Not What They Seem Part 1;
Excellent Music by Terrible Musicians
mixed by Liam Eagle
PERFECT FOR:
Bolstering your faith in people's ability to overcome their supposed limitations. And probably winning a bet, or something.
INTRODUCTION:
It's hard to say what makes a musician good or bad. To say that he or she is as good as his or her best song would be an aggressive oversimplification, as would be the claim that they are as good (or bad) as their worst. We can all agree, I'm sure, that writing wicked songs is a complicated and difficult craft. And some seem to struggle with it more than others. But it's probably safe to say, in a broad way, that good songs are the result of songwriting talent. So why is it, then, that the one really good song by, say, Frampton, is better than any of the generally very good works of Weezer, for instance? And if his high-water mark is higher, why is he still so much worse? Why don't you share my Frampton/Weezer views? That I don't know. You're probably a dick. What I do know is that things, frequently, are not what they seem to be. You never really know what to expect from anybody that makes music for a living. The whole machine that churns out pop tunes for folks like us is just a vast, never-ending crapshoot. All we can be sure of is that some of that machine's people-parts seem to have better, like, shooting tools, and some dudes just have to wait for a lucky roll now and then.
TRACK LIST:
Low Rider - War
Layin' Pipe - David Wilcox
Jungle Boogie - Kool and the Gang
Gone Til November - Wyclef Jean
Are You Gonna Go My Way - Lenny Kravitz
Stayin' Alive - The Beegees
Jive Talkin' - The Beegees
Night Fever - The Beegees
The Beat Goes On - Sonny and Cher
Summer of 69 - Bryan Adams
Take a Chance on Me - ABBA
Right Place, Wrong Time - Dr. John
Paradise by the Dashboard Light - Meatloaf
PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS:
Terrible musicians come in as many varieties as ice cream or, like, doughnuts. Lots, anyway. Terrible musicians responsible for great songs, on the other hand, really come in only a few styles. There's the once-promising musician who could never quite live up to an inspired first effort (think Mickey Rourke, but with a guitar). There is also the well-established bad musician who accidentally slips one through in mid-carreer (maybe he stumbled into a good sample, or something). And, once in a while, there is a bad musician that somehow manages to crank out good song after good song without ever actually improving themselves.
LISTENING INSTRUCTIONS:
Ok, check this out. I was thinking that making this mix tape kind of demonstrates our faith in the fact that just because you place a label on somebody doesn't mean they can't operate beyond the confines of that label, right? So what if you, like, play this tape at a party where you invited all kinds of people that you have labeled "assholes," or whatever. And while the tape is playing, it's shooting all this faith-in-humanity energy at these assholes, who would react by performing awesome acts of uncharacteristic kindness. Might work. And even if it doesn't, it's still a pretty kick-ass tape, and you've got to play it somewhere, right?
