There are a lot of rules to making the perfect mix. They come from years of trial and error and blood and sweat and crying and shit. When I first started making these in 1982 as a twelve-year-old, me and my friends would have to hold a cheap tape recorder up to the radio and record every song that came out. If it sucked, we’d hit stop, rewind and wait for the next one to come out.
Then, tape-to-tape decks arrived and we thought the future could hold no more joy. This is back when a mixtape was made of actual tape and despite what the Salad Days glorifists tell you, it still sucked. There’d always be that one song that didn’t belong and you’d either have to endure it or rerecord the whole thing again from scratch. Today taking a song out of a mix is just a gentle touch of the delete button (you spoiled fuckers).
Anyway, here’s the rules to making the perfect mix and I used the best songs from the past 365 days.
EASE INTO IT
Making a mix is like seducing a lady. You can’t just cram it in there. You need to start by waiting for her to finish reading her gossip blogs, then suggest a back rub, then kiss her on the face, then some nudity… banging is like the 32nd step.
Today’s mix starts out with happy choruses and a xylophone with friends everywhere. Nobody could object to that and if they do, get out of the house now. You are in bed with a sociopath.
SEGUE
Ideally, songs are placed in clusters of three. I need to get out of the chick section here and get things cooking so I matched DOM’s heavy drums with Lykke Li’s and stuck it to dudes singing about chicks. Which brings us to our next rule.
KEEP ‘EM SIMILAR
Back in the shitty days, DJ’s would be expected to beat mix the aforementioned drum similarities using turntables. Nobody noticed so now iTunes is used and turntables are in the dinosaur bin. Fine with me.
RAMP IT UP
You want to get some hardcore in there like Cerebral Ballzy but it’s like robbing a bank. You have to get in smooth and escape with your life. I eased us in with fun punky shit like Japanther and Harlem but how to get out?
WILD CARD
To go from hardcore to rap is like chugging orange juice after you brush your teeth, it hurts and it’s gross. Solutions to the problem include: Some weird, spoken word sample, a crazy instrumental, or a new kind of music like Salem which combines everything in the world at once.
IT’S RAP TIME
Okay this is weird. My last cluster went from Salem and then did two rap songs. Then three more? Look asshole, I chose the weirdest rap songs I had and used them to segue into an actual rap cluster which started with the strangest rap song of THAT cluster. I know. What a mindfuck right? The beginning of the rap set is so gentle, it’s impossible to determine. The important thing is we danced with the devil in the pale moonlight and lived! Now we can enjoy some mainstream chart toppers and recover from the roller coaster that has been the past 13 songs.
BLOW IT UP
Ramping it up to punk and even adding some rap is plenty fun but why not just detonate the dynamite? BBU’s chorus of “Chi-Town throw it up / Bin Laden blow it up” laughs at you for trusting us and fucking throws you into the center of an erupting volcano. Then, like a torture victim who is revived with smelling salts, you get pounded with two more thousand-ton Godzillas. I even blew my own mind by leaving the three song cluster rule and throwing a Maximum Balloon in there for no reason! Can you dig it?
WIND IT DOWN
Intercourse is ultimately about benevolence and although intense peaks are reached and some potentially regrettable quotes are uttered during the course of the act, you can’t leave your lover lying on the side of the bed in a pile of cum.
Returning from Sleigh Bells and the previous dance hits ain’t easy but it has to be done. That’s why we use a gruff blues song to continue the guitars and then stroke her hair with a kind dose of Here We Go Magic.
THE END
It’s over. There’s been 18 22 [thanks, Math] songs made up of seven three-song clusters (with one exception) and it’s important to ease the victim slowly into a blissful sleep.
Australia’s own Tame Impala have been voted, “Most Likely to Make Us Look Back on This Whole Experience as Worth it” and so, they win the award.
They’d like to thank me and you for making this possible. Good night.
GAVIN MCINNES’ PERFECT PLAYLIST
The Best Songs of 2010
Cults “Go Outside”
Tennis “Marathon”
DOM “Bonicha”
Lykke Li “Get Some”
LCD Soundsystem “Drunk Girls”
Plus Perfect “House on Fire”
Harlem “Someday Soon”
Japanther “No one’s Listenin”
Cerebral Ballzy “Insufficient Fare”
Salem “Sick”
Best Coast, Rostam & Kid Cudi – “All Summer”
Clockwork “Office Muzik”
J. Cole “Blow Up”
Young Money “Roger That”
Kanye West “Power”
BBU “BB Who”
South Rakkas Crew feat MC Gi & Mr Dockery “Hands Up Brazil (Double Up Riddim)”
Magic Balloon “Groove Me”
Sleigh Bells “Tell Em”
Black Keys “Next Girl”
Here We Go Magic “Collector”
Tame Impala “Solitude is Bliss”
POSTED A DAY AGO ON STREET CARNAGE.
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