April Mix

Some of you may know that I have a longstanding tradition of making myself a mix every month.  It started in college, when I actually made CDs, but now I just collect songs on one of the several Apple products which have conquered my life.  I've been doing this with considerable consistency for over 10 years now.

The purpose of these mixes is both aesthetic and autobiographical.  Creating a fresh mix each month pushes me to seek out (mostly) new music, which is exciting and gratifying in and of itself AND (let’s be honest) it makes me feel hip.  (Is there anything less hip than using the word “hip”?  I think not.)  On top of that, each mix also becomes a record of the events in my life for a given month.  I pull in songs that are relevant to the month’s events: concerts, new releases and new discoveries, plus songs that are lyrically relevant to my many and varied feeeeeeelings.  And, because I listen to the mix as I’m assembling it, the music becomes a soundtrack for my everyday life during that month.  I have a strangely strong music-to-location memory, such that a certain song can remind me for years afterward of walking down a particular street or driving on a particular stretch of road.  This is great for me, because my regular memory is kind of crap.

Anyway, here’s my April mix.  Profound it ain’t, but I love it just as I love all of my mix-children.

	Artist	Title	Album	Notes
1	Robyn	Indestructible	Body Talk	I held off on Robyn for a while out of pure contrariness, but the guys from Sound Opinions convinced me with this one song.
2	The Jackson 5	ABC	Anthology: Jackson 5	Rediscovered during wedding playlist preparation.
3	Glasser	Apply	Ring	My newest fave discovery, also via Sound Opinions.
4	Television	See No Evil	Marquee Moon	An awesome friend introduced me to Television over a decade ago (thanks Kerry!); I revisited this song recently after it was featured on This American Life.
5	The Foundations	Build Me Up Buttercup	The Very Best of the Foundations	Also rediscovered during wedding playlist prep.
6	Ce Ce Peniston	Finally	100% Pure Dance	I don't remember why I downloaded this one; I was drunk.
7	Robyn	Dancing on My Own	Body Talk	The Robyn seal has been broken.
8	The Kooks	Ooh La	Inside In/Inside Out	Found this when "shopping" in my own music collection.  If you were the one who gave it to me, thanks!
9	Bryan Adams	Heaven	So Far So Good	Don't hate.
10	Glasser	Plane Temp	Ring	Seriously, CHECK OUT GLASSER.
11	Adele	Make You Feel My Love	19	Thanks to Essence for sharing this album.
12	Tune-Yards	Bizness	Bizness - Single	Again, credit goes to Sound Opinions.  Awesome music video, see below.
13	Paul Simon	Hearts and Bones	Hearts and Bones	A chronicle of Simon's love affair with Carrie Fisher.  The best quote ever about that pairing, by Mike Nichols as quoted in Fisher's amazing memoir Wishful Drinking: "You were two flowers, no gardener."
14	Daft Punk	Aerodynamic (Daft Punk Remix)	Daft Club - The Remixes	Thanks to Mariele.
15	Luscious Jackson	Naked Eye	Naked Eye	What can I say, this song holds up.

As a bonus, here's the awesome/bizarre video for Tune-Yards' "Bizness."