May 14, 2008

117: Empress Zhangsun

I got the title and "artist" of this mix from a posting on the Brainiac blog at Boston.com. The game was to create a real-sounding artist and CD title from random Wikipedia entries, and real-looking cover art from random images on the Web.
ARTIST: Empress Zhangsun
TITLE: Effect of a Habit
  1. Superfly - Curtis Mayfield
  2. Music is My Hot, Hot Sex - CSS (from an iPod Touch commercial.)
  3. Soul Meets Body - Death Cab for Cutie
  4. Hold Your Head Up - Argent (one of the true one-hit wonders. I don't think Argent ever had another Top 40 single.)
  5. The Sweet Escape - Gwen Stefani (aka my ringtone)
  6. Don't Bring Me Down (live) - A cover of the ELO song by The New Pornographers (an iTunes exclusive)
  7. Sweet Emotion - Mike Gordon and Leo Kottke (a mellow cover of the Aerosmith song)
  8. Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well - Mike Doughty
  9. From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come) - Dave Edmunds covers a fun, late-1970s Bruce Springsteen song. Edmunds is one of the rare rockers of the singer-songwriter era to specialize in covering his contemporaries' material. I bought this LP at a yard sale exclusively for this song.
  10. Everybody Went Low - John Hiatt
  11. Reggae Merengue - Tommy McCook & The Supersonics (this instrumental was sampled by Lily Allen for her song "LDN")
  12. Pick Up The Pieces - Average White Band (how are you supposed to find instrumentals like this when there's no lyrics? Also, DJs don't announce all their songs anymore. I may have gone online to check a station's online playlist to track down this frequent movie soundtrack staple.)
  13. Gotta Get Back - Shelby Lynne
  14. Please Read The Letter - Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
  15. Precious (live) The Pretenders, live at the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, December 1979. I bought the two-LP set in Central Square, Cambridge, last winter.
  16. Thankful - Glenn Phillips (This song from the former Toad The Wet Sprocket singer was a free download from iTunes. I think I was given this promo download as a credit-card-style coupon at SXSW in 2007?
  17. Blue - The Thorns
  18. Gypsy March - Grand Ole Party (I saw the GOP at the free party for BUST Magazine, at SXSW 2008.)
  19. Bodysnatchers - Radiohead
  20. Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today) - The Temptations