101: Chicks Rawk (aka Womyn In Music)

CHICKS RAWK was composed as a Christmas present for my sister-in-law Sara. It's all women, obviously. My wife offered some guidance of the artist and track selection.

After I gave a copy to Sara, I created cover art for the collection. The cover is the only photo of Madonna I could find online from her video for "Open Your Heart". My 14-year-old self was already deeply in lust for Madonna when that video came out in 1986, and her gold-nippled costume didn't cool things off any.
1 Sinead O'Connor "The Emperor's New Clothes"
2 The Breeders "Divine Hammer"
3 Go-Gos "Head Over Heels"
4 Liz Phair "Why Can't I?"
5 Sheryl Crow "Hard To Make A Stand" (my wife loves this song- I had never heard it before)
6 Garbage "Stupid Girl"
7 No Doubt "Hey Baby"
8 Cyndi Lauper "Girls Just Want To Have Fun"
9 Madonna "Open Your Heart"
10 Lucinda Williams "Right In Time"
11 The Bangles "If She Knew What She Wants"
12 The Cranberries "Empty"
13 Aimee Mann "Save Me"
14 Alison Krauss "Baby, Now That I've Found You"
15 Bonnie Raitt "Fearless Love" (I thought I was the only person who liked this song, until I heard it in the movie Sideways.)
16 k.d. lang "Constant Craving"
17 The Pretenders "Don't Get Me Wrong"
18 10,000 Maniacs "Candy Everybody Wants"
19 Indigo Girls "Peace Tonight" (18 & 19 go together because they both feature bands with newly-hired horn sections.)
20 Suzanne Vega "Tombstone"

99: Afternoon Delight

Assembled shortly after the Boston Red Sox won the 2004 World Series:

1. Let's Get It Started - The Black Eyed Peas (this song was used in one of the many montages of baseball excitement on TV.)
2. Staring At The Sun - Simple Kid
3. Life Less Ordinary - Carbon Leaf (Worst band name ever. The song is good- they sounds like Mr Mister for the 21st century.)
4. Old Days - Chicago (from the Starsky & Hutch movie soundtrack.)
5. IGY (International Geophysical Year) - Donald Fagen (I see Donald Fagen's The Nightfly album in yard sales and used record bins all the time!)
6. Mr. Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra (from the theatrical trailer for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.)
7. Ride - The Kleptones
8. Float On - Modest Mouse
9. The Spirit Of Radio - Rush
10. Gimme All Your Lovin - ZZ Top
11. Love Song - 311 (An inventive cover of the Cure song)
12. Sleepwalker- The Wallflowers
13. Look What You've Done - Jet
14. History Repeating - The Propellerheads featuring Shirley Bassey
15. Afternoon Delight - Will Ferrell & The Channel 4 News Team (I love the scene in the movie where they spontaneously sing this song a capella!)
16. The Waiting - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (also used in Red Sox montages.)

98: The First iTunes Mix

I think the title is pretty self-explanatory. Songs I bought on iTunes are in Bold:

1. The Bar-Kays - Soul Finger (as heard in the 1980s comedy Spies Like Us)
2. The Pointer Sisters - Automatic
3. Philip Bailey & Phil Collins - Easy Lover (I always loved singing along with the harmonies in this song, but it only appeared on Philip Bailey's solo LP, and I wasn't about to buy a whole album for this one track. Long-story-short: this song is what 99c downloads were meant for!
4. Hall & Oates - Private Eyes
5. The Doobie Brothers - What a Fool Believes
6. Prince - When You Were Mine (later covered by Cyndi Lauper)
7. Wilco - I'm A Wheel
8. The Rolling Stones - Can't You Hear Me Knocking (Used to great effect in the movie Goodfellas.)
9. Jet - Get What You Need (obviously owes a debt to #8 above)
10. The Isley Brothers - This Old Heart of Mine (used to great effect in an episode of Moonlighting.)
11. R.E.M. - Harborcoat
12. Guster - Amsterdam (Live in Portland, ME December 2002)
13. Paul McCartney & Wings - Call me Back Again
14. Ray Charles - Half As Much
15. Trey Anastasio - Alive Again
16. Los Lobos - I Got Loaded (used in Bull Durham, when they turn on the field sprinklers and go on a drunken escapade.)
17. Tommy McCook & The Skatalites - GOldfinger (a ska song about the movie)
18. Crystal Waters - Come On Down (A dance track whose chorus is based on the closing credits theme to The Price Is Right TV show.)
19. Laura Branigan - Gloria (a big hit single right around the time I started listening to music.)

97: The California Mix

The Title: I made this mix for my wife, who was travelling to California for a wedding. I loaded the mix with California bands, or bands associated with California, anyways.

The Cover: I wanted to splice together very similar photos of Jakob Dylan and Dave Matthews from the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. But where to stitch them together? All of my surgical options ended up looking like Mr Potato Head crossed with Robert De Niro as Frankenstein. I eventually had a brainwave and simply slashed a diagonal line across them both.

1. “Mrs. Potter's Lullaby” COUNTING CROWS
2. “Superstar” SHERYL CROW
3. “It's My Life” NO DOUBT (I thought I was the only one who loved this New Wave classic!)
4. “Shimmer” SHAWN MULLINS
5. “Rock Me On The Water” JACKSON BROWNE
6. “One Down” BEN FOLDS (recorded live 6-12-02, on the tour where my wife and I saw Ben on the same night, a few weeks before we met for the first time.)
7. “Go Where You Wanna Go” The MAMAS & PAPAS (I think this song was in a commercial for Claritin.)
8. “Gypsy” (alternate mix) FLEETWOOD MAC
9. “The Difference” The WALLFLOWERS
10. “Metal Firecracker” LUCINDA WILLIAMS
11. “Firecracker” RYAN ADAMS
12. “Drown” (acoustic) SON VOLT (from Napster, circa 1999)
13. “Bigger Than My Body” JOHN MAYER (a solo acoustic performance, downloaded from the KISS-108 FM Web site.)
14. “Crash” DAVE MATTHEWS (see #13)
15. “Seven Bridges Road” The EAGLES (live 1980)
16. “Please Don't Tell Her” BIG HEAD TODD & THE MONSTERS (from Napster, circa 1999)
17. “Cars Can't Escape” WILCO (downloaded from the Wilco Web site)
18. “Waiting For My Real Life To Begin” COLIN HAY

96: Highway To Heck

The Cover: I had recently bought the AC/DC album with its legendary cover photo, so I did some half-assed photoshopping to put the heads of my wife and a friend of ours on the cover. It was much more fun designing the CD/96 logo!

1. TEARS FOR FEARS Everybody Wants to Rule The World (My wife mentioned she used to sing this song in her college a capella group.)
2. ERIC CLAPTON Hello Old Friend
3. PEARL JAM Alone (A favorite b-side of mine, Pearl Jam played this song when I saw them at the Orpheum in Boston on the Versus tour.)
4. PETE YORN Come Back Home
5. WILCO & BILLY BRAGG California Stars
6. STEELY DAN Black Friday
7. PAUL McCARTNEY & WINGS Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five
8. THE CARS Don't Cha Stop
9. UTOPIA Love In Action (I had recently listened to both The Cars debut album and The Best Of Todd Rundgren, and I noticed a similarity in the choruses of these two songs.)
10. SUZANNE VEGA Caramel
11. SMITHEREENS w/SUZANNE VEGA In A Lonely Place
12. R.E.M. w/KATE PIERSON Me In Honey (a pair of women duet-ing on other records.)
13. THE ENGLISH BEAT Save It For Later
14. NICK LOWE (I Love The Sound Of) Breaking Glass
15. JEFF LYNNE Don't Let Go (We heard the original version of this song on the PA at Krispy Kreme in Everett, after the party where Mandy's photo was taken for the cover.)
16. JET Are You Gonna Be My Girl (Yes, another iTunes commercial song!)
17. THE CURE Close To Me (I think this is on here because the bass line reminds me of the Jet song.)
18. OUTKAST Hey Ya!
19. THE ROLLING STONES Undercover Of The Night (I always had a soft spot for this excessively Eighties sounding track from the Stones. I included it here because David Chase used this song as a closing credits track on the Sopranos.)
20. AC/DC Highway To Hell

95: Fireworks Factory!

The Cover: A photo taken at our New Year's party 2004. I think the camera thought the flash was on but it wasn't!

The title "Fireworks Factory" comes from the episode of The Simpsons "Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie": During an I&S short, there's a delay in the plot where Milhouse whines "When are they going to get to the fireworks factory?!"

1. Elvis Presley "A Little Less Conversation" 1:42
(Davis/Strange) Live A Little, Love A Little Soundtrack 1968
2. Stevie Wonder "Sir Duke" 3:45
(Wonder) Songs In The Key Of Life 1976
3. Nikka Costa "Everybody Got Their Something" 4:20
(Costa/Stanley) Everybody Got Their Something 2001
4. Weezer "Island In The Sun" 3:20
(Rivers Cuomo) Weezer 2001
5. Nick Lowe "American Squirm" 2:31
(Lowe) from the Radar single 1984
6. Freedy Johnston "Bad Reputation" 4:10
(Johnston) This Perfect World 1994
7. The Minus Five "Retrieval Of You" 3:51
from Down With Wilco 2003
8. Michael Penn "Lucky One" 3:58
(Penn) MP4(Days Since A Lost Time Accident) 2000
9. Fountains Of Wayne "Stacy's Mom" 3:17
(Collingwood/Schlesinger) Welcome Interstate Managers 2003
10. Rolling Stones "Shattered" 3:47
(Jagger/Richards) Some Girls 1978
11. R.E.M. "Can't Get There From Here" 4:10
(Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe) Fables Of The Reconstruction 1985
12. The Statler Brothers "Flowers On The Wall" 2:23
(Lew DeWitt) Flowers On The Wall 1966
13. Apollo Sunshine "The Egg" 3:18
(Apollo Sunshine) Katonah 2003
14. New Pornographers "Letter From An Occupant" 3:46
(New Pornographers) Mass Romantic 2000
15. Ben Folds Five "Julianne" 2:30
(Ben Folds) Ben Folds Five 1995
16. Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band "You Done My Brain In" 1:40
(Neil Innes) Keynsham 1969
17. The White Stripes "Seven Nation Army" 3:51
(Jack White) Elephant 2003
18. Red Hot Chili Peppers "Universally Speaking" 4:19
(Flea/Frusciante/Kiedis/Smith) By The Way 2002
19. Bruce Springsteen "Tougher Than The Rest" (live) 4:02
(Springsteen)
20. Pete Yorn "Crystal Village" 3:46
(Yorn) Day I Forgot 2003
21. Sheryl Crow "If It Makes You Happy" 5:23
(Crow/Trott) Sheryl Crow 1996
22. The Beatles "Flying" 2:16
(Harrison/Lennon/McCartney/Starr) Magical Mystery Tour 1967