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In my basement, I have a whole pack of mixtapes I made when I was younger. At first I just recorded stuff off the radio, but when I got older I figured out how to feed the TV audio into our tape machine and was able to get stuff off of MuchMusic, as well.
I would usually divide the tapes up by their source: pop (the top 40 station), rock (the alt station), indie (the Wedge, Going Coastal) and hip-hop (RapCity).
This was a good system for when I could pack all my tapes around, but every once in a while I’d be going somewhere space was limited.
When a trip like that was coming up it was time to make a best of tape: a combination of tracks from across genres, dubbed from my collection into one master mix.
I found the best formats for these mixes were the 90 minute ones – 45 minutes on each side. A good long listen, but not so long that you would never listen to it more than once.
So anyways, here’s what one of those mixtapes would sound like if I were to make it today, using my favourite tracks of 2014 as a start point. Enjoy. Almost Mainstream: the 2014 Mixtape
Mixcloud | Download | Bop.fm
(please note: I’ve put streams of individual tracks below, but the best way to listen to this is by streaming or downloading the full mix above)
Tracklist: Side A Hero – Frank Ocean + Mick Jones + Paul Simonon + Diplo Hero (feat. Frank Ocean, Mick Jones, and Paul Simonon) | Listen for free at bop.fm
Remember when people would get upset about musicians “selling out” and artists would worry about being used by corporations? Thank goodness those days are over because then we would never have this Converse-backed track that combines the percussion section from the Clash with left-field R&B singer Frank Ocean and master producer Diplo. If pressed, I would probably choose this as my favourite song of the year.
Magic – Coldplay Magic | Listen for free at bop.fm
I think “Yellow” is a great song. It’s jangly, catchy, and hopelessly romantic. Over the years, Coldplay have gotten further from that version of themselves, pursuing stadiums and “seriousness”, and I’ve progressively lost interest to the point I can’t name a single song off their last three (four? five? I don’t know how many they’ve put out) albums. But this is one of my favourite tracks of the year and one of the band’s top five, ever. It’s the perfect bookend to “Yellow” – the band uses drum machines now, and a relationship is ending, but they still believe in magic.
“I believe that For McMurray is the most interesting and most important thing that’s going on right now,” said Kate Beaton in her interview with Jesse Brown. “Right now it is like the pan-Canadian experience in a way, because almost all of us know somebody who’s working in the oil sands.” Like the oilsands, this song is a pan-Canadian experience: originally by a Winnipeg songwriter, it was popularized by a Toronto one and now, for my money, has found its home with Prince George’s Scott Dunbar. Dunbar has spent much of the last two years as fly-in, fly-out worker of sorts, couch-surfing across the country and recording multiple albums along the way. His gravelly voice and the chain/suitcase percussion used as part of his one-man-band act are the perfect complement to this song about “Fort McMoney”: part campfire jam, part cry for help.
Side B Jealous – Nick Jonas Jealous | Listen for free at bop.fm
Usually when I do my end-of-year listening to other people’s list, I discover some under-the-radar band or the next big thing from some obscure country. This year I discovered “Jealous” by Nick Jonas thanks to Said the Gramophone, and it’s been in my head since.
i – Kendrick Lamar i | Listen for free at bop.fm
Kendrick Lamar didn’t put out an album this year, but he didn’t really need to – this Isley Brothers sampling track was worth listening to again and again.
Goodbye Weekend – Mac Demarco Goodbye Weekend | Listen for free at bop.fm Salad Daysis my favourite album of the year, and this song captures what I like about – disorienting and dreamy all at once, probably tossed off on a not-very-well-tuned guitar. Also, I once brought Mac de Marco’s band to town when he was still a teenager and being an opening act for university shows, so that’s kind of cool.
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