So, what about those lyrics, those catchphrases from songs, that have become inextricably tied to melody, so much so that when someone utters the word or phrase in conversation it only takes a few seconds before someone else busts out the tune? This phenomenon is far more pernicious and annoying: words ruined by songs, or words ruined by songs as sung by our friends. Take for instance the word "ironic." I can't even count the number of times that someone has uttered this word and it is closely followed by the Alanis Morrissette tune. Other words or phrases that seem to inspire spontaneous singing: "Makin' Love"--this can lead you to any number of songs, from "Cecelia" to "Feel Like Making Love," to "Making Love Out of Nothing At All". All which prove that maybe people shouldn't say this phrase very much in the first place. Sometimes it's the rarity of the utterance that inspires the singing. Like the word "Flash," which will illicit someone to sing the Queen song maybe one out of ten times. And, for a while, any mention of "Crazy" was followed by an impromptu version of the Gnarls Barkley tune. "Crazy" is an interesting one because it changes associations every few years. From Ozzy to Prince to Beyonce, etc. Often, it's not the words themselves but their delivery. For instance, "Damn," when stated with a certain intonation, can bring about one of the worst examples ever, as in "Damn! I Wish I Was Your Lover" by Sophie B. Hawkins. (Apologies to anyone who is now humming this tune.) Lastly, there are song lyrics that add a strange, almost surreal association to certain words; the other night in a sushi restaurant we were serenaded by "Africa" on tinny speakers. How wonderful for the continent of Africa, I thought, that a Google search of that word brings up Toto in about two pages.

Not all the songs have to be annoying. In fact, sometimes the singer or band will have given new life to a word. "Nevermind," for example, went from a flippant or dismissive response to bearing the weight of an existential crisis once Kurt Cobain uttered it. Same with "I'm A Loser," (Beck). Instead of a literal statement of self-pity, it suddenly embodied a generation. Yet despite being from great songs, these phrases also cause melody to rise from within us until we are forced to let it out.

So, what words or phrases from songs have you been the victim of? Either by self-inflicted wounds or as inflicted upon you by the voices of friends or co-workers? And what words that are associated with songs are certain give you the insatiable urge to sing?

I must admit, I was a bit bewildered to read comments that expressed surprise that the previous mix was so heavy on the rock. I suppose it just reflects the disparity between perceptions and reality.

Here, then, is a less heavy mix. I am trying to take into consideration the delicate and sensitive ears of some MM readers. Actually, this mix is heavy as well, but in a different way. Intensity, after all, has very little to do with volume.

Here's a version of the list with cover art and purchase links for the CDs. The audio files are also the kind you can add to your custom playlist.

Townes Van Zandt: "Waitin' Around to Die"

An interesting tidbit: This mix was supposed to have the Grateful Dead on it, whose music I really love, but they refused unless we promised to do a piece on them on All Things Considered. In addition, we would need to run a feature on The Dead on the site. Here's a sentence I've never written: Someone needs to take a bong hit and chill out. Just a simple "no thanks" would have sufficed. Are The Dead really in need of publicity? Because I swear there's a dancing bear sticker on every third car I see in Portland. And now I've written a paragraph on them anyway, for free, not even in exchange for a song. Doesn't that count?!

Clarification. The Grateful Dead were not involved with the decision regarding the requested track. It was the band's label who would not give permission for the track to be used in its entirety. The label also suggested that it might be easier to get permission if we did a piece on the band on All Things Considered and on the NPR website

But back to the mix.

These songs were originally compiled on a rainy day a few weeks ago, with no promise of sun. So, they might sound better to your ears under gray skies. The mix could easily be called "The Underdogs." Many of these artists never gained recognition while they were around (or alive) or still don't get the widespread attention they deserve (Pylon, Van Zandt, Frank, Sill). Some of these tunes are culled from the band's less popular albums, namely the Television, Wire, and Undertones songs. I love "Days" as much as anything on Marquee Moon and, in my opinion, Wire's 154 is a better and more challenging overall album than its two groundbreaking predecessors. (Though the three albums together form one of the best trifectas in late 70s music.) Lastly, Small Faces are simply incredible and always make me happy and I'm still surprised that more people don't seek them out.

Enjoy.

It was Portland's collective love for NPR (or sheer nerdiness) that inspired much laughter when comedian DJ Douggpound came through town with Tim and Eric and played his mix culled from the sounds of public radio.

Here is DJ Douggpound's mix. Play it loud in the office; it is sure to impress you friends and co-workers. It might also make great date music:

And check out DJ Douggpound's other work here.

Lastly, on this Friday afternoon, feel free to share your favorite or least favorite radio theme songs.

Have a good weekend.

I must say, I find this display of gratitude quite touching.

I wonder what the equivalent would be if, say, ZZ Top left their platinum beard trimmers in a taxi? Acoustic "Legs" outside the Continental terminal? A private performance of "Pearl Necklace?" It just wouldn't be the same.

Watch the clip of Quint's performance here.

A friend introduced me to Tim and Eric's work a few months ago. Their show is on Adult Swim though I've only seen their videos online. They just finished up a sold out tour of the US. Not sold out in the sense that you can get in line the night of the show and still get a ticket, but sold out weeks in advance. Sold out to the point where there are scalpers and people offering a lot of money for extra tickets. When I showed up at the Baghdad Theatre in Portland to meet my friend, he was waiting in a line three blocks long. The guy behind us spotted Tim looking out a backstage window and said, in all seriousness, "Look, there's Tim. Wow, I just saw a real life rock star." (The term "rock star" now applies to chefs, clothing designers, interactive media whiz kids; and probably also to hair dressers, dogs, Judd Apatow, and presidential candidates. I think it's actually more difficult to find someone who isn't a "rock star." For some reason I wish the same thing would happen to the word "hippie.")

Watch two videos from Tim and Eric:

As a live performance, Tim and Eric Awesome Show is one of the more exciting events I have been to in a long time. It's a mixture of stadium rock, performance art, Vaudeville, Beckett, and social commentary. They dissect life into thin sheets and then extract the absurdity from the minutiae. The microscopic lens with which they view the world makes for painful, awkward, and sometimes ridiculous comedy, but in its strangeness are also the truths that make it funny. Each moment of the show is carefully constructed, from the characters entrances and gaits, to the music accompanying the movements. The overall effect is a surreal and frenzied spectacle.

Watch two more Tim and Eric Awesome Show videos:

In a completely different setting--this time in the woods of Battle Ground, WA--I saw an intimate performance by Mecca Normal. Though the Vancouver BC musical duo is known for their art rock and politics, they too mix frivolity with commentary and blend discomfort with ease. Many of the songs they performed on that sunny afternoon dealt with Jean Smith's foray into on-line dating. The lyrics drew laughter from the crowd, they were brilliant poems dealing with her misadventures in love (a Rottweiler that insisted on sleeping on the bed, a bedroom door that had to be held shut with a large piece of coral), but the acute observations had dark undertones, an underlying sadness, hints of disconnect and disaster. David Lester is an illusionist on guitar, melodies and guitar lines reveal themselves unexpectedly; they flutter about and then recede. His body seems as much a source for the music as the instrument itself, moving and swaying. The combination of the two performers has always been electrifying, not always easy, but never false.

Watch a video for the Mecca Normal song "Naked And Ticklish". It is one of the online dating songs.

All right, that's all the duo love I have for today. Feel free to comment on your favorite duo or duo moments.

Thanks to everyone who sent in a picture.
Have a good weekend.

The photo also got me thinking about how all of us music listeners have different devices from which our music springs forth: iPods and mp3 players, car stereos, computer speakers, boom boxes, or the old fashion stereo console. If you are so inclined, please take a picture of the device on which you listen to music most of the time and I'll compile the photos for Friday or Monday's blog.

Send your pictures to monitormix@npr.org

To start things off, here is a picture of my home stereo system (infinitely less cool than the one pictured above). I also have a boom box in the shape of a 1950s car in my kitchen (on sale at Fred Meyer many moons ago), but most of my CDs, records, and mp3s get played through this set up.

Listen to "Divorce Song" from the anniversary edition:

In 1993 I moved to Olympia, Washington to attend college. The Northwest was full of incendiary bands in the early 1990s. Some of the sounds were heard around the globe, others remained stubbornly underground, festering and smoldering, creating an incognito hysteria and inspiring offshoots. There was twee and lo-fi, angular post-punk, emo, metal, riot grrl, noise--most of it eager, breathless and frenzied. For months, I rarely saw or listened to a world outside of Olympia. If I wanted to see bands from London or DC, New York or LA, they would play in basements and be sucked into the smallness of the town, if only for a night. Olympia was part of a series of remote satellites sending signals back and forth, sharing information and secrets.

It was within this context, this feeling that everything important had a line drawn around it and that my town was inside that imaginary border, that I first heard Liz Phair. She crashed through the insularity, with no clear alliance to one music scene, writing from the periphery of her own. I was at a friend's house, he was making us dinner and he put on the album. The fact that I remember any details at all about what my friend was cooking, what we wore, the layout of this small apartment--those memories only exist because of Exile in Guyville. Otherwise, it would have been just another night. I was 19.

The first thing I noticed about Liz Phair was the voice. She wasn't screaming, she wasn't being cloying, she wasn't an amazing singer, but there was something serious about the vocals, something deadly. Part of it was the flatness; the strange deadpan delivery, like someone is singing on their back, like they woke up one night and decided they'd had enough and so they made an album. But the songs weren't victim anthems just like they weren't merely come-ons; they spoke of the fine lines between power and powerlessness, autonomy and isolation, they depicted epiphanies and the subsequent letdowns. The album was a journey vacillating between interior and exterior landscapes, the lyrics evoking halcyon moments always on the verge of implosion, either by the author's own hand or by someone they loved. And the album was drenched in desire, of wanting and of wanting out.

Exile in Guyville was a brave and gutsy album and Liz Phair made herself an island out of it. Some critics and fans dove in to the waters, swimming to save her, to woo her, to worship her, while others hung her out to dry. Maybe it was the sheer audacity of the album, coming at a time when many indie music statements--particularly those being made by women--were more strident, they clawed out a space with volume and rebellion The sphere Phair created was murkier, it was inviting but also treacherous.

I don't know if it was the weight of the endeavor, or the fact that those of us over a certain age couldn't escape this album if we tried, but Exile in Guyville's presence is still felt after all these years. I admit to not having followed Phair much since the mid 90s, but listening to Exile again, I think it just might qualify as a monster of rock.

A few weeks ago I mentioned my love for the reality program The Bachelor. I was not lying. I started watching The Bachelor during a brief stint of living in Berkeley, CA (Ironically, I was there to investigate graduate school programs and higher education, not to develop a television habit. Thanks Berzerkely!). Homesick for the Northwest, I was sucked into The Bachelor by the fact that one of the contestants that season, Meredith, was from Portland. I was rooting for Bachelor Bob Guiney to keep her on the show because then the two of them would return to Portland for what is known as the "hometown date." Well, it happened, and I was able to vicariously view Portland, albeit through Bob and Meredith's eyes, which were mostly focused on each other--though I did get glimpses of Washington Park, the Willamette River, and a scattering of trees.

By the time Meredith was sent packing before the final episode I was hooked. When the next season of the show began, I was back in Portland with no excuse for watching the show at all, yet I still tuned in whenever I could. Admittedly, there are shows in the reality television vein with much more substance and validity. Project Runway showcases people with an actual talent and something like PBS' Manor House provided a more thorough examination of class, social roles, and history; but The Bachelor intrigues me none the less. Maybe we all have that one show, the one guilty pleasure that seems incongruous with our more sophisticated or highfalutin tastes. Yet I don't think it truly is a conflict of interest, or even a fluke. To me, The Bachelor (and this is probably also true of a hundred other reality shows that I don't watch) is fascinating because it exemplifies our acceptance of non-reality as reality. We know that we're not getting to see the whole picture, that the information is being manipulated, and that the story being told is only part of the story. I suppose that sometimes I'd rather just sit back and get that artifice-parading-as-truth from The Bachelor instead of from my government.

Here then is an interview with a friend of mine who worked on The Bachelor. She has asked that I withhold her name for the sake of anonymity.

Question: Describe your role or duties as a producer on 'The Bachelor.'

Answer: I was involved in every aspect of the production; I was heavily involved with casting, interviewing the cast, and following/driving story.

Q: How does the production on a reality television program vary from scripted or more traditional forms?

A: We shoot 100% of the time and air 1% of what we shot. With that said, we roll on a lot of boring sh*t but as soon as you set the camera down is when the good stuff happens, therefore we only stop when they are sleeping and even then there is somebody on standby just in case. Reality TV is known as being down and dirty and on the cheap, so it is very different from scripted [TV] in that one of my roles was to try to get everything for free -- if you see us at a resort in Bermuda it is because that said resort is looking for PR and they gave us the whole date for trade out.

Q: Do you feel like the contestants on 'The Bachelor' (and the Bachelor himself) are actually there to find love? Or do they see it as a way of furthering their careers, entering show-biz, or getting their 15 minutes of fame?

A: I am a bit of a hopeless romantic, so without sounding too cheesy I really believe that at our core most of us are looking for true love. Now, why would some go to match.com, a bar, or a reality TV show? The decision to go on TV is telling of their personalities and their motivations are almost never pure for these reality types. They usually want to leverage something. I don't know if it is always a career in acting more than it is fame, recognizability, covers of US Weekly, never having to wait in line at a club, for some it is about hometown celebrity status. Like take the realtor or the banker for example, after bearing all on a reality romance show they are inevitably viewed as an alpha type person and because of this their lives are exponentially better having made themselves a household name. Not to mention that over 50% of the cast, having not found love on TV end up finding it in their real lives immediately after going on the show -- somehow the people in their lives see them differently, more attractive even, having done something so ballsy.

Q: Does the editing process do justice to the contestants or is there a vast difference between what happened during the taping and what appears on the broadcast? In other words, does the editing carve out a story line or play up certain personalities in order to make it more interesting? I think this is the general assumption that the audience has.

A: TOTALLY! Everyone always ask if what we see on TV is really what happened and for the most part it is but, going back to the film 100% and air 1%, the viewer is only getting to see the really good stuff and, even still, if the stories are many we are going to edit them down to the most compelling bits, therefore leaving out (often times) how somebody goes from seemingly normal to totally coo coo pants. We have even gone so far as to "frankenbite," where you take somebody saying, "of course I'd like to say that I love him" and cutting the bite together to say "of course I love him," cutting out the very important "I'd like to say." [It's] definitely very misleading to the viewer and unfair to the cast member, but they sign up for this, fully knowing the reputation of the reality world.

Q: Was there ever an intelligent or reasonably cool Bachelor or contestant?

A: Yes. Intelligent -- absolutely most of them are college graduated and some of them prestigious schools like Harvard. But does that make them "cool", no. Were some cool? Absolutely, but I guess that is all in who you ask. Take an associate of mine, if you asked her she would say that none of them were cool. Me, I am a sucker for the human experience, no matter if it is up my alley or not. I liked some of the Bachelors/Bachelorettes but others of them I hated (and I really have to try hard to be moved to hatred.) There are a couple of them that I genuinely care about. Would people like hanging out with these celebrated love seekers? Probably not -- unless you take Meredith she actually was one of the more "normal/cool" cast members that we had. Bob was cool by most people's standards, fun loving, kind hearted, a karaoke machine, and now the host of "Trick My Trucker" who wouldn't want to hang out with that type?

Q: What tricks or strategies does the show employ to amp up the drama and tension during the taping of the show?

A: Well, in the private one on one interviews with a producer (like me) it is the producers job to get the sh*t talking started, like "tell me honestly what you think of Sally" -- if the interviewee does not want to respond in a catty way then the producer will usually go to the next level, like "well I personally think she is a self absorbed, attention starved skank," and then see if the person will take the bait. Once you start learning who in the house is not well liked it is easy to start seeding conversations and gossip. Also, if the conversations linger too long on favorite movies and stuff the producers will step in a say, "ok we all know we signed up for a TV show -- so if you don't start talking about something more topical then you can't have the sushi you requested tonight." The smarter cast members start to realize that everything can be bartered. Like, "I will give you a good one-on-one interview about Sally, IF you let me listen to my iPod for the rest of the day."

Q: Do you feel like 'The Bachelor' already has his lady picked out early on but has to appear undecided due to the nature of the show?

A: Sometimes yes and sometimes no -- really, every hero cast member is different; sometimes there is an undeniable chemistry and that has to be well masked throughout the show, as not to give away the ending. But other times they don't "know" until the very last minute.

Q: What is the interview process like to be a contestant on 'The Bachelor', or to be The Bachelor himself?

A: It is pretty crazy, there are several phone interviews first, then they fly him out with others for a competitive casting sessions where they are all put on camera, taken to dinner, interviewed some more, etc. When the execs finally have a cast member that they'd like to work with they meet with the head of ABC to get his blessing. Sometimes it takes awhile, as they are some real douche bags out there.

Q: How does the crew of 'The Bachelor' deal with the craziness and general stupidity of what they are witnessing?

A: Most of the time the crew gets pretty into it! Reality TV is such a grind for the crew, long hours with little pay that they actually look forward to the crazy bits, it helps to pass the time and the executives get so excited that the vibe is felt throughout. The camera man that has been shooting for 12 straight hours of mani/pedis is like, 'I know this shit I am filming is actually gonna make it to air.' It is pretty satisfying to watch the kids go to crazy town especially for those of us that sold out on any hope of a real life ourselves. Also it makes you happy of any drama free life you may be living.

Q: Why is there never any acknowledgment that the contestants are on television? Aside from the one-on-one interview with the camera, I always wonder why people don't talk about how strange the process is, or admit to the surreal nature of the program during their involvement. Is this edited out or do they truly forget the cameras are there?

A: Definitely edited out. Whenever anyone is talking about the cameras they get scolded and told to resume more TV friendly chitchat. They are told up front that they have to ignore the cameras and after awhile they really do go away, or if they don't you usually don't last long because if you aren't being "yourself", or at least being emotional and effusive then you won't last long on the show; you will be overshadowed by the ones that can get past the cameras. If you don't bring your personality to the show then you end up looking like a cold stone bitch and the producers make sure of that.

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By the way, the current season of The Bachelor is called "London Calling." That, however, is a whole other blog entry.

The first concert I ever saw was Madonna's. It also happened to be the first show of the first US tour Madonna ever embarked on. It was 1985, I was in 5th grade, and Madonna was launching her Virgin Tour in Seattle at the Paramount Theatre. I went to the first of the three shows she played in the city. (Incidentally, the Beastie Boys opened and were booed off stage within ten or fifteen minutes). Similar to a lot of pre-teens in the mid-1980s, I was obsessed with Madonna, with her songs, her fashion, her attitude, and her boldness. But like my youthful enthusiasm towards Duran Duran, Ricky Schroeder, and Kirk Cameron, my affection towards Madonna waned. I soon discovered music with fewer filters and disguises, less affect, greater intensity, and most of all, substance.

I can't say I've thought or cared about Madonna since I was 14. Except for a few early hits, her music has not stuck with me, not even in a nostalgic sense. I never pull out Madonna records to listen to (I'd have to double check that I still have one), nor do I pause when I hear her old songs on the radio. Even her mid-period dance hits ("Ray of Light" for example) struck me as contrived. As I mentioned in another blog entry, I mostly think of Madonna as a brand. She is someone who will do anything to seem current, so much so that everything she does reeks of disingenuousness and desperation.

Madonna goes beyond the usual banality and sterility of contemporary pop. Now and again, I'll hear a pop song on the radio and be able to enjoy it as a guilty pleasure. But I can't say that I am drawn to Madonna in that way, she takes herself too seriously. And even that would be tolerable if she weren't so artistically gutless.

Or maybe it is just the phenomenon of Madonna that perplexes me. I am but one of thousands of people writing about her this month. Madonna inserts herself into the collective imagination every few years and it always feels like some natural disaster from which we have to recover.

On her new album, Hard Candy, (a name which sounds like a parody of a pop album title), Madonna's songs are so Botoxed, so unnervingly seamless, that even if the whole point of the album was to have fun, it's the kind of fun where you have to keep reaffirming its very existence, as in, "this is fun, right?" In other words, it's self conscious and contrived. The fact that Madonna is playing it safe on this record, or "doing what she knows how to do best" should not be cause for celebration. If anything, I wish it were cause for alarm, or at least forced us to ask ourselves why she has yet to be usurped. At this point, however, I think the most I can muster is a huge yawn.

So, I wonder, who is a fan of Madonna's music? Are you? If so, what do you like about it? Will anyone be holding benefits for themselves so that they can afford tickets to her concerts? And why does Madonna still capture the imagination of so many people?

Yesterday was Earth Day and I celebrated it by letting my dog sh*t on a lawn that is full of chemicals. When the owner came out to yell at me, I pointed to the excrement and said, "That is the only natural thing in your yard, Happy Earth Day." I should be getting my thank you note from the city of Portland within the next week.*

For the past few nights I have been obsessed with the John Adams mini-series on HBO. Paul Giamatti, Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, and the entire cast are superb. Watching a dollar bill come to life, AKA seeing George Washington (as played by David Morse with a prosthetic proboscis) enter a room, is thrilling. And it is fascinating to see people such as Franklin, Hancock, Jefferson, and of course, Adams, not merely as historical figures but as men -- ones with vastly different characters, levels of doubt, and with varying awareness and acceptance of fragilities and weakness in our nascent country. Franklin speaks in quips (one of my favorite books at home is a slim volume of Franklin's quotations); Jefferson seems guided by destiny and in possession of an eerie prescience; and Adams is a pragmatist with a wry humor and an attachment and intellectual dependence on his wife that is both unique for the time period and utterly touching. I think what I appreciate most about the John Adams mini-series is that the viewer is painfully aware of all that was at stake during that time period. Everything was dire: from the intimate epistolary relationships to the public orations. The notions of sacrifice and of freedom were not abstract concepts that one read about. They permeated lives.

Whether in relation to Earth Day, local or national elections, the tanking economy, or the Iraq War, it has become ever so difficult to know -- no, to feel -- what, exactly, is at stake. And it takes continual effort to not forget about those whose lives are more at risk than our own.

On the plane to Los Angeles I read an article in Esquire Magazine (it pained me to have to purchase anything with Jessica Simpson on the cover). But I had heard Chris Jones on NPR who wrote an article about one soldier's journey home following his death in Iraq. It is a long story, but it should be, and if you read one magazine article this week, this month, this year, I recommend this one.

The stakes we are fighting for in any number of battles right now are obfuscated by rhetoric. And maybe that is why we are always searching for ways to distract ourselves ('search' is the wrong word, it takes little effort to find distractions); today's struggle never feels real, never pricks our skin, only piques our intellect, if ever.

Strangely, it took a mini-series about one man in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries (as well as the book I'm reading about John Brown) to remind me that there were times when letting go of one's beliefs was not an option. So, if the stakes are huge right now, why do they feel so small?

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*Not a true story.

The mix features twelve songs by some great bands and musicians, from The Beatles to The Breeders, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young to Tom Petty. Yet hardly any of the songs therein constitute those artists' best output. For instance, if "Don't Do Me Like That" is Petty's most perfectly timed song, then what are "American Girl" and "Free Fallin?" Grandiose and excessive? And "Get Up" by R.E.M? That's not even the best song on Green, let alone their most perfect tune ever.

Taking a look through my iTunes library, which allows me to sort songs by time--something I could not do with my vinyl without a massive headache, score one for technology--I found a few other songs at 2:42.

Them-"I Can Only Give You Everything" (I admit, one of their best)
MC5-"High School" (Nope. Not their strongest)
Judas Priest-"Deceiver" (Great Priest song but perfect?)
Blitzen Trapper-"Wild Mountain Nation" (I adore this song. F**k! This guy might be onto something)
Glen Campbell-"Galveston" (A hit, yes, but due to its length?)

Okay, so there are a lot of great songs at 2:42. But scrolling down to songs in the three or four minute range, I am bombarded with some of the best songs by The Clash, The Stones, X, Bee Gees, Pixies, Joy Division, and Dylan. I might concede that the two longest songs on my iTunes-- Pink Floyd's "Echoes" and Can's "Halleluhwah" aren't in heavy rotation--but that doesn't mean I'm too lazy to sit through them once a... year.

Allen's strongest argument for 2:42 is The La's song "There She Goes." He says about the song, "[It] is so flawless that it instantly made everything else the band did pointless." I agree. Possibly, Allen's argument might be stronger if he could find a bunch of one-hit-wonder bands whose hit songs were all the same length. Because maybe 2:42 is the perfect song length for bands for whom we only care about one song. But the rest of the bands he mentions weren't one-hit-wonders. The fact that they have great songs at 2:42 cannot be separated from the fact that they are simply great bands; with some songs that leave us wanting more as well as songs with lengths we get lost in, whose musical stories are written in sentences not just in phrases and fragments. In fact, maybe we wouldn't even like a band's 2:42 song if all of their songs were 2:42. In other words, 2:42 might leave you wanting more, but if there isn't any more goodness to be had, then 2:42 is an empty number; it's an arbitrary shell that houses one amazing song.

Joshua Allen is joking--I think--but he brings up an interesting discussion. Is there a reason that short songs feel better? Easier? That they're the songs we put on mixes? The ones we use when we introduce a new band to our friends? Do these songs truly distill the best elements of a band, saving our ears from profligate solos, break downs so long they could be their own song, and too-slow-on-the faders fade-outs?

True, we're often impressed by succinctness, a tale trimmed of fat, getting knocked out before we knew what hit us. And we all like things quick and easy on occasion. But easy is only part of the story.

These are some songs I've been listening to the past few weeks.

To stream, click here.

Deep Purple. Massive riffage. Not as blown out or Psychedelic as Blue Cheer but more melodious. I go back and listen to their albums (okay, only two of them) a few times a year. They don't leave the turn table for weeks.

The Band. One of my favorites. Each player is amazing. This is a band who I didn't really value when I first heard them. But later I thought that they were the ultimate group to aspire to.

Bill Fox. One of the best (among many other greats) from Ohio. Fox also played with The Mice. A friend introduced me to this guy in the mid 90's and I was blown away. He shouldn't be a secret yet sadly he is.

Misfits. A friend of mine drove me by Glenn Danzig's house in Los Angeles the last time I was there. I felt like a kid on Halloween, scared of possible hauntings or unwelcome surprises. I don't know if it was the build-up to the drive-by, the Misfit's lyrics I had going through my head, or the house itself, but I was frightened. Only later did I think how there is no other person in music who I might be scared to meet. Yet this person's name is Glenn.

Check out Muxtape to make your own and to listen to other mixes.

Enjoy.

If you have either a suggestion or question, please send them to:

monitormix@npr.org

I will compile the questions to answer in a later post.

And I look forward to hearing your suggestions. Otherwise, I plan on writing about how much I love the Adam Carolla Show and how I listen to it instead of the local NPR program that airs during the same time. (This is true.) Another post might discuss my love of the reality television program The Bachelor.

Do you have a favorite solo album or solo performer? Are there people you prefer solo than with their band?

My favorite solo album is All Things Must Pass.

I've been thinking about this topic because on Friday I saw two solo performances at a benefit show. One set was by Stephen Malkmus (The Jicks, Pavement), the other by James Mercer (The Shins). Malkmus went on stage in a parka and tuned for so long that the audience clapped throughout, unsure as to whether or not he was playing a song. His Silvertone guitar stayed stubbornly out of tune, which only added to the set's imbalance. I like a performer, a song, a set that teeters on destruction. Malkmus' guitar playing, when stripped of accompaniment, vacillates between insouciance and deliberation. The playing appears indecisive, which contrived or not, is why it's exciting.

James Mercer deals in contentment. Even if or when the lyrical intent is obfuscated, the melodies are complex and daring, his voice soaring, his audience seems happy. They are moved, yes, but not so far as to be taken out of their comfort zone. "Ah, this is the life," they all must be thinking. Mercer is one of my favorite contemporary singer/songwriters. Therefore, I am not immune to that strange magic of Mercer and the Shins. And at a solo show, it becomes quite clear that Mercer could play the songs on his own without too many people missing the eccentricities of the rest of the band. The shape of the songs remain intact, their craft distilled, the melodies more striking and strikingly beautiful. But it was in the relationship between the audience and solo Mercer that I started missing the band. Maybe it was the strange complacency that set in -- the sense that this was all we needed -- to be under a tent drinking wine and listening to pretty songs. In that moment I wanted Marty (of the Shins) to ruin the placidity, for him to say something goofy from stage, for him, for the band, to come crashing through. Not that I don't like quiet, or soft, I like both. And I especially love Mercer, solo or otherwise. But it is also good to remember the reason why the rest of a band exists or why there is a band in the first place: to create tension, movement, dynamics, chemistry, and to remind us that music isn't about feeling content, it's about feeling alive.