The Autoblography Ubermix

Now. As every music junkie knows, there are rules in making mixes. They used to be unwritten, but in 'High Fidelity' Nick Hornby changed all that. Which was a shame. Because once rules are written, I like to break them.

"A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to hold the attention. Then you have to take it up a notch, but not blow your wad, so maybe cool it off a notch, and you can't put the same artist twice on the tape, except if some subtle point or lesson or theme involved, and even then not the two of them in a row, and you can't woo somebody with Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" and then bash their head off with something like GBH's "City Baby Attacked by Rats," and... oh, there are a lot of rules."

We can take it or leave it. But of course, like James Bond or The Avengers, you have to prove you can do the rules better than anyone else before you get to go above them.

We'll see.

1. New Radicals – Mother, I Just Can’t Get Enough

The first track off the one and only New Radicals album. Apparently the band split up, which is particularly impressive considering ‘the group’ was actually a solo act. More energy than a nuclear power station during an ad break in Coronation Street, this track carries joie de vivre in a ten gallon drum. Opens the CD with the immortal words, "Make my nipples hard, let’s go!"

2. Counting Crows - Hangin' Around

Another Side One Track One, from the album 'This Desert Life'. More energy - I'm a sucker for it, I confess - and this is every small town teenager's anthem. The drums are awesome, the growling electric guitar could enliven even The House Of Lords, and it has applause at the end. Always handy to start a student radio show with, as this makes it sound like there are other people around, even if you're stuck on your own in an empty station with your hangover because you were stupid enough to pick a 10am Saturday slot. You know, just in case.

3. Gomez - Waster

This little beauty was hiding as track 3 of 4 on the Machismo EP. Featuring possibly the best acoustic guitar/piano combination intro IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. More energy. More bounce. More pounce. Has climactic screeching towards the end.

4. The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil

Bit of a classic, and kicks off with rolling skiffle drums and some interesting screeching. How coincidental. Listening to this back it occurs to me that given a decent pitch bend, this and the Gomez track might even be mixable. I'm so good at this I didn't even realise it at the time. Eat that Hornby. I make your rules look passé.

5. Edwin Starr - 25 Miles

Now the Stones picked up a lot of stuff from the US black music scene. We're talking Motown, people, and how. Horn. Everywhere. Accapella breakbeat. Progression, power, vocals. This track leaps and bucks around under your skin.

6. Morcheeba - Women Lose Weight

From Motown to Morcheeba. This track is a slick chill hip-pop murder ballad which is cool as a cucumber but much, much better to listen to. And it's difficult to dance and listen to a cucumber, so the song wins hands down. No message intended from the title - the moral of the song is without gender bias. I'm PC I am. Honest.

7. Zebda - Tomber La Chemise

Sorry...I was saying something about being Politically Correct? If anyone out there can find me the lyrics to this track in English, I will be very happy. With my limited vocabulary I think this absolutely amazing summer-drenched French Reggae gem contains references to pretty girls, threesomes, oral sex, and, oh my, letting those blouses fall...

8. Amon Tobin - Nightlife

There are no words for the regard in which I hold this man. The transition from Zebda to Tobin might not be the smoothest gear change in history, but who gives a shit when the tracks are this good? So we go from French Reggae to experimental drum 'n' bass. WITH STYLE. There is bouncy double bass in both - there. That'll do it. this is the first track of Tobin's that I heard, when the splendid Brendan hosted it over at Happy. It might take a listen or two, but this track is truly mindblowing.

9. Third Eye Blind - Motorcycle Drive By

As the strains of Nightlife ebb away, no doubt you're face down gasping for breath on the wet sand. Let a gentle acoustic guitar pick you up and carry you through this...a beautiful track that speaks of relationship hopes and mismatch, and the assurance and hope of a solitary path over being with the wrong person.

10. Kings of Convenience - Toxic Girl

Soft, gentle, trippy, strangely accented and yet good at the same time, this short and inoffensive little ditty sounds like sunshine. Listen to the words? BITTER AND TWISTED.

I like it.

11. Kerstine - Cuckoo

If you've ever heard this song before, then chances are you got given the same CD I did at Reading Festival in 1998. The vocals are dripping with sex, there's a funky organ in there (double entendre entirely accidental, but now it's there it can stay) and to be perfectly honest the first time I heard it made me want to find the singer and give her a good rogering. Just being honest...

12. Jack Constanzo & Jerry Woo - Jive Samba

HAAAVAAAAAANAAAAAAAAAA!
Well, New York, actually.
BUT HAVANAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
About as cool as music is EVER likely to get, this tymp-rolling beauty of a tune already has its feet up on your furniture, an icy mojito in one hand and a freshly lit cigar in the other. There is no point fighting it. This track owns you now.

13. Booker T and the MGs - Soul Limbo

Us Britishers will know this track as the theme tune to the summer cricket on the telly. For us it conjures lazy summer days, sunshine, losing to the West Indies, and watching hours of coverage of rooftops and gas towers whilst Northerners comment on the breasts of the young lady sunbathing on her roof eight streets away. Everyone else...this song is cool, isn't it? Possibly the most justified use of an electric organ in a song ever.

14. Blink 182 - A New Hope

Right, well I think we can safely say that by now, Hornby can take his rules and go for a long walk off a short pier. There is no similarity between this song and Soul Limbo at all. This is the wooing with Big Yellow Taxi and then bashing your head off. BECAUSE IT'S FUCKING GREAT. From an early album - Dude Ranch - this is a fantastic love song.
For Princess Leia.
Yes - she of Star Wars fame.
Includes the line "You're exactly the kind of Alderranian that I need".
Enough said.

15. Super Furry Animals - Presidential Suite

They're Welsh but I've never let that put me off. From the outstanding album 'Rings Around The World', this is a drippingly laid back tune with some cracking brass action and, as ever, lyrics of pure genius. Extra marks for writing a song about Clinton and Lewinsky and including the phrase 'Cuban Cigar Crisis'. I had this song in my head for about a month after listening to it the first time. I would give that as a warning, but I am not going to. You'll want it there.

16. Gomez - Devil May Ride

Another rule bites the dust. BEHOLD. I include another track by Gomez...with no subtle theme.
It is simply because, this is, in my opinion, the great end-of-CD song. There is a bit about three quarters of the way through where everything stops for the brass, and it's so good I almost wet myself each time it happens.
After all the excitement and white knuckle rollercoaster action of the last seventy minutes or so, this brings things to a conclusion that will make you want to go around all over again.

That's it.
That's The Autoblography Ubermix.

Please feel free to light up the aural equivalent of a post-coital cigarette.