Ahh, the summer mix tape: beacon of hope in those early summer weeks when the last of winter is killing its final leaves. Shining ray of glorious freedom in the form of music: be it Alice Cooper’s infamously over-soundtracked ode to the end of the educational months or your favorite buzz band’s catchy first single.
There is no such thing as a guilty pleasure on a summer mix tape, for there is no pleasure so great that one must feel the need to scald themselves for indulging in it when you’re celebrating the return of those heaven-sent summer skies. These songs all have space in them: space for dancing, singing along, rolling down the windows, staying up late, getting up later, doing nothing, doing everything you can possibly fit in a day, going to the park, taking a walk, and other forms of summer merriment. I sure hope you enjoy; this was truly difficult to narrow down, and it still ended up being my longest mix yet. I’ve included the individual songs as well as a zip of the whole tape hosted on sendspace — get it while it’s hot. The individual mp3s will be up all summer.
[zip] Hard to Find a Friend – Summer Breeze : The Mixtape (56 mb)
[mp3] Josh Rouse – Summertime
[mp3] Essex Green – Don’t Know Why
[mp3] Hot Hot Heat – Talk to me, Dance With Me
[mp3] Ian Broudie – Song for No One
[mp3] The Long Winters – Teaspoon
[mp3] Broken Social Scene – Swimmers
[mp3] Oh no! Oh my! – Walk in the Park
[mp3] Chimney – 115 West 104
[mp3] Tapes n’ Tapes – Cowbell
[mp3] De Novo Dahl – Waiting for my Friends
[mp3] Dr. Dog – The Way the Lazy Do
[mp3] Pinback – Concrete Seconds
[mp3] The Little Ones – Lovers Who Uncover
[mp3] Someone Still Loves you Boris Yeltsin – Oregon Girl
[mp3] Spoon – The Way We Get By
[mp3] The Thermals – A Pillar of Salt
If you’ve already made one, please leave your own summer mix in the comments: I’d love to add more. I really enjoyed some of the stuff I hadn’t heard that you all suggested in the Sad Song Mix comments.
A Note: You’ll notice the small mixtape on the sidebar: I’ve been receiving a large number of hits on the page that archives all the posts I’ve labeled as a mix, so I decided to make accessing them a little easier for you. Clicking on that tape will take you to those archives, where you can find all the mixtape goodness you can handle, friends!
Buy all these records at amp camp
Are you my long-lost other half? Our musical tastes are uncannily similar. All this to say: awesome mix, dude.
I made an “end of winter” mix. Not quite a summer mix, but it’s close.
http://threepints.blogspot.com/2007/03/best-end-of-winter-mixtape-ever.html
Anything from the Beach Boys! How could you have a summer mix tape without a single Beach Boys song?
Well, I thought about doing a whole separate mixtape of strictly old songs. Perhaps I, or Morgan, will do that in the near future. You’ll notice I put a volume one in the title of the post, so as to leave an open ended future for any and all summer mixes I might throw together before August is over.
spoon’s “the way we get by” has been on the last two summer mixes ive made. i have yet to make one this year, but a agree with that song whole heartedly!
Looks like a dern good mix! D/L-ing as we speak. Especially nice choice on the Spoon tune. Big ups.
Nice choice on Oregon Girl. I dig SSLYBS.
You kick ass, Caleb.
Nice stuff! That Thermals track is one hell of a way to close things out. I’ll add you to my blogroll.
Awesome mix. I especially like “Teaspoon”, “The way we get by”, and “Don’t Know Why”. If you were to put the Beach Boys on another playlist, I’d go with “Sail of Sailor”.
Here is a summer mix from NYC for 2007…
1. Clairaudients / Bright Eyes
2. Dashboard / Modest Mouse
3. Icky Thump / the White Stripes
4. Going Nowhere / Elliott Smith
5. The Perfect Me / Deerhoof
6. Like New / Deerhunter
7. What We Had / Handsome Furs
8. Rapid Tollbooth Fire / Omar Rodriguez-Lopez
9. Hustle ‘n Flo / Menomena
10. The Dull Flame of Desire / Bjork [ft. Antony]
11. Tasmanian Pain Coaster / El-P
12. Red October / Mr. Lif
13. Futuristic Ain’t S**t To Me / Gonzalez
14. Backlash Blues / Nina Simone
15. Shift [Daytrotter Session Version]/ Grizzly Bear
16. Almost Crimes / Broken Social Scene
17. Remind Me / Royksopp
18. Walken / Wilco
19. 1234 / Feist