Wading in the Velvet Sea

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“Somebody Told Me”, The Killers

I keep waiting to get sick of this song, and I never do. Simply hasn’t happened. Can’t imagine it’s gonna happen anytime I’m on an island looking for coconuts and talking to volleyballs, either. Has the perfect opening riff to propel Disc 2 off the bat. Disc 1 has the long, slow, percolating intro with FatBoy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now”, and you know how I never like to repeat myself when it comes t these compilations. Having this song with me will also give me a chance to perfect my karaoke rendition of this tune, since I bombed my initial stab at it pretty badly a few weeks back.

“Never Let Me Down Again”, Depeche Mode

Since The Killers mix the best of today’s rock with the best of old new-wave, let’s go back to new wave’s heyday and pull this track out of the ether and plop it down at Track 2. Only got into this song over the last year, and find it one of the great “headphone” songs---those tunes where close intense listening rewards one with layers upon layers of cool sounds, intricately woven and apparently only under close scrutiny. And I’ll be listening to the song a lot, so songs on this compilation have to stand up to multiple listens.

“Cells”, The Servant

Better known as “The Really Cool Song On All The ‘Sin City’ Trailers”. Dripping with atmosphere and humor in equal doses, it sounds like the coolest band that has a profile on MySpace. It sounds like something that could score a gunfight at high noon, if the gunfight took place on some distant planet, but talks about eating Chinese food on the floor and trying to beat a level in a video game. It works on every level and is unassailably cool. Because let’s face it, I’ll need all the cool boost I can get. I just crashed on a freakin’ island. There’s sand in my butt. It’s itchy. Let me have The Servant, damnit.

“La Cienega Just Smiled”, Ryan Adams

Heartbreakingly gorgeous. Some of Adams’ stuff sounds so tossed off as to be showing off how prolific he is, but this has a measured grace that shows a true artist. The fact that music this gorgeous can be created gives me great comfort. Seems like a good song to play at sunset. Or sunrise. Or, really, any time at all.

“Fake Plastic Trees”, Radiohead

Went to Providence a few weeks back to visit some friends, and one of them tossed “The Bends” onto her stereo after we’d all had a few drinks. I’d forgotten how good this album was, especially when played at ear-shattering levels of volume. I’m still in the camp that “OK Computer” is their best overall record, but this song, along with “Street Spirit”, are their two best songs, period. “Fake” does what all great Radiohead songs do: let you pour your own emotion into Thom Yorke’s emotive voice. Doesn’t matter so much that you understand what he says so much as feel what he says. Couple his performance with the build, build, build of the production and you have a song I wouldn’t want to live without.

“Black”, Pearl Jam

One of the most draining songs put to tape in the last 25 years. Still affects me as powerfully today as it did when I first heard it. Used to sing myself hoarse trying to keep up with Eddie Vedder after yet another disastrous romantic non-encounter. If you don’t get affected by the last verse, “I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life/I know you’ll be a star in somebody else’s sky/But why, why, why can’t it be mine?” then I’m not sure we’d get along, you and I.

“So Alive”, Love and Rockets

Time to build back up, before we hit a 3-pack of Morrissey tunes. Can’t have that now. I remember hearing this song back when MTV still had the “Buzz Bin”. Good thing, the Buzz Bin. Though they convinced me for six months that Jesus Jones was a good bad, so it didn’t always wield its power for good. This song takes the melancholy nature of the last two songs and adds seduction and a touch of electronica to the mix, especially with the ethereal synth that bedrocks the tune. Also, I dig any song that has the line, “Don’t know what color your eyes are, baby/But your hair is long and brown.” Since that pretty much sums up how I assign physical importance.

“Daft Punk Is Playing in My House”, LCD Overdrive

OK, I threw in Love and Rockets because I really wanted this song on here at some point. It’s the best damn disco-punk song ever, and I have my Playstation 2 to thank for allowing me to discover it. It’s one of the 20+ songs on “SSX On Tour”, and I found myself crashing my snowboarder into trees and not ever caring, since I was rocking out to this tune so much. There’s nothing wrong with the occasional vapid no-point-except-that-it’s-infectiously-fun song on a compilation, and lo, here we go. Listen to it and try not to either dance like a fool or grin like a fool. I dare ya.

“Amazing Journey/Sparks”, The Who

Another good thing about LCD Overdrive’s presence is that it allows me to segue nicely into my favorite live track by The Who. I love “Tommy” as a studio album, but it honestly pales in comparison to the way the album sounded live for the two or so years they toured with it after the album’s initial release. This track, from the “Live at Leeds” reissue, makes my jaw drop every time I hear it. Seems impossible that three blokes could create such a noise. It’s primal, it's visceral, it’s melodic, it's cathartic, it's on my mix.

“Since I’ve Been Loving You”, Led Zeppelin

Disc 2 on my compilation works a bit like a Set 2 for a jam band. Lot of short numbers in Set 1, but at this point, the band’s warmed up and can stretch it out into more interesting places and lengths. (Wow, that sounds….wrong.) I don’t know anyone else who would pick this as their favorite Zeppelin tune, but I guess that’s what makes me, me. (That and the fact that I am like, a wicked good kisser and stuff.) Page’s voice and Bonham’s drums absolutely blow me away in this. If all you know of Zeppelin comes from car commercials, time to check this one out.

“Time”, Pink Floyd

Continuing with the “7-minute songs by British bands” theme, we have this epic number from “Dark Side of the Moon”, which frankly couldn’t NOT be represented on this mix. I toyed with the idea of “Comfortably Numb”, in that I prefer the guitar solo in that tune, but it’s simply too enmeshed in the specific story that is “The Wall” to be included here. And it’s not like the guitar solo in “Time” is chump change, either. The entire song sounds so big that it echoes from Earth to Pluto and back again with the reverb. A good song with or without hallucinogens. Not that I’ve, um, compared.

“Soma”, Smashing Pumpkins

A bit clunky at times in the lyrics department (hey, it’s a Billy Corgan song, what did you expect), but so incredibly epic in the musical department that it blows away any lyrical imperfections. What I love about Smashing Pumpkins is its incredible embracing of melodrama: it’s how teenagers think, it’s how twenty-somethings think, and really, I haven’t seen any evidence that it goes away with age. It’s all well and good to construct a measured, poetic, Ivory-Merchant type response to the throes and woes of everyday life, and it’s also OK to shout from the mountaintops at the top of your lungs as if another mountain were resting upon your shoulders.

“Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End”, The Beatles

The ending triptych from “Abbey Road” ends this compilation. Just feels right having The Beatles take us home on this mix. After all, they inspired more than a fair share of the music heard previously on these discs, so why not give them some props? Also, doesn’t hurt that the last song is called “The End”, which appeals to my mix-tape making geekery.

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So there ya have it, an incredibly unscientific, probably-would-look-totally-different-in-six-months, desert island double-album compilation. Sorry to all Enya fans for my exclusion of “Orinoco Flow”. Trust me, was a hard one to leave off.

Any comments? Fan mail? Hate mail? Pictures of yourself on a deserted island? Feel free to drop them my way.