I posted this tracklist to my LiveJournal, which I kept from 2001 to 2011. Some of you reading this will remember my LiveJournal, but I think most of you will not. Suffice it to say: I was angsty as fuck, as it encapsulated my life from age 18 to age 28. The “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing” years, if you will.
If you have Qobuz, here is the playlist, with the exception of Menomena’s “Cough Coughing,” which isn’t on there for some reason. If you still support the guy who spend €600 million on AI war drones, then here’s a YouTube playlist instead. It DOES have “Cough Coughing,” so there’s that.
Read more: Reviewing a Mix CD from 2003Annoying Opening Paragraph Where I Talk about The Backstory of the Mix CD
I was born in a coal mine in 1983.
Okay but for real, I grew up in a country music household. This was mostly due to my father, who was in a country-western band called the County Knights (they eventually dropped the “Country” because they were also playing bluegrass and americana stuff). I heard a lot of Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, etc. But even with that as the dominant sound of my childhood, my older brothers were listening to more mainstream music from the 80s and early 90s. Van Halen (DLR and Hagar), Prince, etc. And I was listening to the radio, so I was getting my recommended dosage of pop music. There was also, of COURSE, the late 90s swing revival, which I glommed onto like a kid who was unaware how uncool fedoras were going to be a scant few years later.
My introduction to indie music came through friends in high school. There was a group of ‘em who all listened to bands like The Promise Ring, Fugazi, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Piebald, among others. And I was obsessed with their obsession. I truly started listening to these bands because I wanted them to think I was cool. And I don’t know if I ever truly succeeded; I mean, they liked me, we were friends, we hung out, but I always felt like an outside to that group in particular.
The good news is that even if we didn’t even end up becoming the Best of Friends, the music they listened to was awesome. It was the seed for me branching out musically.
The second seed, which was planted around this time, was a website called emusic.com. This was back in the lawless pioneer days of music piracy and Napster and all that. My dad had gotten a subscription to Emusic and I scoured the Alternative & Indie (or I guess it was Alternative/Punk at the time) for new bands to listen to. I’ve told this story a hundred times, but Emusic is where I discovered the Decemberists, one of my favorite bands. For some reason the music curation at Emusic was very good, and I found myself downloading a bunch of full albums for free (because Dad had a subscription—again, this was before streaming). Thus, my musical repertoire was expanded greatly.
Later influences like Pitchfork would help hone my musical tastes, but for a while there, I was just downloading and listening to shit on Emusic. Saving what I like, tossing what I didn’t. I guarantee most of the tracks on this mix CD came from Emusic mp3s.
Anyway, enough bloviating. Let’s listen to the mix!
The Decemberists – Leslie Anne Levine
Album: Castaways & Cutouts
Again, I’ve said this before, but I cannot state how impactful this song was to 19-year-old me. It felt like a real “needle in a haystack” sort of situation—I was poring through Emusic bands, finding stuff that was alright. But when I heard the first chords of this song, I knew this was the best band I’d ever heard (at the time). The entire album was so interesting, the stories so unique, the “lit pop” so nerdy without being, like Weird Al nerdy. I loved Weird Al, but I hadn’t really heard a band that was nerdy and serious at the time.
I think I got this album in 2002? My timeline on when Dad got Emusic is hazy. I definitely pride myself on knowing this band “before they were famous.” This band and Gorillaz, basically. I knew Gorillaz before they were cool, okay? Deal with it.
A good opener for a mix CD, but NOT a mix CD you would send to a crush. This is NOT a good crush song. (Semi-related, but I was terrible at crush mix CDs.)
Clearlake – Almost the Same
Album: Cedars
Clearlake was a Brighton, UK band whose second album, Cedars, was a Pitchfork BNM (Best New Music—I’m shortening it because I suspect I’ll be using it a lot) entry. A really great chugging, driving song that doesn’t ever let up. I suspect in my head I thought This will be a great second track to the slower “Leslie Anne Levine.”
Weird fact: one of the founding members of this band is Jason Pegg, who, as far as I can tell, is no relation to Simon Pegg. However, a Simon Pegg is listed on the Wikipedia entry for Cedars, being in charge of “Lighting, Pyrotechnics.” I feel like if that was the Simon Pegg, we’d know about this illustrious past.
The Rapture – Heaven
Album: Echoes
I truly thought this album, Echoes, was from like 2007-08. The Rapture was like a “disco punk” band. Question mark? In the vein of !!! and, uhhh, other bands like that that I can’t think of at the moment. I guess LCD Soundsystem a couple years later. The Rapture was raucous and I liked this song and, more so, “House of Jealous Lovers.” In fact I probably put “Heaven” here because at the time I was sick of “House of Jealous Lovers.” I never was much into the rest of the album and, listening to it now, I still am not! It’s too disjointed for my taste. I’ll put “House of Jealous Lovers” below because it is the superior song and I am kicking 20-year-old me for not including.
Grandaddy – Now It’s On
Album: Sumday
Ah, Grandaddy. Such a comfort band. I love Jason Lytle’s vocals and how this band feels like it should be listened to with wired headphones while aimlessly skating down the Santa Monica pier during sunset. I don’t have anything to add here! Go listen to Grandaddy.
My Morning Jacket – Mageetah
Album: It Sill Moves
MMJ was always in my periphery as far as bands were concerned. I liked them but I wasn’t super into them. But I think overall this band is still pretty popular, which is cool! Good for you, Jim James! I don’t know why I added this to the mix CD though and if I had to do it again, I probably wouldn’t. It’s not a bad song! It just veers into jam band rock territory and that makes me nervous.
Interpol – Roland
Album: Turn On the Bright Lights
I saw Interpol at the Big Easy in Boise, ID back in 2005 and they all wore suits and the lead singer was smoking a cigarette and in between drags he would notch the cigarette between the strings of his guitar, on the headstock. HOLY SHIT there’s a TikTok video of him doing it!
Anyway that was the coolest thing I had ever seen at the time. If my dad’s medical issues from smoking hadn’t nearly killed him, I probably would’ve picked up smoking right then and there! Interpol was the fucking coolest back then. Like The Strokes.
Earlimart – The Movies
Album: Everyone Down Here
Genuinely have not listened to this band in decades. They were pals with Grandaddy and recorded stuff together, but I don’t think that’s how I heard about them. Honestly, probably Pitchfork. This is a fine song, probably added to contrast the faster “Roland.” Because I was an expert mix master back in my 20s. I’m re-listening to the album and it’s pretty good! I do not remember it at all.
The Unicorns – Sea Ghost
Album: Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?
God I really loved this band. Quirky as hell (they’re Canadian, what else would you expect). They kind of sound like a mirror-verse version of The Shins. Even the album art feels like mirror-verse Shins. Or, remember the Fiery Furnaces? God I hated that band. There was a whole “quirky/twee” aesthetic back in the early 2000s that people don’t talk about as much anymore.
I listened to this album a lot but was always frustrated by it. It always felt … unresolved. Like “Sea Ghost” never really settles, and I think some people really like that, and, with all due respect, I think those people take heavy doses of Adderall to function in life. I guess what I’m saying is that, in review, I kind of hate this band.
“I Was Born (A Unicorn)” is still pretty good though.
Neutral Milk Hotel – Two-Headed Boy
Album: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
My NMH story is that they broke up years ago and were never going to tour again and then one year they were like “We’re going to tour again!” This was 2014, and they played the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, a venue notorious for A) springy ballroom floor and B) terrible acoustics. (The joke was that popular bands would play the Crystal once, and only once.) My friends and I all got tickets but the night of the show we were so tired and didn’t want to go. This is when I really started to feel like an adult. I was nearly 31 and I was too tired to go see one of the most influential indie bands of all time.
But then we went and it was so awesome and I’m glad I did it. I don’t really need to explain how groundbreaking Neutral Milk Hotel was. The ultimate indie band. “Two-Headed Boy Pt 2” still makes me tear up.
The Decemberists – Red Right Ankle
Album: Her Majesty, The Decemberists
I put three Decemberists songs in here because I was genuinely obsessed with them. I’m telling you! I know a lot of you already know this. You’re like “Fucking hell we get it, Josh, they’re your favorite band,” and I’m like “Well not really anymore, though I still love them” and you’re like “Okay well who is your favorite band now?” and I clamber up on top of my desk and proudly proclaim “THE WIGGLES”
I will say that this is an interesting track to follow up “Two-Headed Boy,” mostly because that song ends abruptly as it leads into “The Fool,” which is a very bombastic sort of instrumental dirge, with horns and stuff. The juxtaposition is neat.
Menomena – Cough Coughing
Album: I Am the Fun Blame Monster!
Another band I truly haven’t listened to in years. I think I was more enamored with the experimental aspect of Menomena than the actual music. They are Portland-based, which I didn’t know at the time. I think they used a lot of looping? I dunno. Listening to this now, I’m like “Why? Why did I pick this song?”
For some reason it makes me think of the Caribou album Swim, from 2010, which has an excellent first track, “Odessa,” and then after that is an album that requires a lot of focus to listen to. Just that idea of an album having one good song on it and the rest is “good” but also hard to really enjoy.
Both I Am the Fun Blame Monster! and Swim were albums I found from Pitchfork’s BNM and both are albums that I think just aren’t for me. C’est la vie!
TV on the Radio – Staring at the Sun
Album: Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
Now this is a band I still like. The last time I hyperfocused on Minecraft, I was listening to TV on the Radio while playing it. I was in the Nether? is that what it’s called? The Hell part. God that place sucks ass. I don’t get Minecraft sometimes. It’s fun but then they’re like “Here’s a section of the game that sucks” and people like that for some reason. I just want to tell these kids in their teens and 20s, “HEY STOP LIKING STUFF THAT SUCKS! YOU’RE GONNA DIE SOMEDAY!”
Anyway, TV on the Radio rules. I think we’re getting to the part of the mix CD where I lost interest in really paying attention to the flow of the mix, though.
Radiohead – Go to Sleep
Album: Hail to the Thief
Yeah, really feel like I hit “Randomize” on the Winamp playlist 5x and then shuffled some of the tracks at the top and called it a day. Kind of fascinated that I picked not only a Hail to the Thief track, but also a (mostly) acoustic Radiohead track. Not even the best track on the album, which I always thought was “A Punch Up at a Wedding.”
Sufjan Stevens – For the Widows in Paradise, for the Fatherless in Ypsilanti
Album: Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State
I have a love/hate relationship with Sufjan. Make no mistake, this album is great. I also desperately love Seven Swans. And in 2015 an ex-girlfriend of mine (not ex at the time, of course) surprised me with tickets to see Sufjan in concert. This was during his tour for Carrie & Lowell, an album about his mother (who had passed away in 2012) and his stepfather, who helped him found his record label, Asthmatic Kitty.
I really liked that album and was excited to see the tour, but I thought it was bad! It was so overly self-indulgent that it really turned me off. Songs that were formerly tight and clean became bloated under Sufjan’s desire to, I don’t know, honor his mother and stepfather? I really came out of it feeling like I had been bait-and-switched or something. I’m probably alone on this, but there you go.
This song is great though! Sufjan is a great artist. His Christmas albums are awesome too, great for the holiday.
The Shins – Young Pilgrims
Album: Chutes Too Narrow
My hot take is that I kind of hate the Shins. I find them to be smarmy. Smarmy! This was a gradual thing—obviously I liked them in 2003. Why I dislike the Shins but love Vampire Weekend, who are also arguably kind of smarmy, I’ll never know.
Also, story time! I was at a bar here in Portland, Laurelthirst Pub, years ago for New Years Eve. It was a music event called Two Beers Veirs, in which musician Laura Veirs would play songs with other artists and stuff to celebrate the coming new year. Some of the Decemberists were slated to be there so OF COURSE my friend group had to go so they could try to convince Colin Meloy to fall in love with them. But we also discovered that James Mercer, of The Shins, was also there, in the crowd, hanging out!
At one point James was standing almost directly in front of us. And then, we smelled the very, very distinct odor of a very sulfurous fart. It truly stank to high heaven. We blamed it on James. Since then, our number one memory of James Mercer is that he has egg farts. He has yet to refute this!
Anyway this song is embedded in my brain and everyone loooooves the Shins, whatever. Go watch Garden State again, sheeple!
The Dismemberment Plan – Girl O’Clock
Album: Emergency & I
This is my second favorite DP song. I find the band to be kind of uneven, musically, but I just really love this track. I think when I was making this mix I was putting “2nd best” tracks on here for some reason.
For the record, my favorite DP song is this one:
The Decemberists – Shiny
Album: Five Songs EP
Ugh MORE Decemberists? Come on man. We GET IT. This is from their very first release, the Five Songs EP which famously has six songs on it. I miss strummy Colin. Colin knows how to play guitar better now so he’s always picking and stuff, and his songs have guitar parts and shit. But I miss when he’d strum something simple. Probably because I could cover it because I’m a shit guitarist. Oh well.
The Mountain Goats – First Few Desperate Hours
Album: Tallahassee
Tallahassee was my introduction to the Mountain Goats, and to some Mountain Goats fans, that makes me a poser. You’re not really a TMG fan unless you like something from his recording-on-a-boombox era. That was the mindset in the 2000s, at least; now he has twice as many “hi-fi” studio albums than he does lo-fi. Take that, weirdly obsessive hipster guys from the 2000s!
Anyway, Pitchfork gave this album a 6.0 or something when it came out, which is insane. This song has “No Children” on it! Pitchfork can go to Hell.
The Books – Tokyo
Album: The Lemon of Pink
I had no idea what this track was until I listened to it. I don’t think I really ever listened to this album. I don’t know how I got ahold of this track, but I love it still and I have put it on several mix CDs.
Piebald – All You Need is Drums to Start a Dance Party
Album: If It Weren’t for Venetian Blinds, It Would Be Curtains for Us All
When I said earlier that I was listening to indie music in high school to impress my friends, Piebald was a huge chunk of that time. And here’s the funny thing: I never really loved them. I always thought Promise Ring was way, way better. (And of course Jimmy Eat World’s Bleed American, which at the time I think the “true” emo heads didn’t like because it was selling out. Gen X was OBSESSED with not selling out.)
But this song I always enjoyed, along with a few others. They’re still making music too! That’s awesome.
The Beatles – Across the Universe
Album: Let it Be … Naked
Unsure why I added this, other than I was definitely enchanted by this alternate take. Let it Be … Naked was kind of a mindblowing release at the time. Prior to this we had that Anthology that had the new songs “Free As a Bird” (boring) and “Real Love” (awesome).
Side note: the 2025 Anthology 4 remaster of “Real Love” sucks so bad, you can tell they used AI to enhance John’s vocals and the harpsichord is just too fucking loud. It’s mixed so terribly. Listen to the 1996 mix! It’s way better. Tell Peter Jackson to get his grubby music AI bullshit off my precious Be-atles!
I think Let it Be … Naked was kind of the last good Beatles release before it all circled around and we got 40 million hours of Beatles again. At this point we know the size and consistency of every shit George Harrison took from 1964-1970. It’s insane. No more Beatles! You’re oversaturating the market! FOUR BEATLES FILMS? ONE FOR EACH BEATLE?! Not on my watch. (I’m going to destroy the four Beatles films.)
Review
How successful was this mix CD from 2003? I guess it depends. It feels mainly like an “introductory” CD; as in, meant to introduce people to new music. It’s certainly not a CD I would give someone who knew all this music already. But the problem is that I put second-best songs in there. Why did I do that? I have no idea. I was probably sick of the best songs at the time and wanted to do something different.
I give this mix a solid B/100.
I’m sure I can find other tracklists from other mix CDs. Once I do you KNOW I will be doing this again. Consider yourself warned.
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