Mix Pod

My Mix Pod

Theme 'Wake up slow...'

1. Send me on my way- Rusted Root
2. Make it better- Gary Nock
3. Never going back again- Fleetwood Mac
4. Blue Skies- Noah and the Whale
5. Hey Ya- Obadiah Parker
6. Do you remember- Jack Johnson
7. Always like this- Bombay Bicycle Club
8. St Christopher is coming- Frank Turner
9. Fans- The Kings of Leon
10. Jackie Big Tits- The Kooks
11. Glamorous indie rock and roll- The Killers

Justification for tracks

1. Just enough of a beat to the guitar rhythm to provoke a response from a slumber, whilst having the added bonus of being easy to relax to without to much of a beat to wake you up fully.

     2.  The whistle adds a soothing touch to the upbeat tempo of the song; whilst the lyrics are cheerful

          making the morning seem bearable.

     3.  A cheerful beat without to many lyrics to stimulate a listener; allowing key relaxation and

          to wake up slow.

     4.  The deep drum beat allows the listener to be pulled slightly towards the awake.

     5.  A soothing acoustic cover of the originally but still retains the rhythm and beat of the original.

     6.  The quick pace of the song will stir the listener further into the land of the awake. However it has no

          heavy beat, allowing the transition to be steady.

     7.  The repetition in the song and increase in pace will bring the sleeper to feeling awake.

     8.  The quick pace of the beginning leads into a slower song; allowing the sleeper to be casually 

          awoken (with what is an awesome song)

     9.  The loud beginning immediately brings whoever it may be to being awake whilst the acoustic guitar

          then allows a casual approach to the morning to be taken.

    10. This is a very upbeat song with a catchy tune; for this reason is impossible to sleep to and therefore

          the listener must wake up.

     Finally to finish with....

    11.  An incredible song with a rock based beat to allow waking up to finish in a spectacular fashion.

iPod shuffle! Uncool....

1. Landslide-Dixie Chicks
2. Exile-Show of Hands
3. The Hill-Bombay Bicycle Club
4. Swallowed in the Sea-Coldplay
5. Wavin' Flag-K'naan
6. This Orient-Foals
7. Low-Coldplay
8. Race to be King-Seth Lakeman
9. I could die for you-Red of Chillie Peppers
10. Empire Ants-Gorrilaz
11. Oxford Comma-Vampire Weekend
12. Jenny don't be hasty-Paolo Nutini
13. Eleanor Rigby-The Beatles
14. Big me-Foo Fighters
15. Things go up-Seasick Steve
16. Big Green and Yeller-Sea Sick Steve
17. Mexico-James Taylor
18. If just for tonight-Jersey Budd
19. Good grief-Foo Fighters
20. Yes, I would-Frightened Rabbit

Guilty Pleasure...James Blunt Your Beautiful 

The death of uncool-Brian Eno

The death of uncool

Brian Eno — 25th November 2009

It’s odd to think back on the time—not so long ago—when there were distinct stylistic trends, such as “this season’s colour” or “abstract expressionism” or “psychedelic music.” It seems we don’t think like that any more. There are just too many styles around, and they keep mutating too fast to assume that kind of dominance.

As an example, go into a record shop and look at the dividers used to separate music into different categories. There used to be about a dozen: rock, jazz, ethnic, and so on. Now there are almost as many dividers as there are records, and they keep proliferating. The category I had a hand in starting—ambient music—has split into a host of subcategories called things like “black ambient,” “ambient dub,” “ambient industrial,” “organic ambient” and 20 others last time I looked. A similar bifurcation has been happening in every other living musical genre (except for “classical” which remains, so far, simply “classical”), and it’s going on in painting, sculpture, cinema and dance.

We’re living in a stylistic tropics. There’s a whole generation of people able to access almost anything from almost anywhere, and they don’t have the same localised stylistic sense that my generation grew up with. It’s all alive, all “now,” in an ever-expanding present, be it Hildegard of Bingen or a Bollywood soundtrack. The idea that something is uncool because it’s old or foreign has left the collective consciousness.

I think this is good news. As people become increasingly comfortable with drawing their culture from a rich range of sources—cherry-picking whatever makes sense to them—it becomes more natural to do the same thing with their social, political and other cultural ideas. The sharing of art is a precursor to the sharing of other human experiences, for what is pleasurable in art becomes thinkable in life.

This article first appeared in the December edition of Prospect magazine