Andy Whitman's 2009 Mix

Here's my 2009 mix. All songs from last year.

California On My Mind – Wild Light (Adult Nights)

A bright, summery Beach Boys pop song to start the proceedings. Except they’re singing:

Give me a lake that I can dive into
Bury my head in the shit at the bottom
Fuck today
Fuck San Francisco
Fuck California

Hey, who hasn’t wanted to harmonize along with those sentiments while cruising down the freeway with the windows rolled down? I hate California, too.

Try This At Home – Frank Turner (Poetry of the Deed)

Winner of The Clash/Billy Bragg Soundalike Award for 2009, Frank Turner writes short, angry odes that are sure to deflate whatever his target happens to be at the moment. Plus, I’m pretty sure he’s right when he sings “There’s no such thing as rock stars/There’s just people who play music/And some of them are just like us/And some of them are dicks.”

The Heartbreak Rides – A.C. Newman (Get Guilty)

A.C. (Carl) Newman is best known as the leader of power pop supergroup The New Pornographers. He has an effortless melodic gift. The latent pirate in me also appreciates a chorus that starts out “Yo! Ho!.”

Canned Food Demons – Boston Spaceships (Planets Are Blasted)

Bob Pollard is one half-assed dude, and he starts another band about every other month. But this one sounds the closest to his old band Guided By Voices. That’s a good thing, in my opinion.

In Babylon – Aaron Strumpel (Elephants)

Aaron Strumpel puts the “lament” back in the Psalms of Lament. Most CCM music (which this is not) treats the psalms as Broadway/American Idol schmaltz. Strumpel sounds like his head is ready to explode.

French Navy – Camera Obscura (My Maudlin Career)

Sweet ‘60s girl group pop music the way Phil Spector used to make it. That wall of sound is spectacular.

Bitch, I Love You – Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears (Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears)

A tender love ballad, sung the way James Brown might have sung it.

Kiss With a Fist – Florence and the Machine (Lungs)

A bit like Chrissie Hynde fronting The Ramones. This is another tender love ballad, and what I like to think of as the answer song to the previous tune.

Cooperstown – The Felice Brothers (Yonder Is the Clock)

I love baseball. I love Bob Dylan. I love surrealistic poetry. So when you find a band that sounds like Bob Dylan, and sings about baseball in a surrealistic, poetic kind of way, you know you’re onto something. I’m on first, and you’re on third, and the wolves are all between, and everyone’s sure that the game is over.

Norman Bleik – I Was a King (I Was a King)

Power pop from Norway, with help from Sufjan Stevens and Daniel Smith from Danielson Familye. This one is a thinly disguised homage to the lead singer/songwriter of Teenage Fanclub, one of the power pop greats.

Shreveport – The Gourds (Haymaker!)

A Cajun hoedown, with lyrics about Geddy Lee, truck drivers, and spandex, and with a lead vocalist who sounds like Levon Helm from The Band. Just your average band from Austin, Texas.

Tidal – Immogen Heap (Ellipse)

Swooning laptop pop. There’s a bit of Bjork here, a bit of Kate Bush. It was difficult to pick a favorite from this album. It’s stacked with great pop tunes from front to back.

Channel – Joe Henry (Blood from Stars)

Joe Henry, in my opinion, is the best songwriter going. I take this as a parable about marriage, and it’s the truest and most poetic encapsulation of that peculiar dance I’ve heard in a long time. “I love you with all due desperation and disarray.”

We Sing In Time – The Lonely Forest (We Sing the Body Electric)

These four kids from Seattle remind me of the early Who. They make a wondrous racket, but they still remember things like melody and hooks.

Halfway Wrong – Lucero (1372 Overton Park)

Lucero are a glorified bar band, but that’s alright. I love rowdy roots rock sung by guys who sound like they gargle with Drano. That’s what this sounds like to me. It’s just about the best sound in the world.

United States of Eurasia – Muse (The Resistance)

If Freddie Mercury had grown up reading George Orwell and Franz Kafka, he would have sounded like the paranoid wanker from Muse. But over-the-top, operatic, paranoid pop sure sounds great, doesn’t it?

Preacher Blues – Dave Perkins (Pistol City Holiness)

My buddy Dave Perkins has played with Ray Charles and Willie Nelson, and about 2/3 of the CCM establishment in Nashville. But his first love is the blues. On his first solo album, released in 2009, he absolutely rips it up. Plus, he’s funny. “I would hang with the Baptists if they could get that girl for me.” Those are some serious blues.

Party to Survive – No Through Road (Winner)

The Strokes live! Okay, they’re not quite dead, but this Australian band does The Strokes, circa 2001, better than The Strokes.

Fear – Benjy Ferree (Come Back to the Five and Dime, Bobby Dee, Bobby Dee)

Nihilistic doo-wop. I’m not sure what to say about this. Benjy Ferree multi-tracks his vocals, and sounds like four guys standing around an oil drum fire in Philly, harmonizing about the impending apocalypse.

America’s Wives – Watermelon Slim (Escape from the Chicken Coop)

Watermelon Slim is an old coot who drives a truck. And that’s what he sounds like. He’s real country, and he’s got more soul than all the Nashville models in Stetsons put together.

Wet Wings – Dan Deacon (Bromst)

This is an old shapenote hymn, suitably bent by electronica wizard Dan Deacon. He creates an eerie drone/howl that I dearly love, and it perfectly suits the ominous lyrics: “The day is past and gone/The hour of death is near.”

Don’t Get Hung Up In Your Soul – Richard Hawley (Truelove’s Gutter)

A closing hymn for 3:00 a.m. The former Pulp guitarist/songwriter Richard Hawley has headed in an entirely new direction in his solo career, pursuing the ineffable Sinatra middle-of-the-night blues. He’s found ‘em, too. Plus, there’s theremin! Goodnight.

are we doing a mix exchange this year?