Tapes on Books
October 4, 2012 9:11 AM   Subscribe

Tapes on Books: Mixtape soundtracks for beloved classics. Some obvious ("Runaway" by Del Shannon for Ralph Macchio's escape after stabbing Johnny Cade in The Outsiders), some clever ("If You Got the Money" by Lefty Frizzell as Daisy Buchanan's theme song in The Great Gatsby), with witty rationales throughout ("If Sauron's evil flaming eye was actually a evil flaming mouth, then it would sing with Lemmy’s voice").
posted by goatdog (8 comments total) 9 users marked this as a favorite
 
Tor.com is doing also doing "mix tapes" for Neil Gaiman's American gods at the moment.
posted by Artw at 9:18 AM on October 4, 2012


Bright Lights Big City
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:20 AM on October 4, 2012


......Fuuuuuuuuuun.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:20 AM on October 4, 2012


Huh, this is pretty much how I've been organizing my MeFi CD Swap Mixes. Only with slightly less well known books.
posted by .kobayashi. at 9:26 AM on October 4, 2012


Clicked the link expecting a reminder of how not well-read I am.
Found myself staring at an endless list of songs I've never heard. I think I recognized maybe five of them.
I can't tell if that was a dedicated hipster's effort at being obscure or if it's just someone who simply has tastes vastly different from my own.

When I write, I wind up assigning songs to my characters, and sometimes my scenes. This always leads to frustration, as the only way to keep the song going long enough for what I'm writing is to put it on repeat, and that just gets ridiculous. :)
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:42 AM on October 4, 2012


I can't tell if that was a dedicated hipster's effort at being obscure or if it's just someone who simply has tastes vastly different from my own.

I think it's mostly just different tastes. Most of the acts are household names - Yoko Ono, Motorhead, Kinks, Beatles, Soft Boys, the Who, Townes Van Zandy, PJ Harvey, James Brown, David Bowie, The Band, Tom Waits, The Ramones, Black Flag, ELO, REM, etc. There are a few new ones like Wooden Shjips, but definitely skews older.

My main complaint is that the music is a lot older than I prefer. I like newer stuff. You know, that the kids are listening to. On the streets. (Also, no way you should have two Lisa Germano songs on one mix!)

I also want more folk/country. And witch house.

...

I've thought of doing the same sort of blog/project, with the prerequisite that each mix tape has to be as long as it takes to read the book (figuring on an average of 1 page per minute).

I tend to read bigger books, 400-500+ pages, so that's ... 6-8 hours of music. Sigh. Time to hit the MP3 blogs ... good lord, imagine one for all of ASOIAF so far. Those books read a bit faster, but still, that's ... ~80 hours?

Mixtapes are a LOT of work to do well. These are ... pretty good, but I'm not surprised there have only been 5 in ~3 months. ;p

I'm reading Dr. Bloodmoney right now. I'll see what I can put together. (3.5-4 hours?)
posted by mrgrimm at 10:11 AM on October 4, 2012


Paul Oakenfold did a whole series of audiobooks with music mixed behind them for the BBC about a decade ago. They are pretty good.

Here's the Wind In The Willows.
posted by empath at 10:32 AM on October 4, 2012 [1 favorite]


If Sauron's evil flaming eye was actually a evil flaming mouth, then it would sing with Lemmy’s voice

Or maybe Wayne Coyne's.
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:30 AM on October 4, 2012


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