Over to my former 30-something self...
I finally got around to upgrading from my much loved Panasonic portable cassette player to an iPod Nano last month. Even though I'm making very slow progress with uploading stuff from my record collection (about 500 songs so far, barely half the 4GB space), I've been giving my iPod a good run for it's money. It's been great to hear songs that I haven't listened to in a while, as well as discovering a whole load of stuff on the internet. The shuffle option has proved to be highly addictive when it comes to unusual playlists. I quit smoking (again) on Tuesday and (honest, guv) the moment I lit up my last fag, Chumbawamba's Give The Anarchist A Cigarette kicked into my headphones. Thankfully, so far my iPod's skipped John Lennon's Cold Turkey, which is also lurking in there somewhere...
To pick up the story, 15 years on, apart from the cliché of a celebratory cigar when Lady K was born, I've not smoked since and I have never been tempted to try vaping.
I've been through 5 iPod Nanos since that initial purchase (the green one in the picture, if you're wondering); I worked them very hard. The subsequent iPods were all cheap secondhand purchases from eBay and for varying reasons all eventually gave up. I think my iPods were less forgiving than SWC's over at No Badger Required...
You'll note that only 4 Nanos are pictured. The fifth - also pink and always the least wanted on eBay, it seems - fell from my pocket as I was racing to platform 12 at Leeds Railway Station to catch a train home. I saw it slide effortlessly across the platform before gliding briefly above the tracks then dropping down into the path of an incoming train. I'd like to say that either Dylan's Blood On The Tracks or Mylo's Destroy Rock & Roll was playing in that fateful moment but, to be honest, I don't remember and I was probably swearing too loudly to notice as I continued running for my train, my suddenly orphaned headphone cable trailing behind me...
I retired my last Nano a couple of years ago and sold the 4 defunct iPods as parts on eBay. These days, my headphone and in-car music listening is all on my phone, with a never-ending variation of playlists.
As for mash-ups, I still love them, but my frankly ridiculous habit of downloading and collecting hundreds of them had significantly dropped by the end of the 2000s. The artists that I followed now seem to have mostly retired from mash-ups and are focused on other music-related pursuits.
IDC aka David McCarthy has released two albums, Overthrow The Boss Class (2008) and The Sun is Always Shining Above The Clouds (2011) and, according to his website, album #3 is currently in production.
McSleazy seems to have been retired around 2010-2011 and Grant J. Robson has since worked as a soundtrack composer and solo artist. His 4th album, Lit By The Dark, was released in 2021 and features The Vaselines' Eugene Kelly on The Burden, which is rather wonderful.
Team9 also ceased some years ago by all accounts and I've struggled to find any current website for Neil Mason. Info suggests that Neil is still based in Perth and working as a soundtrack composer and music producer.
Go Home Productions last released a couple of mash-ups in 2020, but Mark Vidler has more recently been involved with Graham Daniels as Addictive TV, including the incredible Orchestra Of Samples project. Mark was recently pictured with Devo and John Lydon at the Cruel World Fest in Pasadena, California.
Loo & Placido aka Laurent Lupidi & Jeremy Johnson are still going strong, celebrating over 20 years of mash-ups, more recent beneficiaries being XXXTentacion, Billie Eilish, Chvrches and Post Malone.
Suffice to say, my digital music collection has grown exponentially since 2007 and my Top 20 most played list has significantly changed, skewed in part by school runs and Lady K's brief obsessions with Queen and, way out in front, Feel It Still by Portugal. The Man which was curtailed only by the lockdown in 2020. Of today's selection, only Lou Reed comes anywhere close, coming in at #84...
Anyway, enough of my yakking, without further ado here's today's selection for your listening pleasure.
Side One
1) Pain Killer (Album Version): Turin Brakes (2003)
2) Toop Toop Groove (Cassius vs. Madonna): Loo & Placido (2006)
3) In The Morning (Album Version By Geoff Barrow & Adrian Utley): The Coral (2005)
4) 7 Nation Rocker (Alter Ego vs. The White Stripes): IDC (2004)
5) Don't Call Me Song 2 (Madison Avenue vs. Blur): McSleazy (2000)
6) Satellite Of Love (Album Version By David Bowie & Mick Ronson): Lou Reed (1972)
7) Get I.D. (Kelis vs. Kasabian): McSleazy (2004)
8) Sheltered Life (Radio Edit): Erlend Øye (2003)
9) Since You Love Me (Kelly Clarkson vs. David Guetta vs. The Egg): Loo & Placido (2006)
10) Uptight Maggie (Re-Vision) (Stevie Wonder vs. Rod Stewart): Go Home Productions (2004)
Side Two
1) Oblivious (Remix By Felix Chamberlain & Ted Templeman) (7" Version): Aztec Camera (1983)
2) Oops I'm Loaded (Original Version) (Tweet vs. Primal Scream): Team9 (2006)
3) The Doorbell Encore (Jay-Z vs. The White Stripes): Team9 (2005)
4) Lost In Music (Album Version) (Cover of Sister Sledge): The Fall (1993)
5) Naive Hustler (Mirwais vs. Simian Mobile Disco): IDC (2006)
6) I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have (Cover of Primal Scream): Idha (1994)
7) Give The Anarchist A Cigarette (Edit): Chumbawamba (1994)
8) Insatiable Love (Darilyn Mansun) (Darren Hayes vs. Marilyn Manson): McSleazy (2002)
9) Sometimes Always (Album Version): The Jesus & Mary Chain ft. Hope Sandoval (1994)
10) Tulsa Telephone Book (Live @ Roskilde Festival, Denmark) (Cover of Tom T. Hall): Calexico (2000)
Wow, blast from the recent- ish past. All those mash ups (the ones above and others from the same period) sum up and time and place for me, good fun. Very 00s.
ReplyDelete"Very 00s" - I know what you mean! This would fit the bill for the The Swede's A Series Of Brief Obsessions, if I were running something similar. I literally downloaded hundreds of mash-ups at the time. Hardly anything by comparison since 2010 but the occasional gem, such as Lorded which you featured last year, shines through.
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