Melancholia Vol 20

Hey there. Been a while. Many reasons for being away, life and health mostly and a hard drive crash that forced me to rebuild the library from several partial and/or out of date backups but life goes on and I'm back with a brand new volume of Melancholia goodness.

 

This is a non-themed edition and like the other non-themed editions before it, it contains some of my favorite songs that come from recent discoveries/purchases and a few long time favorites that have not found a place on past editions. Some of these discoveries come from suggestions from friends or posts from my fellow fantasy album bloggers others just seemed to present themselves out of nowhere.

I've been test driving this for a bit now and I think I'm happy with the results. One of the things I enjoy most about this series is queuing up the whole thing and putting it on shuffle. It's like my own private personalized radio station. Enjoy.

 

Tracklist

 

01 Tedeschi Trucks Band - Midnight in Harlem [Revelator]

02 Robert Plant - Angel Dance [Band Of Joy]

03 Cher - Just Like Jesse James [Heart Of Stone]

04 North Mississippi Allstars - Up and Rolling [Up and Rolling]

05 Railroad Earth - Seven Story Mountain [The Black Bear Sessions]

06 Sade - The Sweetest Taboo [The Best of Sade]

07 Alexi Murdoch - All My Days [Time Without Consequence]

08 Marcus King - Young Mans Dream [El Dorado]

09 Allman Brothers Band - Soulshine [Where It All Begins]

10 Reina del Cid - Giving Up [The Cooling]

11 The Magpie Salute - High Water [High Water I]

12 Roxette - Crash! Boom! Bang! [Hit Collection]

13 Neal Casal - Maybe California [Leaving Traces_ Songs 1994-2004]

14 Bonepony - The Crush [Travelers Companion]

15 Temperance Movement - Pride [Temperance Movement]

16 Warren Haynes - New Years Eve [Ashes & Dust]

Reality Notes

When I was gathering my pool of songs for this collection I did a check to make sure I wasn't duplicating any songs from previous volumes, I discovered I used a song twice on previous volumes. Eric Clapton's Please Be With Me is found on volumes 5 and 11. For now I deleted the instance on volume 11, you can do the same. I may find a replacement eventually but it's not a long song so the comp still feels full. One of the things I enjoy most about this series is queuing up the whole thing and putting it on shuffle. It's like my own private personalized radio station.

The cover features a nice pinup by Alberto Vargas. Along with the music lost with the hard drive crash I had all my personal documents and pictures. Among those documents are all the Word files of album covers I have done over the years including the file with all the Melancholia covers. This means I had to recreate the template but I couldn't find the font I used so I just cropped a previous finished cover to complete this one. Still trying to identify that font.

Melancholia Vol 7

I have a few projects in that I am still playing with but nothing that's really ready to share but I have managed to complete the last missing volume of the Melancholia series.

 

This volume turned out to be sort of a catch-all edition that gathers a lot of songs that didn't seem to fit on the other discs but were played enough to warrant inclusion this collection. While there is no obvious theme there does seem to be an underlying country tinge.

This series is now up to 19 volumes with almost half of those being themed collection, This will probably be the last non-themed edition and maybe the last all together. Readers have most likely noticed the lack of activity here and that will continue to be the norm at least for a while. The last year has killed a lot of enthusiasm in me for many things, this hobby being one of them. I do have a few projects slowly cooking but I'm not going to make any promises as to when they might be done so hang in there.

[Side note: I have been updating some covers here, mostly for this series but one or two others. I have not updated the archives and have no plans to. So if you want the new ones just click on them then right click and save the image.]

 

Tracklist

01 Railroad Earth - Way of the Buffalo

02 Bruce Springsteen - Devils & Dust

03 Ricky Skaggs - Walls Of Time

04 Pat Benatar - We Belong

05 Los Lonely Boys - Heaven

06 Loretta Lynn - Portland, Oregon

07 John Hiatt - Take It Down

08 Modern English - I Melt With You

09 Goo Goo Dolls - Name

10 The Wonders - She Knows It

11 Switchfoot - Twenty-four

12 John Prine - Everything Is Cool

13 Extreme - Hole Hearted

14 REM - Everybody Hurts

15 Supertramp - Even In The Quietest Moments

16 Dwight Yoakam - 1,000 Miles

17 Sugarland - Stand Back Up

18 Prince - Wow

19 Waylon Jennings - Can't You See

Melancholia Vol 10

I have had some fun compiling the many themed Melancholia editions but the original concept for the series was to bring many of my favorite songs together in one collection regardless of genre. The focus is more on a certain vibe and pace which has carried on through the series which means even the special themed editions have this vibe that I chase.

The first five volumes and a few of the themed editions were compiled before I started purchasing CDs. Those and a few others were put together before computer power and storage space were sufficient enough for the existence of a local digital library. With the advent of recordable CDs, the CDR became the new cassette. Nowadays, with so much music just a few taps or clicks away, the playlist has became the new CDR. Which means that later editions evolved more than being put together with what I had on hand in a single sitting. If I didn't like how a song felt in the mix, it was easy to swap it our for another song.

This is most true for these last two editions. They have changed and morphed over the years due to some songs being moved to later themed editions or replaced by songs that were a better fit. Volume seven is still being tweaked but I think I can call this volume done. You could almost call this a themed edition. It does have a slight heavier feel than other editions but there are a few surprises and that vibe is still there. Enjoy.

 01 Velvet Revolver - Fall To Pieces

 02 Deep Purple - Don't Hold Your Breath

 03 Collective Soul - Shine

 04 The Verve Pipe - Colorful

 05 Smashing Pumpkins - Suffer

 06 Thin Lizzy - Showdown

 07 Black Crowes - Soul Singing

 08 Blackberry Smoke - No Way Back To Eden

 09 Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway

 10 Brother Cane - And Fools Shine On

 11 Cheap Trick - Downed

 12 Jane Wiedlin - Our Lips Are Sealed

 13 Francis Dunnery - Too Much Saturn

 14 Queen - Drowse

 15 The Verve - Bitter Sweet Symphony

 16 Steel Dragon - We All Die Young

 17 Journey - Daydream

 18 Willy Porter - Flying

 

Melancholia Vol 19 - Singers and Songwriters

Time for another themed edition of  my Melancholia series just in time to finish off the year. This one focuses on the singer/songwriter genre that peaked in the early 1970s. Many of these artists are among my favorites and this genre is close to being comfort food for me so it surprises me that it's taken me so long to put this together. It has become a regular listen between everything else I've been listening to.

Some of these artists, Joan Beaz, Fred Neil, have their roots in the pre and early sixties folk movement and others, Neil Young, Glen Campbell, are on the fringe of the genre. Shawn Colvin is more contemporary but has carried on the tradition nicely, I love her first album.

Because many of these artist have appeared on other Melancholia editions, song choice was dictated as much by the need to avoid track duplication as it was by my own tastes and likes. Enjoy.

Tracklist

01 Loggins and Messina - House At Pooh Corner
02 Anne Murray - Danny's Song
03 Dave Loggins - Please Come to Boston
04 Joan Baez - Diamonds & Rust
05 Glen Campbell - Gentle on My Mind
06 Steve Goodman - The Dutchman
07 Harry Chapin - Cat's In The Cradle
08 Paul Simon - Something So Right
09 Carole King - Will You Love Me Tomorrow
10 Bruce Cockburn - Wondering Where The Lions Are
11 Leonard Cohen - Suzanne
12 Seals & Crofts - Summer Breeze
13 Cat Stevens - Moonshadow
14 Jim Croce - Lover's Cross
15 John Denver - Rocky Mountain High
16 James Taylor - Carolina in My Mind
17 Joni Mitchell - The Circle Game
18 Fred Neil - Everybody's Talking
19 Shawn Colvin - Shotgun Down The Avalanche
20 Harry Nilsson - Me And My Arrow
21 Neil Young - Old Man

Melancholia Vol 18 - The MTV 80s

Time for another themed edition from the Melancholia series. This one revolves around the 80s at the peak of MTV influence. I first heard each of these songs while watching MTV in the eighties, back when MTV actually played music. While still not a big fan of the era these songs stuck with me. There are a couple bands on this comp that I further explored but for the most part, to me, these are mostly one hit wonders in my book. But such cool songs that seem to perfectly encapsulate what the eighties were for me.

I have one more themed edition to post and two non-themed volumes that I may or may not post which are more catch all type collections that I enjoy playing but don't seem to have the same emotional impact the others do. I might revisit and restructure them.

Tracklist

01 Pet Shop Boys - West End Girls
02 Tears For Fears - Everybody wants to rule the world
03 Scandal - Goodbye To You
04 The Fixx - One Thing Leads To Another
05 Psychedelic Furs - Pretty In Pink
06 Animotion - Obsession
07 Fine Young Canibals - She Drives Me Crazy
08 Glass Tiger - Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone
09 Haircut 100 - Love Plus One
10 Human League, the - Fascination
11 Kajagoogoo - Too Shy
12 Katrina and the Waves - Walking On Sunshine
13 Madness - Our House
14 Naked Eyes - Always Something There To Remind Me
15 OMD - If You Leave
16 Talk Talk - Talk Talk
17 The Outfield - Your Love
18 Simple Minds - Don't You (Forget About Me)
19 Soft Cell - Tainted Love-Where Did Our Love Go (Extended Version)
20 Split Enz - I Got You
21 Wang Chung - Dance Hall Days

Melancholia - Volume 17 - The 90s What's Going On

This will be my last regular post for a while. Time is short these days and I'm having more fun reading everyone else's blogs. I'll keep an eye out for comments but my posting schedule for a while will look more like Sonic's and the other part-timers. I do have two more Melancholia volumes to post so you may see those sooner than later. Thanks for reading.

This is the most recent edition to my Melancholia series. The theme I was going for is mid-90s alternative rock or sometimes referred to as college rock. A mix of rock, grunge and dirty power pop, it was a good time for music.

When I started putting this together I consulted my younger brother and a few online lists for song titles. Between my brothers list and the lists online I ended up with about 50 songs and ended up putting together a three disc comp for my brother before trimming the list down to the 21 songs found here.

I've been enjoying this comp a lot and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite Melancholia editions. I drew the cover pic during a recording/rehearsal session for one of the bands I work with. The subtitle comes from the song What's Up by 4 Non Blondes. I never cared for the song but it is one of my brother's favorites so in concession for leaving the song off (I did put it on his multi disc version) I used the title here. Enjoy.

01 Alanis Morissette - Hand In My Pocket
02 Everclear - Santa Monica
03 Republica - Ready To Go
04 Cracker - Low
05 Bush - Glycerine
06 Green Day - When I Come Around
07 Pixies - Here Comes Your Man
08 Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song
09 Blink 182 - All The Small Things
10 The Divinyls - I Touch Myself
11 The Toadies - Possum Kingdom
12 Live - I Alone
13 Meat Puppets - Backwater
14 Weezer - Buddy Holly
15 Goo Goo Dolls - Slide
16 Presidents of the United States - Lump
17 Garbage - Only Happy When It Rains
18 Screaming Trees - Nearly Lost You
19 Nirvana - All Apologies
20 Smashing Pumpkins - I Am One
21 Collective Soul - December

Melancholia - Volume 15 - Praying

I still have a few of these to go yet.

In my senior year of high school I became a bit of a holy roller. While I wasn't one of those "in your face" fundamentalists it did affect my everyday life, including my music listening habits. I started buying more Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) and less secular music.

This phase of my life only lasted about five years before moving on and exploring other religions but I discovered lots of music that I still listen to occasionally. While I still listened to a lot of rock and hard rock it now had a religious overlay.

This comp is focused more on the softer and worshipful tracks but came out of that period. Of the artists represented here there are some that I still listen to not because of the message but because I found them to be true song craftsmen. The one common trait among those are that most of them started out with some success in the secular industry. Many of these artists also appear on other Melancholia editions.

Obviously Bob Dylan falls into this category. Amy Grant, while best known as a CCM artist, dabbled for a while in the secular market with some success. Phil Keggy first tasted fame in the band Glass Harp which had a large fanbase and opened for acts like The Allman Brothers. Dion is of course of Dion and the Belmonts fame with early rock hits like Runaround Sue, The Wanderer and Abraham Martin and John. Brothers Terry and John Michael Talbot were the core of the 70s country rock band Mason Proffit who had at a few minor hits including Two Hangmen. Stryper was an unusual crossover act. paying their dues as a secular band then breaking through as a CCM act while still appealing to a large secular audience.

Larry Norman is still one of my favorite artists. Larry came out of the band People! who had a hit with the song I Love You. Larry is considered the a pioneer and godfather of Jesus music releasing his first album in 1969 on Capitol Records. What always struck me about Larry is that I never felt that his songs were just last weeks sermon set to music. His music had humor and honest lyrics. He sang about his life and loves as well as his beliefs. Even at his preachiest he always felt honest and genuine. Unfortunately his discography is a bit of a mess. Over the years when many of his albums were reissued they were remixed with many tracks changed with additional recording or even re-recorded which makes it hard to figure out his original intentions. There might be a Larry post sometime in the future.

Audio quality varies as there is an abundance of vinyl rips. Especially with the more obscure stuff. Enjoy.

01 Lamb - The Sacrifice Lamb
02 Bob Dylan - I Believe In You
03 Steve Camp - Farther and Higher
04 Amy Grant - All I Ever Have To Be
05 2nd chapter of Acts - I Fall In Love-Change
06 John Fischer - Beggar
07 Randy Stonehill - Find Your Way To Me
08 Phil Keaggy - What A Day
09 Dion - Only Jesus
10 Ray Hidlebrand - Didn't He
11 Stryper - All Of Me
12 Fireworks - Someone's Got a Hold of Me
13 Malcolm and Alwin - Tomorrow's News
14 Terry Talbot - Lamplighter
15 Petra - More Power to Ya
16 Marijohn - Where I'm Going
17 Chuck Girard - Think About What Jesus Said
18 David and the Giants - Noah
19 John Michael Talbot - Cast Down Your Cares
20 Larry Norman - UFO
21 Keith Green - Make My Life A Prayer To You

Melancholia - Volume 11

I wasn't sure if I was going to post the last few general editions but I already had this one uploaded for some reason so why not? I'm kind of running out of ideas at the moment and these are already put together so not much effort is needed to keep the blog running a little longer.

The remaining non-themed collections, while enjoyable and fine comps, don't hold as much emotional attachment for me which is why I hesitated on posting them. While the ones that were originally done as mixtapes can evoke a special time or feeling because of the time and effort put into them, these were created first as playlists and consist of songs that did not find a place on earlier editions or songs that are more recent discoveries. All songs still have that sound or feeling that I'm attracted to regardless of genre and they still take me somewhere else.

01 Del Fuegos - Don't Run Wild
02 The Weepies - Hideaway
03 Jimmy Buffett - One Particular Harbor
04 Blackberry Smoke - Ain't Much Left Of Me
05 Madonna - Crazy for You
06 Elton John - Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
07 Berlin - Take My Breath Away
08 Peter Gabriel - Solsbury Hill
09 UB40 - Don't Break My Heart
10 Melanie - Pebbles in the Sand
11 Velvet Underground - Pale Blue Eyes (Closet Mix)
12 Cyndi Lauper - Time After Time
13 Eric Clapton - Please Be with Me
14 Bee Gees - Islands In The Stream
15 Sheryl Crow - No One Said It Would Be Easy
16 Dimentia 13 - 108 Sacred Stages
17 Alison Moyet - It Won't Be Long (Acoustic)
18 Lenny Kravitz - Let Love Rule
19 Dionne Warwick - Walk On By

Melancholia - Volume 16 - Not Feeling Guilty

This edition is based on a series found on the Any Major Dude blog. Named after his series, Not Feeling Guilty, which currently is up to volume 8, it is chock full of middle of the road late 70s early 80s pop. Perfect for playing in the background while you sit in your comfy chair reading romance novels.

If I have a musical guilty pleasure, this might be it. I mean, this is the stuff our parents listened to when they wanted to feel hip and contemporary. Lots of blue-eyed soul, light R&B and general middle of the road schmaltz. Enjoy.

01 Bob Welch - Sentimental Lady
02 Ace - How Long
03 Commodores, the - Easy
04 Player - Baby Come Back
05 Christopher Cross - Sailing
06 Atlanta Rhythm Section - So in to You
07 Poco - Crazy Love
08 Ambrosia - How Much I Feel
09 Dave Mason - We Just Disagree
10 Little River Band - Lady
11 Robbie Dupree - Steal Away
12 Doobie Brothers - Takin' It To The Streets
13 Orleans - Still The One
14 King Harvest - Dancing in the Moonlight
15 Paul Davis - I Go Crazy
16 Randy Vanwarmer - Just When I Needed You Most
17 Robert John - Sad Eyes
18 Elvin Bishop - Fooled Around And Fell In Love
19 Stephen Bishop - On And On
20 Firefall - You Are The Woman
21 Hall & Oates - She's Gone

Melancholia - Volume 6

I have a few more Melancholia volumes to post yet. There are two more themed editions and a few non-themed editions that I may or not post.

This edition was the first volume to be constructed from CD to tape and the last non-themed edition that was constructed on a physical medium. At the time I used a 60 minute tape and remade it every few weeks or so. This construction is a summary of sorts featuring those songs that made repeat appearances timed to fit on a single CD.

This is a good snapshot of what I was listening to at the time. All of the source CDs were new purchases with only a few being repurchases of things I once had on vinyl and most of the songs were roughly contemporary with a few old favorites thrown in. There are a few songs from the time that did not fit due to space limitations. Those songs found space on later editions.

01 Rhythm Corps - Common Ground
02 Maggie's Dream - Love and Tears
03 Soup Dragons - Divine Thing
04 Sun-60 - Out of My Head
05 King's X - It's Love
06 Michael Hedges - Spring Buds
07 Prince - The Cross
08 Chris Cornell - Seasons
09 Guns N' Roses - You're Crazy
10 Matthew Sweet - Divine Intervention
11 Julian Lennon - Rebel King
12 Queensrhyche - Gonna Get Close To You
13 The Church - Under the Milky Way
14 Hoodoo Gurus - Death Defying
15 Jesus Jones - Right Here, Right Now
16 Elvis Costello - Alison
17 Pete Townshend - The Seeker
18 Uncle Wiggly - It's Looking Good
19 Larry Norman - Looking for Footprints

Melancholia - Volume 5

I think of all of the non-themed volumes, this is my favorite.  What makes this compilation slightly unique is that it is the first and only comp in the series originally made from dubbing cassette to cassette. It was made at a time when I was between buying vinyl and not yet buying CDs. Because of this, this is a good cross sample of what I was currently listening to at the time whereas previous collections were a mix of new discoveries and old favorites. There is still that mix but everything was purchased around the same time.

At the time this was complied I was working at a restaurant where on my breaks I would go and sit in the dinning room and chat with the other workers. We had a jukebox that played three songs for a quarter and I would always play the same three songs; Free Fallin' by Tom Petty, The Flame by Cheap Trick and Almost Hear You Sigh by the Rolling Stones. I'm not sure why the Stones song didn't make the comp but it should have. I must have run out of room.

01 Tom Petty - Free Fallin'
02 The Rainmakers - No Romance
03 Jimi Hendrix - The Wind Cries Mary
04 Heart - Love Alive
05 Ringo Starr - It Don't Come Easy
06 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Feel Your Love
07 Love and Rockets - So Alive
08 Tracie Spencer - Imagine
09 Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers - Tumblin Down
10 Vanilla Fudge - Ticket To Ride
11 David Crosby - Tracks In The Dust

12 Cheap Trick - The Flame
13 Nazareth - Love Hurts
14 Belinda Carlisle - Mad About You
15 Guns N' Roses - Patience
16 Indigo Girls - Closer To Fine
17 Tin Machine - Amazing
18 Eric Clapton - Please Be With Me
19 Living Colour - Broken Hearts
20 Ike & Tina Turner - River Deep Mountain High
21 Paul McCartney - Distractions
22 Prince - Mountains
23 Enya - Orinoco Flow

Melancholia - Volume 4

This edition is my least favorite. Not because of the track list but more because of the time it was done. At the time of compiling I was living with my brother to be closer to the band we had. I lived in one city and everyone else lived in another. My records were in storage so I made this from my brother's stack of records. While we have some overlap in our tastes he leans toward more heavy stuff than I do, so finding songs that fit the Melancholia feel was a challenge. Of all the volumes in the series this would be the easiest to trim to fit on a CD.

The one song of note is the Pink Floyd song Grantchester Meadows. Long before I had any albums of my own my brother played this song for me. It was the first all acoustic song I remember hearing and I remember being very stunned by its simplicity. I used to sneak into his room when he wasn't home and play this song a few times then sneak out. I still find the song hauntingly beautiful and I'm sure it had a lot to do with my preference for more acoustic based music.

Side A
01 Montrose - Rich Man
02 Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes - Sasha
03 Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Lend Your Love To Me Tonight
04 Pink Floyd - Grantchester Meadows
05 Angel - Flying With Broken Wings (Without You)
06 Steve Howe - Ram
07 Missing Persons - Surrender Your Heart
08 Bruce, Lordan, Trower [BLT] - It's Too Late
09 Joe Walsh - Tomorrow
10 Pete Townshend - Evolution
11 KISS - Beth
12 Doobie Brothers - Listen To The Music

Side B
13 Captain Beyond - Sufficiently Breathless
14 Alice Cooper - You and Me
15 Neil Diamond - Be
16 James Gang - Spanish Lover
17 Grateful Dead - Dire Wolf
18 Saxon - Northern Lady
19 Steve Vai - Junkie
20 Tommy Bolin - Hello, again
21 Harry Chapin - Flowers Are Red
22 Yes - We Have Heaven

Melancholia - Vol 9 70s Edition

I do have a few other projects in the works but until they are ready the Melancholia fest continues.

There's a certain sound or production style that was popular in the early 70s. I never put my finger on it but I think it had something to do with a certain type of reverb and how it was used. The shimmery strums of acoustic guitar and the liberal use of the Fender Rhodes electric piano seem to be prevalent as well. Either way when I hear that sound I'm transported somewhere else.

This compilation was my attempt to bottle that nostalgia for easy consumption and I think it turned out pretty good. While '67 to '75 seems to be the period of music I gravitate to, I'm always surprised at how many of my favorite songs or albums come from 1973. This comp covers more than just that year but the bulk of the tracks are from right around that time. This is definitely a desert island disc for me. It also contains the most "big hits" than any other Melancholia comps with exception of the K-Tel Generation collection. Enjoy!

01 Neil Young - Heart Of Gold
02 Carly Simon - You're So Vain
03 Paul McCartney - Band on the Run
04 Rod Stewart - Maggie May
05 Lou Reed- Walk on the Wild Side
06 Paul Simon - Still Crazy After All These Years
07 Badfinger - Day After Day
08 America - A Horse With No Name
09 The Kinks - Lola
10 Led Zeppelin - Hey Hey What Can I Do?
11 David Bowie - Heroes
12 T.Rex - Bang A Gong (Get It On)
13 Ringo Starr - Photograph
14 Gary Wright - Love Is Alive
15 Bill Withers - Ain't No Sunshine
16 Joe Cocker - Feelin' Alright
17 Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi
18 Eric Clapton - Let It Rain
19 The Hollies - The Air That I Breathe

Melancholia - Volume 3

This volume of my Melancholia series was again sourced from the best vinyl I had. It also contains more (sort of) current (at the time) songs than the previous volumes.

This is still one of my favorite editions. It has the right blend of new, classic and deep cuts. Many of these songs are still among my top favorites ever. If I were to make a best of Melancholia collection this volume would be well represented.

While not the last comp to be sourced from vinyl it was made when my record collection had reached its peak. Soon after this edition I went into a nomadic stage in my life which necessitated my collection going into storage and eventual reduction to make moving easier. During this time of limbo I purchased cassettes over vinyl and eventually embraced CDs.

Side A
01 Lone Justice - Shelter
02 Tommy James - Kelly Told Anne
03 Paul Simon - Take Me To The Mardi Gras
04 Bob Marley and the Wailers - Redemption Song
05 Lou Reed - I Love You
06 Crosby-Nash - The Wall Song
07 Rickie Lee Jones - On Saturday Afternoons In 1963
08 Led Zeppelin - Going to California
09 Grateful Dead - Black Muddy River
10 Amy Grant - Family
11 The Faces - Ooh La La
12 Dire Straits - Why Worry

Side B
01 Love and Rockets - Waiting For The Flood
02 Leo Kottke - Tiny Island
03 Lloyd Cole - 2cv
04 T'Pau - Heart And Soul
05 Klaatu - I Don't Wanna Go Home
06 Melanie - Holding Out
07 Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - The Wild One, Forever
08 Squeeze - Black Coffee In Bed
09 Fleetwood Mac - Storms
10 Randy Stonehill - Christine
11 Yardbirds - Still I'm Sad
12 Billy Bragg - The Man In The Iron Mask

Reality Notes

I'd like to address naming conventions. Like many here, I have a large digital library. Early on I knew I needed a way to go through my files efficiently and I needed a way to organize my collection to make it accessible through my library manager (Media Monkey), my iPods or just browsing through the folders.

My general solution was to create a folder structure and naming convention that made my collection browsable no matter how I looked at it. At the folder structure root is a folder named Music (obviously). Inside there is a folder for each letter of the alphabet plus about a dozen special folders for certain genres that I wanted to keep separate from the mainstream general folders. The are folders for soundtracks, various artists, country, classical, jazz and a few others.

Artist are sorted by last name so folders within the main folders follow the naming convention of  last name first, first name last for solo artists. Band names with a "The" in front have the "The" placed after the name (IE: Beatles, The). Windows does not ignore "The" when sorting folders unlike Apple. If a band member has any solo albums I generally put those in with the main band's folder unless the solo artist has a sizable discography of their own. Examples are Stevie Nicks is separated from Fleetwood Mac but The Soft Boys get put in the Robyn Hitchcock folder. Solo Beatles have their own folders but I like to keep all solo Dead inside the Grateful Dead folder.

If a band has more than four or five albums the album folders include the number of the album (04 Beatles For Sale) or the year the album was released (1968 The Beatles [White Album]). This sorts the albums in chronological order. Live bootlegs, if numerous, are put in a special folder named '[bootlegs]" within the band folder with both the folder and album names matching using the format: "Year [date] venue, city, state/country - boot title(if applicable)", (1968 [08-13] The Catacombs, Boston, MA). Again this puts them in chronological order and easier to search.

Tags within the tracks themselves follow a similar convention. Last name first, first name last for solo artists and in most cases "The" is placed after the band name following a comma. I have since stopped this because most library managers and iPods ignore "The" when sorting by artists.

Various artist albums were a challenge. My library manager recognizes both the Artist and Album Artist tags. General convention says to put the artist in the artist tag and Various in the Album Artist tag. But iPods would generally put tracks where these two tags differ at the end of the device library thus putting some songs/albums out of order. My solution was to put the name of the various artist album in the Album Artist and Artist tags as well as the Album Title. If the album is a part of a series (like Melancholia) I would put the volume name in the Album tag. I would then put the artist name in the Title tag with the tile using the convention of "Artist - Title". File names use the "Track# Artist - Title" convention.

When I share a various artist collection I will retag the files to better comply with the general consensus of tagging styles. I always embed front cover art within the tag as well as as a separate file within the album folder. I realize there are most likely as many ways to organize a collection as there are collectors but this has worked for me and has proven to scale as the collection grows. How do you organize your collection?

Melancholia Vol 13/14

The following Melancholia sets were recorded on 45 minute tapes so I have bundled them into one post and download. They were named after phrases I found in magazine articles and advertisements. I used to cut them out to use as tape cover decorations along with pictures I would use for covers.

Bits Of Reality was compiled on the fly one night after a rough day at work. I was in a bad mood and chose songs to reflect my feelings. As the comp progressed my anger softened. You can almost hear my mood lift through the first four songs.

01 David Bowie - All the Madmen
02 The Rolling Stones - Dead Flowers
03 The Beatles - Baby You're a Rich Man
04 The Kinks - Celluloid Heroes
05 John Mellencamp - Pink Houses
06 Blues Image - Ride Captain Ride
07 Lou Reed - Wild Child
08 U2 - Seconds
09 The Band (ft The Staples) - The Weight
10 The Rascals - Mustang Sally

Tattered Furniture is almost a companion piece to Bits Of Reality. It was a little more planned out and not an emotional outburst. Four songs came from the same source. The songs from The Eagles, Uriah Heep, The Doors and Foghat all were found on another various artist album. It was a Warner Bros. double album called Heavy Metal Vol 1 (never did see a volume two). Despite the name the closest it got to heavy metal was a song each from Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. The rest was from the likes of The J. Giles Band and The Grateful Dead.

01 Eagles - Outlaw Man
02 Humble Pie - Natural Born Boogie
03 Uriah Heep - Stealin'
04 Ten Years After - I'd Love To Change The World
05 Fleetwood Mac - The Green Manalishi
06 The Beatles - Doctor Robert
07 Norman Greenbaum - Spirit in the Sky
08 Tom Petty - American Girl
09 The Doors - Touch me
10 The Guess Who - No Sugar Tonight - New Mother Nature
11 Foghat  - What A Shame
12 The Who - Pinball Wizard
13 Steve Miller Band - Take The Money And Run

Melancholia - Volume 2

Volume two of my Melancholia mixtape series.

For volume two I also wanted to gather some of my favorite songs but I loosened my criteria as far as the condition of the vinyl source. Naturally the reconstruction here mostly comes from CD but there may be one or two that are sourced from vinyl rips. There is also a more acoustic base to the collection.

This volume was a cleanup of sorts and covered what was missed on the first one due to space limitations or vinyl conditions. This volume initially suffered from the "hoping lightening strikes twice" syndrome. In the end the collection had a charm of its own and was enough to push the series onward.

Side A
01 Bob Dylan - Positively 4th Street
02 Derek & the Dominos - Bell Bottom Blues
03 Dr Hook - Sylvia's Mother
04 Mason Proffit - Two Hangmen
05 Dire Straits - Wild West End
06 John Prine - Souvenirs
07 Al Stewart - Year of the Cat
08 Ten Years After - Over The Hill
09 Johnny Rivers - Summer Rain
10 The Firm - Together
11 The Kinks - Tired of Waiting For You

Side B
01 Bad Company - Shooting Star
02 Fleetwood Mac - Gold Dust Woman
03 Dan Fogelberg - Leader Of The Band
04 Procol Harum - A Whiter Shade of Pale
05 Jesse Colin Young - The Peace Song
06 Harry Chapin - Taxi
07 Jethro Tull - One Brown Mouse
08 Alpha Band - Love and Romance
09 Don McLean - Vincent (Starry Starry Night)
10 George Harrison - All Things Must Pass
11 The Beatles - Julia

Melancholia - Volume 12 [Special Edition]

Another Melancholia mixtape. I flip flopped on how I was going to post these. In chronological order or  randomly. I decided to post the first six volumes in order with the special themed volumes in between them.

This is the first of the themed collections. In reality, none of the themed tapes were intended to be a part of the series but when my library went digital I included them in with the series. They just seemed to fit together.

This edition has a slight country influence with splashes of reggae. I was going for something slightly off of mainstream with a bit of a Grateful Dead feel. In fact the first few times I played this at work we would play "find The Dead". This was also compiled on a 100 minute tape so it is a bit long but it's a nice kind of long.

Side A
01 Little Women - Breakfast at Lucille's
02 Kingfish - My Pledge of Love
03 Pete Townshend - There's A Heartache Following
04 Canned Heat - On The Road Again
05 The Wallflowers - Shy of the Moon
06 Roger Miller - King of  the Road
07 New Riders of the Purple Sage - Last Lonely Eagle
08 Peter Tosh - Ketchy Shuby
09 Joni Mitchell - Blue Motel Room
10 Steve Goodman - City of New Orleans
11 Paul Simon - Proof
12 Garcia, Grisman - A Horse Named Bill

Side B
01 Little Village - Don't Go Away Mad
02 Sugar Minott - Good Thing Going
03 Buffalo Springfield - Kind Woman
04 Bob Dylan - Hard Times
05 Solar Circus - Fortune Teller
06 The Rolling Stones - No Expectations
07 Led Zeppelin - That's The Way
08 KD Lang - Lock Stock & Teardrops
09 Neil Young - Are You Ready For The Country
10 John Lennon - You Are Here
11 Grateful Dead - Monkey And The Engineer
12 Bob Marley & The Wailers - One Love/People Get Ready
13 Arlo Guthrie - Hobo's Lullaby

Melancholia - Volume 1

noun: melancholia
 deep sadness or gloom; melancholy.
 
"rain slithered down the windows, encouraging a creeping melancholia"

Real life is encroaching on my time and I'm running thin on ideas that interest me so I think it's time to honor my promise/threat to post my Melancholia mixtape series (named after a Pete Townsend song). I'll be posting these when I have no other projects to post. I will give a short description of each collection and the tracklist but no further analysis. They are what they are.

You will see some artists make multiple appearances across the series but no artist appears more than once on any collection unless they are musicians in more than one band or a solo artist that is also in another band.

On my hard drive the series is 16 volumes. I won't be posting all of them. Three volumes (7, 10 and 11) are in flux at the moment and I have already posted one of the themed volumes which was the K-Tel edition. The first six volumes are general collections but starting with volume eight I started doing special themed compilations. Also the first five volumes were compiled on 90 minute tapes so they will not burn to a single CD.

When I made this first volume in 1985 it was not my intention to start a series but it turned out so well I kept it going. My goal with this comp was to gather some of my favorite songs with a focus on using only my cleanest vinyl and showcasing tracks that had a lot of headphone candy while at the same time being genre agnostic. Each volume has its own personality but there is a common feel that runs through the whole thing. Essentially this is my musical equivalent of comfort food. My wife at one time commented how the series does not make her sad like the name suggested and I had to correct her saying that it was meant to bring you out of sadness, not push you into it.

Side A
01 Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Lucky Man
02 Elton John - Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to be a Long Long Time)
03 Grand Funk Railroad - Some Kind Of Wonderful
04 Love and Rockets - Haunted When the Minutes Drag
05 The Bangles - More That Meets The Eye
06 T.Rex - The Slider
07 Bruce Springsteen - Atlantic City
08 Cat Stevens - The Wind
09 War - Low Rider
10 Alice Cooper - Only Women Bleed
11 The Police - Walking in Your Footsteps

Side B
01 Kansas - Dust in the Wind
02 Pure Prairie League - Amie
03 Bob Seger - You'll Accomp'ny Me
04 Paul McCartney and Wings - Let Me Roll It
05 Doobie Brothers - Black Water
06 Pete Townshend - Behind Blue Eyes
07 U2 - Bad
08 Buckingham-Nicks - Crying In The Night
09 Crosby, Stills & Nash - Helplessly Hoping
10 The Rolling Stones - Play With Fire
11 Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - Southern Accents
12 Billy Vera & The Beaters - Hopeless Romantic

I have a common template for the covers. Each features some form of fantasy or classic artwork.

Melancholia Vol. 8 - The K-Tel Generation

Back in the day I had a mixtape series called Melancholia. The basic running premise was that each song had a certain feel to them that took me somewhere else. The first volume was a collection of headphone friendly tracks from my cleanest vinyl. The series continued after the media format changed from records and tapes to CDs and playlists and has now run for 16 volumes.

The first four volumes were compiled from Vinyl. Volume five was made by dubbing from tape to tape. Volume six took me into the CD era and for a while it was a rotating tracklist on a 60 minute tape that I would recompile every few weeks where earlier volumes were all on 90 minute tapes. CDs were easier to work with and blank tape was starting to become harder to find so this worked better at the time. I later finalized volume six once CD burners were more affordable and all older volumes have been reconfigured to fit on CDs.

Later volumes often followed a theme. This CD here is based on volume 08. All of the songs are early to mid 70s AM Top 40 and all of them are songs I either first heard or only knew from various artist albums. Most, if not all, were on K-Tel records. K-Tel was the "That's What I Call Music" of its day. These albums were budget collections of the hits of the day. Somehow they managed to squeeze ten songs on one side of an LP.

Each one of these songs brings a smile to my face and an indescribable sense of nostalgia. While I might have heard them on the radio when I was younger, I discovered them listening to records. Sometimes at a friends house, sometimes they were found on a various artist album I bought for a completely different song. Each one seems to be part of a memory from somewhere.

I'm not going to do track by track notes for this one. None of these songs are rare or obscure in any way. Collected together they do create a unique and satisfying listen. I'll post more Melancholia volumes in the future.

01 Jonathan Edwards - Sunshine
02 Albert Hammond - The Free Electric Band
03 Sammy Johns - Chevy Van
04 Audience - Indian Summer
05 Bill Withers - Lean On Me
06 Dobie Gray - Drift Away
07 Five Man Electrical Band - Signs
08 Lobo - Me and You and a Dog Named Boo
09 Thunderclap Newman - Something in the Air
10 Jim Stafford - Spiders and Snakes
11 Mungo Jerry - In the Summertime
12 Starland Vocal Band - Afternoon Delight
13 Looking Glass - Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)
14 Mel & Tim - Backfield in Motion
15 Vanity Fair - Hitching a Ride
16 Johnny Nash - I Can See Clearly Now
17 The Jaggerz - The Rapper
18 Freeda Payne - Band of Gold
19 R Dean Taylor - Indiana Wants Me
20 Rick Springfield - Speak to the Sky
21 Tommy James - Draggin' The Line
22 Steeler's Wheel - Stuck in the Middle with You
23 Sweet - Little Willie

The cover does its best to emulate those old K-Tel albums