Love is a stranger in an open car...
April 30, 2010 5:58 PM   Subscribe

 
These two will always be my favorites (as much as I love a lot of the other themes), particularly as the weather turns back to summer.
posted by sparkletone at 6:20 PM on April 30, 2010


Awesome!
posted by fuq at 6:31 PM on April 30, 2010


Seconding the awesomeness. I have a road trip looming, now I have theme music.
posted by Kyol at 6:32 PM on April 30, 2010


It's a pity that he couldn't fit anything from Moroder's awesome Cat People soundtrack, but Quentin Tarantino, of all people, recently did that, so oh well.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:45 PM on April 30, 2010


Overall, though, it is indeed awesome.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:57 PM on April 30, 2010


Excellent stuff... can't help but wonder about copyright issues though (sorry for being so dull!)
posted by Monkeymoo at 6:58 PM on April 30, 2010


Wonderful, I needed this.
posted by coolxcool=rad at 7:13 PM on April 30, 2010


That Detroit mix is pretty nice. I was just jamming No UFOs.
posted by puny human at 7:37 PM on April 30, 2010


Wow, this is great! Thanks for the link. So much great music to run to.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 8:05 PM on April 30, 2010


Cool. Thanks!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:17 PM on April 30, 2010


Woot, Chicago house!
posted by hellojed at 9:25 PM on April 30, 2010


I worried about copyright issues too... :-(

I get a lot of great mixes from online (current faves are the Low Light Mixes) but it bothers me - these musicians worked hard and put a lot of money into making their recordings and they get nothing.

But this hasn't stopped me from downloading them. I do buy an awful lot of music.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:40 PM on April 30, 2010


I think part of the copyright non-worry is that the songs are mixed and can't really be separated out and traded and such. plus, stuff like this probably translates into people buying songs.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 11:29 PM on April 30, 2010


Ok. This is an awesome find!
posted by Thorzdad at 3:22 AM on May 1, 2010


Ahhhhhhhhh, Detroit techno....it's usually the only context in which I don't have to explain why my username is NOT misspelled.
posted by rhythim at 7:31 AM on May 1, 2010 [1 favorite]


plus, stuff like this probably translates into people buying songs.

I hear that argument a lot but from my personal experience and the experience of many musicians I know, this translates into zero sales.

A band I knew vaguely was MySpace's "pick of the week" (when Myspace was cool) so they were given millions of page hits and had some of their songs played tens of thousands of times. This resulted in ZERO extra sales - in fact, their sales (which were steady but not that large) actually DROPPED that week.

The current model for making money out of music is clearly broken. I have a clever plan :-D to make money for me and my bands but I shan't tell you what it is - because like most of the clever plans now, if many people did it it would cease to work.

Not that I'm getting moralistic - I downloaded ALL those mix tapes. The system is downright broken and me wringing my hands isn't going to fix it. Listen to music and then make sure to pay the piper - somehow.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:10 AM on May 1, 2010


I've had the juke mix on repetition for weeks. This is an amazing project and I'm glad that Murderbot has kept up with it for the whole year
posted by elr at 8:36 AM on May 1, 2010


I hear that argument a lot but from my personal experience and the experience of many musicians I know, this translates into zero sales.

ok then. i was just going of my personal experience at already having gone and bought two albums from stuff i heard in those mixes by the time i made that post. but maybe i'm like not typical.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 9:02 AM on May 1, 2010


fallacy of the beard:

I also buy things based on free samples - but I make it a point to also talk to sellers and see how they're doing, and inevitably the answer is "terrible".

Now, there's one consistent place that bands can sell their stuff, and that's at shows. That seems to be a proven model that's only increasing.

But let's look at the large-scale picture. People have far more music than they ever have before - I have over 130 DAYS of music - that's equivalent to 5000 LPs.

And yet each year the sales revenues of the music industry decrease.

The last year I actively looked at the numbers, 2007, the total sales of CDs fell by more than the entire size of the digital download market. If it wasn't for the concert market, the picture would be even more bleak than it is - and yet the concert market isn't caused by more people going to more concerts, but by jacking the ticket prices on a fairly constant number of "big ticket" shows. There's a limit to that, but more important, little of this money is going to new musicians or young musicians - people who are actually writing new music - and most of it is going to old, established acts playing the same stuff they've been playing for 30 years.

So we're all getting far more recorded music than ever before - but we're all spending a lot less money on it - the arithmetic is inescapably bad for the people making the music.

Don't get me wrong! I still think we can make money selling recorded music! I have a new album coming out with my new band, The Megatoids and I fully intend to sell it (though I intend to use sharply unorthodox techniques... :-D)

But I'm very very lucky, because I managed to get out from under the "day job" millstone - before I was 50. How many musicians have another skill that will let them do that? And, do we want all our "new musicians" to be 40-somethings?

And there will always be a few people who through luck or great talent make a living all their lives in music. But there was a point during my lifetime that you could make enough money to live modestly by playing in random bands and coffeehouses and appearing on other people's LPs so you could work on your own music.

Yes, I know there are still wedding bands out there, but the economics and the setup is oh-so-different now - playing in a successful wedding band is a pretty full-time job because you are now expected to be able to cover a huge variety of classic material pretty well note-perfect - because you are competing with DJs. And frankly, I don't remember the last wedding I went to with a band, I suspect it was in the 70s...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 9:23 AM on May 1, 2010


And yet each year the sales revenues of the music industry decrease.

i think digital files get scratched and worn out and lost less often. personally, i buy more music now, and for me i think part of that is that i can get it instantaneously; but i definitely spend more money on music from local bands and independent artists than from what seems to be the mainstream. does the definition of 'music industry' here accurately account for a kind of fracturing of the market? i'm not so familiar with all the mechanisms of it, but it seems many people are less committed to major industry releases and more focused on niche or independent stuff, or even where artists sell their own material.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 9:41 AM on May 1, 2010


And I too spend most of my record money on local bands and artists out of the mainstream.

But I can tell you for a fact that the vast majority of these bands aren't making a living out of their music - they probably aren't even breaking even on their music...

In fact, hmm, I know dozens of people who make their living through music and yet I can't think of one of those people who makes any significant fraction of their income through sales of music. I'd say the #1 way my friends make money in music is by teaching others; then comes working for non-profit organizations; then comes working in record stores; then comes playing live, but I only know one person who makes a significant fraction of his income from playing out, and they live on about $1000 a month...

After further thinking, I suspect one of my friends does make some money from record sales - he has some albums in the top 100,000 in Amazon - but I'd still claim he makes most of his money from grants and personal appearances.

BLEH. OK, I'm wrong here. I know two very successful musicians who you would almost certainly know and they of course must make a bundle on record sales. However, these are "celebrities" who've been famous for decades - I excluded them because they almost certainly made most of their money before mp3s even existed (or CDs in one case). I don't believe this affects my argument!!
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:03 AM on May 1, 2010


i think digital files get scratched and worn out and lost less often.

Even considering I started collecting music when it was on LPs, I've spent less than 1% of my music dollar replacing LPs or CDs because they were scratched or worn out.

I suspect for most people, who buy albums when they are popular, listen to them, and then lose interest, this number is even lower.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:05 AM on May 1, 2010


But I can tell you for a fact that the vast majority of these bands aren't making a living out of their music - they probably aren't even breaking even on their music...

a lot of my friends who are performing and recording musicians who can't make a living on their music alone, but they seem to have moved beyond that hope or expectation. the money they get from it seems to no more purpose than the ability and inspiration to continue to perform and record music, and they seem pretty happy with that.

but just from what i've seen, particularly with myspace and facebook, these musicians and bands seem to form a kind of chain with a lot of overlap in fans and followers. i was introduced to the community by one band i was interested in, and then with shifting band members and bands supporting other bands, and people just coming around saying 'oh if you like this, you should listen to this,' now there are many bands i follow and give money and support to, amongst many other people who do the same; the support amounts to record sales, but also tour fundraising, free places to stay and meals when going on tour--a lot of things that aren't a direct exchange of money but which are things that more popular artists spend their record-sale money on. none of these artists i would have discovered through mainstream industry or press. (i don't think this is an atypical arrangement, but i think the scale has expanded.)

i'm just wondering that if there are more people doing this locally and online, are people actually buying less music or just buying less of it through the old channels.
posted by fallacy of the beard at 10:50 AM on May 1, 2010


the money they get from it seems to no more purpose than the ability and inspiration to continue to perform and record music, and they seem pretty happy with that.

Point is that this sucks for everyone - for the listener and for the musicians.

Throughout history, almost all the really great music has been done by full-time musicians - in the same way that great buildings have been designed by full-time architects, great books written by full-time writers and great paintings by full-time painters.

The reason is simple - these things take a lot of time and if you have a day job you simply can't spend the time to perfect your art.

I've been watching bands for 30 years now. In the last 15 years, I keep seeing tons of bands with great promise and talent - that I never see again. And the reason is simple - you can't make money at this, and it takes a lot of time - and at a certain point you get sick of working in copy shops and worrying if you're going to die if you get sick - or you get married and want to have a family.

So you see tons of energetic bands with some musical value - lots of tasty snack food - but very few satisfying meals.

It makes me really angry that people don't expect cops to work for free or architects or butchers, whether or not they like what they do, but people expect musicians to play for free, and are even patronizing (I don't mean you!) when you suggest that perhaps musicians deserve to be paid for their work.

And from listening to music and the radio, the difference is very apparent.

Perhaps in your circle people are making money. But I suggest you go to these bands and ask them - do they make money from a gig? From selling CDs or mp3s?

I think you'd find that most of these bands make carfare and perhaps enough for a meal from a gig, and if they're lucky, break even on CD making.

Here's the classic article on this issue. Let me assure you that things have only gotten worse...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 5:34 PM on May 1, 2010


That ambient jungle mix really hit the spot for me.
posted by juv3nal at 11:38 PM on May 2, 2010 [1 favorite]


Most people aren't aware of this, but for a brief period in the 1980s Montreal was like the WORLD CAPITOL OF DISCO.

This is news to me, and intriguing news at that.

I am impressed by the sheer diversity of mixtapes represented, and am a bit giddy over this week's mix (Week 49: Golden Era Happy Hardcore - Another happy hardcore tape. Hate all you want—I LOVE THIS STUFF SO DANG MUCH AND I WILL NOT BE DISSUADED. --- awesome!)

juv3nal - That ambient jungle mix really hit the spot for me.

Do you mean Week 46: The Year in Jungle—1994? Or is there another jungle mix I'm missing? OOoohhhhh .... Week 9: Ambient Jungle, back from 2009. I just happened to listen to some wretched nuDNB and I was lamenting the passing of proppa DnB tunage. Thanks!
posted by filthy light thief at 10:56 PM on May 5, 2010


Regarding Montreal being the capitol of disco for a while: There was actually a pretty great post about that a while ago.
posted by sparkletone at 12:50 PM on May 6, 2010


Sometime later...

Well, I listened to at least a dozen and I have to confess that I didn't get through ANY of them. Some of them were just genres that I didn't like, but some were genres that I've enjoyed before (like "Ambient Jungle") and I really managed to listen to at most half an hour of any of them.

Part of it is I think his choice of selections - he really likes cheesy music a lot.

Part of it is his remixes. For example, one of them had a remix of Dominator, a dance music hit from about 20 years ago. Well, this reminded me that I really did like that song, cheesy though it was - but that I didn't like his remix - it was tinny and the tonalities were also toned down ("less chords").

I'll probably listen through all of them sooner or later, but I didn't get much entertainment value out of them! Still, a bold venture and I'll bet a lot of people who aren't me will enjoy it.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 8:24 AM on May 7, 2010


I just happened to listen to some wretched nuDNB

You owe me some kind of karmic debt for exposing me to that. Blegh.
posted by juv3nal at 1:29 PM on May 7, 2010


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