in the video is terrific, too. (HS, HC)

11. Water Fountain - Tune-Yards
One of the things I enjoy about Merrill Garbus' songs is that she generally seems like she's having a blast, even if, as in this case, the lyrics seem to be referencing world issues of starvation and water access. There's something wickedly subversive of couching issues that heavy in music that starts out sounding like a double dutch chant and ends up at one point with a freakout that would be at home on the Katamari Damacy soundtrack. (HC)

12. Pushin' Against A Stone - Valerie June
Joe Bozic alerted me to this song's existence last spring, and I really dug it. It's by far the most r&b/rock-oriented song on June's album with the same title, which displays pretty diverse musical interests and influences. When she came to town for Wits with Kumail Nanjiani in June, she played more country-oriented stuff, which is less my bag but better showcased her voice. She also helped Kumail and Mike and the rest of the crew explain how to buy a donkey (you can totally hear me laughing in this video).

13. Childhood's End - Pink Floyd
Imagine with me: you come to love an insanely popular band late, in early adulthood. Then, one day, you realize that within the range of their albums you consider your favorites, they released a half-instrumental soundtrack album you've never bothered to check out before. And, upon listening, it fits much of the character of the early end of that range of albums you love. That happened to me. My favorite Pink Floyd is that which includes Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Rick Wright all as significant creative contributors. You need Gilmour's spaciness and Waters' deep, bitter sense of the world to be in balance, and you need both Wright's consummate musicality and Gilmour's guitar solos. I do, anyway.

14. Mission Statement - Weird Al Yankovic
As a nerd who was a kid any time later than 1980, I am predisposed to have enjoyed Weird Al at some time in my life. I've always admired his attention to detail in parody, even if I think his lyrics lean more towards silly than incisive humor (incidentally, this is why I've usually found that his polka medleys of pop hits have tended to age best among his songs). But this track is a rare Weird Al song (in the style of Crosby, Stills & Nash, particularly "Carry On" and "Suite Judy Blue Eyes") that I'd actually call satirical.

15. Joke About Jamaica - The Hold Steady

I didn't love Craig Finn's voice when I first heard The Hold Steady, but his style forces attention on the lyrics (rare for me). Each HS song is an empathetic work of short fiction, a character study presented with the sounds of the world's best bar band. The protagonist here is a woman facing the fading of her youth, and looking back on the years that she was hot shit on the scene. The song is also full (including the title) of references to Zeppelin songs, which certainly got my attention. (TC, sort of)

16. Restless Leg - Har Mar Superstar

I've written before that the first time I heard this song I thought it was a Robinson Caruso Organization track that if somehow missed. I hope James Rone takes this as a compliment, but the songwriting and instrumentation sounds so much like that project. Even the keyboard sounds like Andy Crowley often did in the RCO. The song is bouncy and fun. No horns, but nobody's perfect. (TC, sort of)

17. Lazy Wonderland - Broken Bells
"Holding on for Life" was my favorite new song of 2013, so it was going to be hard for the rest of After the Disco to live up to that promise. It was hard, but this beautiful, dark song about love and — madness, I guess? — was another high point. Even though it's from a minor key to a major (instead of major-to-major*), the chord resolution at the end can't but remind me of the end of "With a Little Help From My Friends" (and Oasis' "She's Electric," which stole the same ending).

18. There Is - The Dells
I spent some time this year trying to fill in the gaps of the long-running Beukema Brothers Oldies Download Project. In the process of researching the old Time/Life "Rock & Roll Era" tapes our parents had, I came across this great track. I have no idea if I ever heard it back when KOOL 108 was an oldies station, but it's a terrific sound that reminds me of the things I love about the Four Tops. (HS)

19. Let Me Down Easy - Paolo Nutini
Here's another one Joe Bozic hipped me to, from Scottish R&B singer Nutini. Even though it's built around a sample of American Bettye LaVette, there's something unmistakable about the sound that marks it as being a UK production. Something about the particular way the organ is used, or the trip-hoppiness of the beat. I'm probably making this up. Anyway, it's a smooth little soul song. (HS)

20. New Dorp, New York - SBTRKT ft. Ezra Koenig
I was first struck by, and liked, the deep and somewhat dark weirdness of this track featuring lyrics and vocals by Vampire Weekend frontman Koenig. Turns out the title refers to a neighborhood in Staten Island. And of course the "Empire" and "Rock" in the chorus are buildings as well as metaphors. Though it now feels less inscrutable, I don't pretend to get the extent of the seeming socioeconomic implications of the song's lyrics. But it does remain pleasantly dark, and weird, and toe-tapping.

21. Bad Dream (The Theme) - Nick Thorburn
I'm pleased that this short tune happens to have timed out to be posted on a Thursday, which for the past 12 weeks has been the release days for each new episode of Serial. For that time, this music has been the bookends for Sarah Koenig's exploration of Hae Min Lee's murder and Adnan Syed's conviction. Appropriately, it suggests curiosity with a backdrop of menace, playing these tones against each other. And for the last couple of months, I've been walking around with the "dink dink dink dink" stuck in my head.

22. Hey Jude - Wilson Pickett
Every Thanksgiving, The Current programs a "time machine weekend," where each hour features music from a single year, with the years shuffled throughout the weekend. I wish they did this every weekend. Anyway, this year I heard this great cover of the Beatles, featuring Duane Allman on guitar. (HS)

And that's it! See you next year.

Key and final score:
HS - horn section - 7 - a rare year without a majority
TC - Twin Cities artists - 4 + 2 x 1/2 = 5
HC - hand claps - 1 - poor showing

*Major Major Major Major

The Annotated Beukemix, 2013

Liner notes!

(2021 Edit: You can listen to most of this on Spotify! I had to include some consolation prizes for the unavailable-on-Spotify Tracks 1 and 18. Sorry.)

1. While You Wait for the Others - Grizzly Bear ft. Michael McDonald
Already put the original version on my 2009 mix, but one morning the Current's morning show played this one as an example of something the band should do more of to garner Grammy voter goodwill. It took me most of the song to believe it wasn't a prank. It's not. It is, however, amazing.

2. Nobody Can - Deltron 3030 ft. Aaron Bruno
I feel lucky in a dumb way that I got into Deltron so late; I only had to wait 8 years for another album, instead of 13. The songs on the new album are great (unlike on the debut, the skits are terrible), and this is a great example. I want to dive into the extensive making-of material on YouTube to see if it's got some info about Del's particular sci-fi background. Thanks to Lacey, I got to see them live in October, which was a lot of fun. Dan the Automator definitely strikes me as the extrovert of the collaboration.

3. Pelican - The Maccabees
The video seems pretty dumb. Recommend listening in a background browser tab.

4. I Got You (At the End of the Century) - Wilco
This is a new re-recording (seemingly unavailable for linking) of the song for the "This is Forty" soundtrack. I will tolerate bluegrass in my rock if it's Wilco.

5. Little Numbers - BOY
There's something quaint about a song that uses knowledge of a telephone number to symbolize the excitement of a new relationship. I mean, the last time I was in one, I memorized Melissa's number pronto, even though I did already have a cell phone and it was somewhat unnecessary. Who knows what the kids are doing today with their hula hoops and fax machines. Get off my lawn. Anyway, it's a nice song that I thought was Feist the first time I heard it.

6. Animals - Muse
I really haven't made the effort with Muse, though I love Knights of Cydonia. This track suggests I really should. It's got a 5/4 time signature, a guitar in David Gilmour mode, and even shares its name with Pink Floyd's underrated masterpiece album. Pure Fredbait.

7. Thrift Shop - Macklemore and Ryan Lewis ft. Wanz Look, the hook is terrific and the song is a lot of fun. Based on their SNL performance, I'm pretty convinced that Ryan Lewis is actually Ryan Howard from The Office. [I don't buy the argument that Macklemore is somehow making fun of dressing in thrift store clothes. Based on the rest of the album, if there's one thing he's not lacking, it's sincerity; I think he's genuinely celebrating thrifty cultivation of a unique personal style. The idea that the song is somehow at the expense of those who cannot afford not to shop at thift shops suggests that thrift shops are only intended to be for poor people.]

8. She Cries Your Name - Beth Orton
Missed this one back in its day, and when I heard it this summer the song's half-decade of origin was apparent: only the mid-90s produced alt-rock singer songwriters with acoustic guitar, upright bass, a hip-hoppish drumbeat and electronic piano flourishes. If she were male and ended every sentence with a superfluous "-ah," I'd think it was a lost Soul Coughing cut.

9. Spectrum - Florence + The Machine
Downloaded this song back to back with the Beth Orton, and when I listened to them on a drive one evening, the transition between sort of faded into nothingness, like they were two adjacent movements of a larger work. Apart, I like both songs. Together, I love them. Also: I like to think Orton was referring to Florence crying your name, and now Florence is suggesting you return the favor.

10. Shuggie - Foxygen
A somewhat silly little suite of a pop song, with an odd keyboard break in the middle that somehow reminds me of Toe Jam and Earl.

11. The Bear and the Maiden Fair - The Hold Steady
Watching Game of Thrones, it feels like there are only two songs in all of Westeros. The show introduced "The Rains of Castamere" in the second season, and explained it in detail midway through the third, so that once it became important to the plot, you'd know to be alarmed that you were hearing it. "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" carries less baggage; it's the "Piano Man" or "Sweet Caroline" of the fictional world, the song everybody sings together when they get drunk. The Hold Steady were a great choice to flesh it out, and they make it sound like a Hold Steady song, especially with the talking bit in the bridge. On the show this recording is introduced at one of the more hilariously brutal cut-to-blacks I've seen on TV.

12. Oh! You Pretty Things - David Bowie
Max got super into Bowie's "Changes" this year (other song obsessions: "C is for Cookie," Macklemore's "Can't Hold Us," "Folsom Prison Blues"), so I spent a lot of time listening to Hunky Dory. Always liked this song, but it hooked me anew under increased scrutiny. The video link is a nice live version from the BBC in '72 that I'm pretty sure is Bowie doing karaoke to the instrumental track from the album.

13. Singers and the Endless Song - Iron & Wine
If I'd known Iron & Wine sometimes got beyond the folky songwriter business and messed around with obscure metaphor, deep bass lines, organ, and horn sections, I'd have been paying attention way sooner.

14. Prisoner - Har Mar Superstar ft. Fabrizio Moretti
Damn. I want the Robinson Caruso Organization to still exist so we can play this song. First time I heard it, I wondered if James Rone had secretly taken the project to the big time without the rest of us. Incidentally, apparently Fabrizio Moretti is the drummer from The Strokes.

15. Crazy - Petula Clark
This one comes from my brother, who I thank for bringing it to my attention. Yes, this is 80-year-old Petula Clark, of "Downtown" and "Don't Sleep in the Subway" fame, kicking ass on Gnarls Barkley's 2006 summer jam. Between that version, the Spaghetti Western score it samples, and this cover, the song has now been on my mix three times.

16. Black - Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi ft. Norah Jones
I liked the song when it closed out the 4th season of Breaking Bad, and finally got the album it came from for my birthday. As much as the orchestration is part of my appreciation of the song and the Spaghetti Western style, this simple version with just Luppi, Jones and Danger Mouse in a room is very cool as well.

17. Royals - Lorde
Seems like more and more the tastes of the Top 40 are overlapping with those of The Current's programmers. I jotted this song down during a morning commute a couple months before it was suddenly ubiquitous on the web and hit #1 (bookended by Miley Cyrus, a strong counterexample to the trend). Having now seen some live recordings of Lorde, I find her mannerisms while she sings really distracting. But that doesn't detract from how catchy and atmospheric this song is.

18. Givin' 'Em What They Love - Janelle Monáe ft. Prince
Had "Q.U.E.E.N." in the mix until I finally got "Electric Lady" this fall, and this song kicked my butt. I love Monáe's sci-fi world building, and the new album made me want to dig more into The Archandroid, which I liked well enough, and her first EP, which I haven't heard. Here are a couple of good pieces about her: one two. That second, from Alyssa Rosenberg, highlights one of my favorite things about Monáe - her sci-fi world building. I really, really want an RPG from Todd Howard's Bethesda team (Fallout 3, Skyrim) set in Janelle Monáe's Metropolis.

19. Bus Passes and Happy Meals - Lizzo
Lizzo is based in Minneapolis though she hails from Detroit via Houston. She cites Lauryn Hill and Missy Elliot as major inspirations, and this track (no link available) shows that latter influence plainly. This sounds in some ways like a lost Elliot track, with Cliff Rhymes doing his best Timbaland impression early on (though adding more vocally than I think Timbaland ever did). Anyway, it's great, and I look forward to hearing more.

20. Holding On for Life - Broken Bells
My favorite song of the year. Between Deltron, Janelle Monáe and this video, it's a great year for sci-fi in music. But even before I saw this video, I was imagining the establishing shots of 2019 Los Angeles from Blade Runner when I heard the smooth instrumental bridge. The chorus sounds like a Bee Gees song -- I mean that here as a compliment. [For those keeping score at home, this makes three songs with Danger Mouse writing credits this year.]

21. Shelter Song - Temples
Sounds like a good late period British Invasion song, until the last two notes of the guitar hook. Those last two notes! This song is all about those last two notes.

I had an unusual number of songs that just missed the cut this year. They include:
Mama Told Me - Kelly Rowland ft. Big Boi;
Pay the Price - Deltron 3030;
1x1x1 - Cloud Cult; Congratulation - MGMT;
Clint Eastwood - Trey Anastasio;
(You Will) Set the World on Fire - David Bowie;
Tusk - Fleetwood Mac;
Sacrilege - The Yeah Yeah Yeahs;
Sad Nile - The Whitefield Brothers;
Skeletons - Stevie Wonder;
The Rains of Castamere - The National;
Q.U.E.E.N. - Janelle Monáe ft. Erykah Badu (one of my favorite videos of the year);
Genius - Inara George;
Sleeping Ute - Grizzly Bear;
Line of Fire - Junip;
That's It! - The Preservation Hall Jazz Band (thanks, Joe Bozic, for this one); and
Antiphon - Midlake, which was bumped off by Temples at the last minute.

This was the tenth Beukemix I've done in this year-retrospective format, and I always enjoy sharing songs that caught my ear. If you have any songs you think I might like based on all these self-indulgent posts, I'd love to hear them.

The Annotated Beukemix 2012, belatedly

Here are liner notes for this last year's mix! Better late than never, I suppose, and I gotta get this out of the way as I finish up the 2013 mix.

(2021 Edit: This list is on Spotify! You can probably bail on Track 5 (a LONG version of Do Ya Thing by the Gorillaz) after about 4:24 -- this is a kludge for that track not being on that service.)


1. Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day - Stevie Wonder
A Wonder song I was unfamiliar with, instantly liked. This song fits into a genre that was new in 2012: songs I'd love to have been able to play as part of the Robinson Caruso Organization. The RCO played its last gig at our trobonist's wedding in March, but every now and then I hear a song that would be right in our wheelhouse in terms of style and instrumentation.

2. Heartaches And Pain - Charles Bradley
Another song I want to play the trumpet part for. Like Sharon Jones, Bradley is one of the throwback R&B singers who's still knocking out amazing late 60s/early 70s style songs decades later.

3. Nightcall - Kavinsky & Lovefoxxx
Ridiculous and fantastic 80s soundtrack throwback from the opening credits of "Drive," following by far the best scene in that film, the tense robbery getaway drive through a downtown LA evening.

4. Somebody That I Used To Know – Gotye ft. Kimbra
I know, ok. But despite being run into the ground by top 40 radio, this is a really-well crafted pop song, and a rare example of an unreliable narrator in current pop music: listen to Kimbra's response in the back half, and it becomes apparent that Gotye's protagonist is full of shit. Also, xylophone.

5. DoYaThing - Gorillaz ft. Andre3000 & James Murphy
You got Outkast in my Gorillaz. Something about the wordless lines in James Murphy's choruses reminds me of the song Jabba the Hutt's band plays (Lapti Nek) in the original version of Return of the Jedi.

6. Truth - Alexander The only pop song I know of with a bass clarinet solo. FYI, Alexander [Ebert] is the lead singer of Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. This was featured at the end of "Box Cutter," the 4th season premiere of Breaking Bad.

7. To Love Somebody - Nina Simone
Heard this in "I Love You, Philip Morris," the decent Jim Carrey / Ewan McGregor vehicle. Much better than the original.

8. The Police & The Private - Metric
I'd heard a bit of Metric before Ta-Nehisi Coates' enthusiasm really spurred me to pay more attention when he linked to an interesting live version of this one on his blog. The restless cymbal and noodling keyboard lick throughout sold me on the band.

9. The Killing Moon - Echo & The Bunnymen
First heard it in the opening scene of "Donnie Darko" years ago. Noticed it with more enthusiasm during my seemingly annual Rock Band 3 kick. The opening guitar line and echoing piano figures creep me out in a good way.

10. Surgeon - St. Vincent
Liked this song on the radio, though my first impression was that it was another song swiping the melody of "You Only Live Twice." St. Vincent's AV Club interview about the song was interesting: the titular line comes from Marilyn Monroe's diary, which referred to acting teacher (/Hyman Roth) Lee Strasberg as the "best, finest surgeon to come cut me open."

11. Night & Day - Hot Chip
A goofily menacing dance pop tune with a goofily menacing dance pop video, the style of which reminds me somehow of The Handmaid's Tale. You know, without all the forced birth.

12. Stop the Press - Brother Ali
I had the privilege of improvising scenes to go with Brother Ali's stories in Show X last year. Around the same time, I heard this on the radio during one of Max's lunch times (Max enjoyed dancing to it). It's an autobiographical rhyme about the previous few years of Ali's life, and the crap that's gone down while his career blew up.

13. Till the End of the Day - The Kinks
I read someone recently saying that although they love every Kinks song they know, they wouldn't consider the Kinks a favorite band. Let's let the Kinks into our hearts, people. Wes Anderson's been doing too much of the Kinks-loving heavy lifting.

14. For Tomorrow - Blur
Damon Albarn makes another appearance with a song brought to my attention by an AV Club piece about "Songs we want to live inside." Claire Zulkey picked this one for its romantic optimism in a cold, gray world.

15. Crystal Blue Persuasion - Tommy James & The Shondells
That Vince Gilligan and his Breaking Bad crew managed to hold off on using this on-the-nose musical cue until their last mid-season-finale is a pretty impressive show of restraint. The montage they used it in was great, but also made me notice the song's greatness. I tend to lump the Shondells with The Association and The Turtles as popular 60s bands who I don't think get enough credit for their musical excellence.

16. Michael Praytor, Five Years Later - Ben Folds Five
Having been mixed on the last few Ben Folds solo albums, I was happy that the band's return sounded like it could have come out 2 years after 1999's "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner," instead of 13.

17. The Horror - RJD2
Someone (Huge Theater tech Josh Kuehn, I think) included this in the pre-show music for "Creature Feature," the improved monster movie, which was in its 9th year in 2012. Apt. Lot of creepy songs on this year's mix. In my mind the guys in the white masks at the end of the video are a bunch of off-season Edgar Allen Poe toasters.

18. Weep Themselves to Sleep - Jack White
My favorite song off of White's first solo album.

19. Tell Me A Tale - Michael Kiwanuka
I love it when songs play with time signature, and this one keeps a steady 4/4 beat throughout, but the emphasis in the verses sounds like a compound 3/8-5/8 signature. So I'll call this the Brahms' 4th Symphony of 2010s soul songs.

20. Americanarama - Hollerado
Kid in the Hall Dave Foley did a "Theft of the Dial" segment on the Current in November, with lots of interesting tidbits: Foley realized he needed to get divorced when he heard the Barenaked Ladies' song "Break Your Heart," and Aimee Mann's Oscar-nominated "Save Me" was written about him. But this song, the video of which stars Foley as a take on American Apparel's sleazebag founder Dov Charney, is way more fun.


Coming soon to this space: 2013

The Annotated Beukemix 2011

Here are liner notes for this year's mix! As usual, the links are to mostly-representative versions of each song, which may not be the exact version in the mix. Be forewarned.

(2021 Edit: You can listen to this on Spotify now! It's missing the Jurassic 5 cut, but it does have our Robinson Caruso track (which surprised me greatly) AND my preferred recording of Morton Gould's Pavanne. The version of Snow Days might be a mismatch, though; I think it was a live version on my mix. Whatever, the song is terrific no matter what.)

(HS = Horn section. TC = Twin Cities-based band or artist. HC = Hand claps.)

1. Infinity Guitars - Sleigh Bells
Shortly before the end of the year, Huge Theater's doors opened. On the original schedule was a weekly Fingergun show. Nels selected this song to be our run-up music. A college classmate of mine posted something online a while back, praising(?) Sleigh Bells for their dedication to the loudest, dumbest guitar riffs. That's true, but it's also effective: listen to this while you're trying to walk somewhere. You will get there 10% faster. (HC)

2. Omega Dog - The Dears
Upon hearing the chord at 2:38 (3:46 in the video), the Pink Floyd centers of my brain lit up like a Christmas tree in a way they haven't since hearing the coda of My Morning Jacket's "Off the Record." This song made me greatly anticipate the release of Degeneration Street in February. Too bad the rest of the album is nowhere near this good.

3. Love Debt - The Robinson Caruso Organization
(note: link is to a one-man demo version of the song on MySpace)
Yeah, so what? It's rare, the opportunity to put a song by the band you're in on a mix when you're a full-time engineer and have a kid. Anyway, this is a great piece of songwriting from Mr. Caruso / James Rone, and as the penultimate selection of most of our set lists, it's only gotten more anthemic over the few years we've been playing it. You should see us play it live. Also, buy our EP. And request us on the Current, often. I almost put this on last year's Beukemix, but the CD didn't quite make it out until after the first of the year.  (HS, TC)

4. Federal Funding - Cake
Cake's latest album hit #1 on the Billboard album chart this winter, and had the distinction of being the lowest-selling number-one album since SoundScan started tracking in 1991. Like the Sleigh Bells cut, this song makes me want to get shit done. If I still had the time to go to the gym, this would be in heavy rotation. (HS)

5. Burn It Down - Sims
Heard this on the Current on the way to work one morning, and made this face. For you non-Twin-Citians, Sims is part of Doomtree, local hip-hop collective. (HS, TC)

6. You Make Me Smile - Aloe Blacc
Memo to James Rone: we should play this. I want to play these horn parts. (Aloe Blacc also made the mix late last year for "Femme Fatale.") (HS)

7. Booty City - Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears
Melissa and I went to Austin, TX to visit her Aunt in January 2008, and saw Black Joe Lewis open for Big Sam's Funky Nation at the Continental Club. I really enjoyed their set, but I don't think they played this song, because I would have remembered it. (HS)

8. Make Some Noise - Beastie Boys
Nothing on the new Beastie record stands out the way "Ch-Check It Out" did on To the Five Burroughs in 2004, but it seems less uneven overall. The video is stupid, stupid fun, as is the full-half-hour version "Fight for Your Right Revisited," though that may be primarily as a spot-the-comic-actor-cameo exercise. By the way: in what universe is Danny McBride the young version of MCA?

9. Dixon's Girl - Dessa
Dessa makes two members of Doomtree on the mix this year. I've seen her perform live twice, though never as a musical act: I saw her win a poetry slam at Kieran's Irish Pub in 2003, and she did a spoken word appearance with Huge Theater back when they were still the Oldest Established Permanent Floating Improv Theater in Minneapolis (Incidentally, it turns out she and I overlapped at SWHS). Anyway, her 2010 album had this on it, and it's good, not least because it's the only hip-hop joint I know with a beat built around a bassoon. The video can best be described as something like The Shining taking a ride in the car from "Karma Police."(TC)

10. The Beautiful Ones - Prince and the Revolution
I've been listening to Purple Rain for years, but I didn't really notice how amazing the climax of this song is until finally watching the movie this Summer. You've got to get through some goofiness to get there, though. The talking part verges on self-parody, and seems like it belongs in a Flight of the Conchords number. But you get to the coda, and it seems like Prince is going to slip in his own guts that he just spilt on the stage. Gross. Awesome. (TC)

11. Queen of Tomorrow - The Twilight Hours
Matt Wilson and (the recently-discussed-on-this-blog) John Munson, both previously of Trip Shakespeare, reunite on an upbeat song about being the loser boyfriend that the successful rock chick left behind in Minneapolis. This almost made the list at the end of last year when it was on heavy rotation on The Current, but I got more into it when I paid more attention to the lyrics this summer. This has to be an exhausting one to sing live. (TC)


12. Big Sky - The Hotrats
One of many reasons I was excited for Dan Hetzel's return to town was that in the past, he'd steered me in the direction of some awesome music. He did not disappoint. Hotrats is a side project by two members of the now-defunct Supergrass, focused on covers. Their album is full of great stuff, exemplified by this cover of The Kinks.

13. Golden Years - David Bowie
Another year, another Bowie cut. I definitely prefer early-70s Bowie to his Thin White Duke period, but Golden Years is a nice disco cut featuring some Bowie vocal acrobatics. Incidentally, in this Soul Train appearance, Bowie looks a bit like Eric Stoltz on Caprica. (HC)

14. Seven Days of the Week (I Never Go to Work) - They Might Be Giants
Now that there's a kidlet about, I felt it was time to finally look into the They Might Be Giants children's albums, and my brother was kind enough to hook me up for my birthday. This song is a standout from the Here Come the 123s! album, one that WILL be stuck in your head when you awaken in the night tonight, and for some days to come. Seriously, Melissa and I walked around singing this for the latter half of the summer. (HS)

15. Ballata Per Un Pistolero - Franco Micalizzi & Roberto Pregadio
I got the chance to work with Ferrari McSpeedy on their Fringe Festival show again this year, and it was "Once Upon a Time in the Suburbs," a timeless and mendacious story told by a grandfather to his grandson about the founding of an all-woman suburb in late-19th-Century Illinois. We used this bit of real spaghetti western score (gleaned from the Red Dead Revovler soundtrack) at the very end of the show. I really like the first half, but the second half becomes suddenly more earnest and optimistic for some reason. (HS)

16. Red Hot - Jurassic 5
Melissa and had a date night one evening in July when my parents took on Max for a few hours, and we spent part of our time having an impromptu dance party in the living room, scored by an old mix CD from our friend Jeanne. This song stood out. Sadly, a couple weeks later, Jeanne passed away in her sleep, apparently due to complications of her childhood-onset diabetes. She is deeply missed, but damn, she had good taste in party music.

17. Pavanne - Morton Gould
(note: video is a different performance from version on mix)
We played this back in Southwest High School wind ensemble my senior year. I loved the trumpet part, and to this day I play it almost every time I warm up on the horn. I've had a recording by Frederick Fennell and the Eastman Wind Ensemble for years, but really prefer this orchestral arrangement played on my mix by the Albany Symphony under David Alan Miller. It takes the piece slower (a minute longer than Fennell/Eastman!), which makes the whole thing seem more bittersweet, in keeping with the melancholy tone of the piece's B section. (HS)

18. Strange Apparition - Beck
I finally got another copy of Beck's The Information after having lost it several years back when I left my iPod on a plane. "Strange Apparition" sounds like a long-lost Rolling Stones cut, circa Exile on Main Street, if it had been re-engineered by Nigel Godrich 35 years later. The opening line and the piano in particular had me looking up the album notes to make sure it wasn't a Stones cover.

19. For 12 - Other Lives
This was a recent musical selection on the Filmspotting podcast (as were two Robinson Caruso songs, actually), to which you all should be listening. Host Adam Kempenaar explained that former co-host/current producer Sam Van Hallgren had submitted this song with the note that if Adam didn't like it, he would be 'dead to him". Sam is right: the song is really pretty.

20. Three More Days - Ray LaMontagne
My coworker Brian, who has been to a few Robinson Caruso Organization shows, recommended this and another Ray LaMontagne song to me as ones that reminded him of our style. I know LaMontagne is primarily known as a folk singer-songwriter type, but the stuff of his that I've really liked, like this song, is heavily influenced by 60s R&B. This one has a great horn part that sounds like a lot of fun to play. (HS)

21. Astronaut - Blitzen Trapper
This came on the radio one day recently while I was feeding Max lunch. So we danced.

22. Snow Days - The New Standards
John Munson strikes again, this time as part of jazz trio The New Standards, covering a Trip Shakespeare song (once again, please reference the previous post). Trip Shakespeare and Twilight Hours frontman Matt Wilson cameos to reprise the talking part. About a year ago, when Minneapolis was socked by Snowmageddon, Melissa's Aunt Tricia was visiting, and as we all looked at the feet of snow out the window that Saturday, we ate our pancakes, happy in the knowledge that we didn't have to go anywhere that day. The Current chose that moment to play the original recording of this song, and it was perfect. Sometime in the last year I watched this live version from last year's New Standards Holiday Show, and loved the addition of horns.  (HS, TC)

FINAL SCORES
Horn Sections: 10
Hand Claps: 2
Twin Cities Bands/Artists: 6

The Annotated Beukemix 2010

This year's Beukemix progressed a little strangely: I had an unusual number of candidate tracks before 2009 was even out. By the 5th of January, I already had seven tracks on the list -- one third of a typical mix. Not all of those songs made it on here, but the first quarter of the year is quite well-represented.

Here are liner notes! As usual, the links are to mostly-representative versions of each song, which may not be the exact version in the mix. Be forewarned.

(2021 Edit: Listen to almost-this-mix on Spotify! Two subsitutions due to Spotify unavailability: TMBG's live version of "Birdhouse" from "Severe Tire Damage" in place of the superior Tonight Show performance, and sadly, the original Radiohead version of "Exit Music" (still great, don't get me wrong) instead of the Italian version by Spaghetti Western String Co.)

(HS = Horn section. There weren't enough hand claps to justify a count this year, sadly.)

1. Home – Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
I know, I know. It's played out. But it's such a good song. I intended to put this one at the end of the 2009 Beukemix, having first heard it on The Current on a morning commute, but I forgot it at compilation time last year. I will say this: I cannot handle watching video of the group performing this song. Too earnest. (HS)

2. Prisencolinensinainciusol – Adriano Celentano
Saw the hypnotic, almost disturbing video for this song late in December, was hooked. At the time, it was bouncing around the internet as "this is what American English sounds like to Italians." Seems that might not be true. Apparently, Celentano, a comedian, wrote the song in the 60s about the difficulty of modern communication. It's gibberish, but may not be intended as gibberenglish. The older, black & white video suggests a hellish Logans-Run-esque dystopia in which you must dance ... to live! (HS)

3. Take It In – Hot Chip
Speaking of vague menace, here comes this song. Heard it first on The Current.

4. Love and Happiness – Al Green
The Robinson Caruso Organization got this song ready for our January shows, and I fell in love with it. The post-chorus has my favorite horn part of any of the songs we play. Amazingly, the evening I set out to learn this song, I had NPR on, and they were replaying Fresh Air interviews with Al Green and producer Willie Mitchell on the occasion of the latter's death, and they played it. As I was putting the chart on the music stand. (HS)

5. You Keep Me Hanging On – Diana Ross and the Supremes
In January I caught up with Pitchfork's Top 200 songs of the 1960s, which is a great list. This was one of several Supremes cuts on the list, and it inspired me and Melissa to an impromptu dance party in our garage upon our return from a Super Bowl party. Holland, Dozier & Holland do good work. Instrumentally, it's terrific, especially the opening guitar chatter,  which reminds me of a less disco-y 3-2-1 Contact. I also love that Ross' vocals are double-tracked, and the two takes they used are slightly different, and don't always line up (perhaps in suggestion of the used woman's mental anguish). (HS)

6. This Will Be Our Year (Mono version) – The Zombies
Also on the Pitchfork list. I was previously unfamiliar with it, but I thought it was a sweet and beautiful and hopeful message. And the song was right. It was our year. [Note: upon final compilation, I discovered that there were supposed to be horns in this song. During the 1997 stereo mixing of the album (Odyssey & Oracle)—the recording I had—they did not include the horn parts. WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT? So I found the mono version. Enjoy.] (HS)

7. Sixteen – The Heavy
Heard this first on the Current, and wondered why Screamin' Jay Hawkins was getting so much rotation. (HS -- sax choirs count)

8. Perfect Day – Lou Reed
Produced by Bowie! I heard a lot of this in February because of this commercial featuring US snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler that aired repeatedly during the Winter Olympics. It's the prettiest song that's maybe about heroin that you'll ever hear. (HS -- it's subtle)

9. Tightrope – Janelle Monae
2010's Number One Summer Jam first came to me by way of my college friend Robin. Accept no versions of the song that do not include the Classy Brass, the Funkiest Horn Section in Metropolis. As my brother notes, this is the first time his and my year-end mixes have overlapped. (HS)

10. Birdhouse in Your Soul – They Might Be Giants ft. Doc Severinsen and the Tonight Show Band
A clip of this was in the TMBG documentary "Gigantic (a Tale of Two Johns)." For years I've wanted a recording. Thanks to the rippability of Youtube videos, now I have one! I can only imagine how incredibly mind-blowing this must have been to fans of the band in 1990. I carefully edited Jay Leno out of the copy on this mix. You're welcome. (HS)

11. Oh My God – Ida Maria
I love how, at the song's climax, the singer barely has control of her voice, and then finally lets go in a primal yell. Somebody in the liberal political blogosphere (ah, it was Matthew Yglesias) linked to this song in 2009, and I liked it. I next heard it this year upon the announcement of the track list for Rock Band 3. It took some effort to get a version without Iggy Pop clumsily shoehorned into it.

12. Strangers – The Kinks
On the 2007 Beukemix, I included the Kinks song from the Darjeeling Limited soundtrack that had most grabbed my attention, "Powerman." My attention has a short span, I guess, because "Strangers" really is the best of them. I was too blinkered to notice this error until Wye Oak covered the song for The AV Club's "Undercover" project this summer. This song is beautiful, especially the tom-tom heartbeat that is finally left, naked and alone, at the end.

13. Superfast Jellyfish – Gorillaz
Originally I was going to put "Stylo" on the mix, but I was a bit underwhelmed by it.*  I got a copy of Plastic Beach, and was hopeful for something that would grab me like "Clint Eastwood," "Rock the House," or "Feel Good, Inc." Melissa and I were driving from Pismo Beach to Monterey, listening to the album, and when this one came on, I decided we had a winner. Still, every time De La Soul do a Gorillaz track, I miss Del. [*That said, do check out the wonderful and ridiculous video for Stylo.]

14. Never My Love – The Association
The Association are underrated; I offer the bass line of this sweet, gorgeous song as proof.

15. Bang Bang Bang – Mark Ronson & The Business Int'l ft. Q-Tip & MNDR
Every year there's at least one song that drops my jaw moments into the first time I hear it. This year, this is that song. The synthesizers remind me in a weird way of Alvin & The Chipmunks in the 80s. Q-Tip does a typically great job of making other people's songs awesome.

16. Georgia – Cee Lo Green
"Fuck You" is a great song, but it the internet's overenthusiasm made short work of its shelf life. Hilarious Grammy nomination aside, it's kind of a gimmick. I heard this one about the same time, and preferred it greatly. Soaring horns, a message of hometown gratitude, and Cee Lo singing his guts out.  (HS)

17. Femme Fatale – Aloe Blacc
Robinson Caruso frontman James Rone linked to this one on Facebook a few months back. I was sold. (HS)

18. You're a Cad – The Bird & The Bee
Heard this in a California Pizza Kitchen where Melissa and I were having lunch and planning our baby shower after seeing The Social Network. Jotted down enough of the lyrics to google, and discovered that The Bird & The Bee would be making their return to the Beukemix.

19. Musica di Uscita (Per un Film) – Spaghetti Western String Company
This summer, Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls put together an EP of her ukulele covers of Radiohead. Exit Music (For a Film) jumped out at me, and I went back to the original, which I'd always liked, but now found emotionally devastating upon review. I planned to put that version on here. Then, the SWSC covered this at their final concert, bringing this already operatic song into opera's home language. I was going to put a rip of that live performance on here, but the band graciously put it on their farewall album (Farewell Verse), so here's a Minnesotan alt-bluegrass band covering Radiohead in Italian.

20. Palaces of Montezuma – Grinderman
I find this song very sweet, and enjoy the weird collection of literary and cultural allusions.

21. Whole Lotta Love – Tina Turner
The Current did a Thanksgiving Time Machine Weekend, and mistakenly lumped this cover in with 1969, the year of Zeppelin's original (a longtime favorite of mine). It's actually from 1975, but I forgive The Current, because they informed me of the existence of a cover of Whole Lotta Love by Tina Turner.

FINAL SCORES
Horn Sections: 11 - a majority. Motion carries.
Accordions: 2
Clarinet: 1
Ukulele: 1

References to JFK's spinal cord: 1
Songs in Italian: 1
Songs in Italian gibberish: 1
Covers: 2
Songs whose choruses accuse you of keeping me hanging on: 2