I found a CD-R in good condition sitting on my lawn sometime in the last two months. As yet, I have not listened to it. It says on it:
I
[heart]
BOSS! [perhaps BOOSS, since the hole in the CD is situated as though it could be an extra O]
Stephen [in bubble letters, following the curve of the inner ring]
love, savannah [in cursive]

Let's see what's on it. Honestly, if it's Bruce Springsteen, I'm going to be disappointed.

21 Tracks and the CDDB couldn't find the names, so it's obviously a mix CD.


1. "Memory Lane," Elliott Smith. We're off to a decent start.

2. Hm. Something instrumental that I don't recognize. It will be hard to ID this one, I think.

3. "The Naming of Things," Andrew Bird. He sounds a little like Stephen Malkmus toward the beginning of this song.

4. "Pulling our Weight," The Radio Dept. That was all right.

5. "Seaside," The Kooks. So far, eh. But for a random CD I just found on the ground, this is turning out pretty well.

6. "Blonde on Blonde," Nada Surf. Ok, here we go. This song rules. If you only know Nada Surf from their first hit, "Popular," you need to listen to this song:


7. "Soul of a Man," Beck. Ugh. Beck. Has there ever been a musician more overrated? I can't tell if his Scientology makes me dislike him more than his music. The only good thing he's done is Sea Change.

8. "Baby Bleu," Danny Malone. Never heard of this guy. But he needs to back off on the Conor Oberst thing a bit in his voice. The first thing I thought when the song started was "Oh, great. Not a Bright Eyes song. This mix had such mixed promise." At least it's not Bright Eyes. Oh god. He even strains his voice like Conor Oberst.
Hear it for yourself:

It's not that it's bad; it's just a bit derivative.

9. "The Compromise," The Format. Meh.

10. "Blackout," Muse. Started off promising with a mandolin and some nice strings. Not sure what I think about it now. Radiohead/Coldplay-pastiche-cum-elevator-music-lite.

11. "Rainy Monday," Shiny Toy Guns. Pet Shop Boys meets generic alt-pop love song. Nobody else gets Monday. That day belongs to the Boomtown Rats. End of story.

12. Oh Jesus. Here comes the Bright Eyes. Color me surprised? "Drunk Kid Catholic." Don't get me wrong. It's not that I hate Bright Eyes. I have a number of their albums. It's that Conor Oberst's voice feels a bit like an overly emotional put-on. He always sounds so devastated when he sings. And I certainly didn't like the buzz about him earlier in his career when people were all, like, "Drool, drool, Conor Obert, next Bob Dylan, slobber." Spare me.

13. "Pink Bullets," The Shins. Well, at least we're past that time when this band was rumored to be able to change your life. "New Slang," was a very good song until I heard it a gazillion times (though the lyrics, I have always maintained, are inane ... dirt in your fries? really? c'mon).

14. "July, July," The Decemberists. You know, I like The Decemberists. They make good music and give good show, but I really do wish that Colin Meloy would let up on his gratuitous diphthonging of vowels sounds. Just say "drain," Colin, not "draaaaayyy-yin." Or "there," rather than "they-ur." It feels overly precious.

15. "Never Again," The Midway State. A bit generic. The piano makes me think of Bruce Hornsby. No idea why, since nothing in this song is anything like Bruce Hornsby.

16. "Pioneers," Bloc Party. I knew I didn't like Bloc Party.

17. "What About Everything," Carbon Leaf. Eh. I wonder if this guy knows that he sounds a lot like post-Hüsker Dü era Bob Mould. Bob Mould wouldn't make generic alt-pop, though. It strikes me that this is very much Scrubs music. I like Scrubs, though their musical selections have backed off from the cool in recent years (whereas they used to feature, like, Guided by Voices and The Replacements, they're now a bit more generic). I could see a lot of these songs playing at pivotal emotional moments in Scrubs.

18. Augh! Whisper-singing! NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I guess this song is "Honey and the Moon," by Joseph Arthur. And he's a whisper singer. Blech. I can't stand whisper-singing (cf. Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Iron and Wine). It reeks too much of That "Sensitive" Quasi-Hippie Who Lives Down the Hall From You In Your Dorm Who Learned to Play Guitar Seemingly for the Entry it Would Gain Him into the Pants of Gullible Women With Questionable Taste. It doesn't help that the CD is skipping here -- dunno if it's due to a bad source file being burned or to the disc being found on the ground.

19. "Keep the Car Running," The Arcade Fire. This is much better.

20. "No Surprises," Radiohead. I hope I can get to a place where I can enjoy OK Computer again. I had it in my car's CD player for about 6 months right after it came out in 1997, but it's one of the dozen or so CDs that The Slob would listen to in the house. And it's a good album. But there are only so many times you can listen to the same handful of albums, you know? He was not much one for mixing things up, preferring instead to stick with a few constants in music, movies, food, etc. And that's fine, whatever. It's just that now those few albums he listened to that I like are now associated in my mind with him and that unpleasant chapter of my life. Eventually they will be free.

21. This one's a bit out of left field: a mash-up by Night Ripper called "Bounce That," which features samples from the following songs: The Emotions - "Best Of My Love," Purple Ribbon All-Stars - "Kryptonite (I'm on It)," Benny Benassi - "Satisfaction," LCD Soundsystem - "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House," The Breeders - "Cannonball," Stevie Wonder - "My Cherie Amour," Steve Winwood - "Valerie," DJ Funk - "Booty Bounce," The Pointer Sisters - "Jump (for My Love)," Britney Spears - "I'm a Slave 4 U," Wreckx-N-Effect - "Rump Shaker," Elastica - "Connection," Ciara feat. Ludacris - "Oh." Huh. Definitely an odd way to close out a mix CD such as this.

Final grade? Let's call it a B-. It had some very decent music, but there didn't seem to be much thought to the order. A bit monotone, even if it's a tone I generally enjoy. An interesting excursion, to say the least, into the musical preferences of a complete stranger.