Music For Listeners 2008/02/16

1) The Beastie Boys-"Country Mike's Theme"  From the CD 'Anthology'.
2) Lightspeed Champion-"Galaxy of the Lost"  From the CD 'Falling Off the Lavender Bridge'.
3) I Was A Cub Scout-"Echoes"  From the forthcoming CD 'I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope'.
4) Klaxons-"As Above So Below (French Remix)"  From the 12" French only single for "As Above So Below".
5) Black Kids-"I'm Not Going To Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance"  From the download only E.P. 'Wizard of Ahhhs'.
6) The Answering Machine-"Lightbulbs (James Yull Remix)"  From the 12" single for "Lightbulbs".
7) Let's Wrestle-"Insects"  From the brand new CD 'In Loving Memory Of'.
8) Pete and the Pirates-"Mr. Understanding"  From the brand new UK CD single for "Mr. Understanding".
9) Correcto-"Do It Better"  From the brand new 7" single for "Do It Better".
10) The Whigs-"Right Hand On My Heart"  From the CD 'Mission Control'.
11) The Radio Dept.-"We Made the Team"  From the download only single for "We Made the Team".
12) Bon Iver-"Flume"  From the CD 'For Emma, Forever Ago'.
13) Cass McCombs-"That's That"  From the CD 'Dropping the Writ'.
14) Badly Drawn Boy-"The Time of Times"  From the brand new UK CD single for "The Time of Times".
15) Supergrass-"Diamond Hoo Ha Man"  From the brand new 7" single for "Diamond Hoo Ha Man".
16) Vampire Weekend-"The Kids Don't Stand A Chance"  From the CD 'Vampire Weekend'.
17) Envelopes-"Party"  From the brand new 7" single for "Party".
18) Young Mammals-"Wires and Buttons (Demo)"  Unreleased track - as of now.
19) Goldfrapp-"A&E"  From the brand new CD single for "A&E".
20) Jim Noir-"All Right"  From the UK 7" single for "All Right".
21) AD 73-"Higher and Higher"  From the CD compilation 'Welsh Rare Beat 2'.
22) Hot Chip-"Out At the Pictures"  From the brand new CD 'In the Dark'.
23) Duffy-"Mercy"  From the brand new 7" single for "Mercy".
24) Basia Bulat-"In the Night"  From the brand new CD single for "In the Night".
25) Adele-"Chasing Pavements"  From the brand new CD '19'.
26) Laura Marling-"The Needle and the Damage Done"  From the brand new CD single for "Ghosts".
27) Sara Lowes-"Uniform Days"  From the UK E.P. 'Tomorrows Laughter'.
28) Frightened Rabbit-"Square 9"  From the CD 'Sing the Greys'.
29) The Ravonettes-"Blush"  From the CD 'Lust Lust Lust'.
30) The Magnetic Fields-"Please Stop Dancing"  From the CD 'Distortion'.
31) Buen Chico-"Choosing My Religion" From the CD 'The Right to Re-Arrange'.
32) Flight of the Conchords-"Businesstime"  From the CD E.P. 'In the Distant Future'.
33) "The Mid-Morning Recording"         The Flaming Lips-'Zaireeka' (Four Disc Mixdown)
Well, playing this "Mid-Morning Recording" in this way obviously takes the intended social aspect out of it. However, it is certainly a breakthrough album from our favorite Oklahoma band. It took me quite a while to find tonight's "Mid-Morning Recording", as for almost five years, it was hard to find a copy of this 1997 release. Luckily, they would finally achieve some great success with the three albums that followed, and this album would be re-released with different packaging. (Now it is quite easy to find.) In case you didn't know, tonight's album was released as a four CD set. These four CD's are not meant to be played in succession, as with most CD sets, but in four separate CD players at (approximately) the same time. The idea is to get three of your friends over to your house, and get them to bring over their own CD player, and then play one CD in each player. All four CD's would then form the whole album, and the listeners would be surrounded by the sounds from the four separate players placed around you. (The ultimate party album perhaps?) One thing is for sure, no matter how hard you tried, each listening experience would be slightly different as some CD players would slightly drag, or someone would press play on their player at a slightly different time. Making 'Zaireeka' an album that changes with each listen. I have listened to this album in the suggested setting on only one occasion, and it is quite an enjoyable experience. This endeavor is obviously quite impossible to convey on the radio though, and in order to hear it as a full blown recording, one must have a computer. So, a couple of years back, a friend of mine asked me if I could mix all four of the CD's together for him to create one full-length album. With the computer technology of today, it was obviously quite a simple task to place all four CD's on top of one another and form an entire listening experience. Tonight, I present this four CD mixdown version of 'Zaireeka' for your listening pleasure. It's not as intended, but it is heard as a complete album; even on the radio. When this album was released, Rolling Stone praised it with a four out of five rating, and of course the dopes at Pitchfork gave the album a rating of 0.0. No music is that bad, and even as some sort of stupid statement, it just goes to show that Pitchfork should close shop before they ruin the music in the internet world, just as MTV killed it in a television one. All CD's should be released this way...ok, maybe not, but The Lips were certainly the band to break the mold and they deserve all the credit for such a breakthrough listening concept…and a great album to boot. In 2007, when I saw The Lips in concert for a seventh time, I was surprised to see a couple of songs from this CD make it onto their setlist. It was really nice to see that as experimental as this album was, (most likely their last true experimental album), it does not get overlooked by the band, or the fans. "Ok, I'd admit that I really don't understand".
Michael - MFL
34) James-"Sayonara"  From the CD 'Wah-Wah'.
BONUS TRACK
35) Chomsky-"Inside"  From the CD 'Onward Quirky Soldiers'.  My all-time favroite Dallas band back together and playing their first gig in over three years this weekend!!! ONWARD QUIRKY JERKYS!!!