Music Mix(up)

Problem: Long Car Trips = Potential Mood Disasters

Solution: Fresh music mixes.

Problem: I always volunteer to be the one to pull these together, a task to which I am suited because I am focused and persistent enough to spend days on the job and not at all because I ever listen to the radio anymore - at least, not to the kind of stations that cater to drivers lulled to sleep by classical recordings or mellow jazz.

Solution: iTunes, where you can trawl through user playlists and popular song charts and get recommendations based on what you used for the last car trip.

Problem: iTunes is stingy with its sound clips.

Solution: YouTube, where you can look at official videos or - forgive me but HORRORS - somebody's upload with visuals of the lyrics or a photo montage or their own version of a video.

Problem: Funny or perplexing or otherwise engaging videos often make me want a song I might not otherwise ever get past my travel buddies.

For example - with all due respect to Mariah Carey - there is no way Touch My Body would fly, unless maybe Jack McBrayer was singing on the track as well as acting in the video.

Another one that did pass muster once they saw the video - it being too ballad-y in isolation - is Fallin' For You. Again with a comedian being cast in the video to good effect.

I myself enjoyed After The Love Is Gone well enough, especially what I think may have been the cameo by That Guy (is his name Bruce?) who writes everybody-in-LA's jokes, but the song kinda stands on its own.

Come to think of it, dance music is pretty good in a car. I'd forgotten about liking Saturday Night - old enough to be new again really - and got some good hair ideas from the video.

100% Pure Love is a catchy tune at a good pace for running, if for some reason nobody else likes it in a car... not that I'm too worried about them putting me out of same - for my music selection, at least.

(in fact, sometimes I throw something in even after the driving member of our little crew shudders through the teeny tiny iTunes clip. I have faith in the lengthier version of I'm Not Your Toy, for example.)

Other times I follow instructions, as with the very clear one to acquire Boom.

Also, Paper Planes, which is a pretty broad break from all the love stuff, what with the gunshots and all.

A less drastic break is Little Secrets. This one isn't a video, but it's such a fun tune - I liked (and bought) a lot from Passion Pits and think it will all sound especially fine driving over hills.


And now I will stop, because I have 16+ hours of playlist to get me through a month's worth of minibreaks, and I expect you have other things to read today than what I think of all the others, yes?