Mixdisc game.

This one is pretty labor intensive, as it involves making a mix CD to some fairly restrictive specifications.

Ace Card (either first or last). You'd like to use this for a dramatic entrance or exit.

1. Boastful song
2. References another song. (It must be specific--not a pastiche of a band or a genre.)
3. Song about food
4. Reminds you of your first love
5. At least 30 years old but you heard it for the first time within the past year
6. Changes tempo at least once
7. Features an unexpected transition.
8. Mentions a superhero and/or comic book
9. Used in one of your favorite movies
10. Mentions one of your favorite books
11. Song your parents liked
12. Six-letter title
13. One of your father's favorite songs
14. Mentions a city you've never been to, but would like to
15. Shape in the title (square, circle etc.)
16. Has a specific connection to weather.
17. Great song. Stupid lyrics.
18. Much better live than in its studio version.
19. To be played EXTREMELY LOUD
20. To be played very quietly.
21. Built around an extended metaphor
22. From an album that you denounced as crap before ever hearing but now like.
23. This song is brought to you by the letter 'X'. (Title, Band, Album: at least two of these must have an 'X' in them.)
24. You remember it from elementary school.
25. A song by the last band you saw live.
26. Changed your idea of what music is capable of.
1/27. You'd like to use this for a dramatic entrance or exit.

Rules:

A. 80 minutes maximum. No exceptions.
B. All 27 categories should be represented. If you have fewer than 27 songs, some songs should meet multiple categories.
C. Keep 'em in order, songs that meet multiple categories can go in either slot.

If you're feeling really ambitious, use yousendit.com or a shared gmail account (details available on request) to make the thing available to other players.

1 1. AceyAlone, "Break the Wall"
A great into, boastful as all hell, and references (in the form of a sample) some song by The James Gang. 'Funk 49' I think, but I'll have to confirm that with someone else.

2 2. Lyrics Born, "Do That There (The Young Einstein Hoo-Hoo Mix)"
Not exactly about food, but references many foodstuffs in the enormous, surreal pile of rapid fire lyrics. My favorite? 'a Barry Manilow autographed canteloupe.' Play loud. Like, lets be honest, most of the songs on this mix. I saw Lyrics Born live at the Parish in December 2004. I have seen at least one musical act live more recently than that, but I don't have any of his recordings, so that's a slight cheat.

3 Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandon and Richard O'Brien, "Over at the Frankenstein Place"
In early highschool, I was totally infatuated with a girl a year ahead of me in the drama club. It was an especially geeky time of my life, which if you know me, you know is really saying something. Anyway, it was at that time that I saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show many more times than I could guess, before coming out of the closet as a heterosexual. Fortunately for you, I decided against putting "One Night in Bangkok" on here.

4 Dr. John, "Iko Iko"
Okay, fine. I actually have been hearing the Dixie Cups' version of this for decades. But Dr. John's '72 version is all new to me as of a couple of months ago. If you listen closely, you will notice that Mac rips it the fuck up! Also, the title has six letters.

5 Pt. Vishwamohan Bhatt, "Dhun Mishra Ghara"
A song with a shift in tempos. More precisely, a piece of Hindustani classical music that starts off unmetered and then breaks into a dadra taal (3/4, more or less) rhythm with the introduction of the tablas about halfway through.

6 French Frith Kaiser and Thompson, "March of the Cosmetic Surgeons (Act I, Scene 2, The Clinic of Dr. Krikstein. On a podium, Center, MRS. RIPSTOCK-GEDDES is posing as Aphrodite, complete with water jug. Enter left DR. KRIKSTIEN, followed by his STUDENTS, marching Indian file to the rhythm of the music)"
Here I am providing not only an unexpected change in the music (several, actually) but also hopefully the longest song title anyone will post in the circulation of this meme. Also, this one never fails to crack me up.

7 Benoit Charest, "Belleville Rendezvous"
From the brilliant, hilarious, and charming animated movie The Triplets of Belleville. Although I don't speak french, the lyrics clearly namedrop Acapulco and Honolulu, which both seem like nice places to visit while on vacation someday.

8 The Fall, "Spoilt Victorian Child"
A slightly wierd interpretation of 'mentions one of your favorite books' because what Mark E. Smith grumbles on the bridge is "E-N-C-Y-C-L-O Pedia" but hey, I do love me some reference material.

9 Tom Waits, "An Emotional Weather Report"
Man, my dad loves Tom Waits. See if you can spot the extended metaphor and reference to weather! My mom doesn't love Tom Waits so much. In fact, she has pretty awful taste in music generally (big American Idol fan) which is why I'm also counting this as a song my parents like. This is one of those rare tracks where it's good to keep it low, so you're drawn in, hunching over your breakfast bloody mary and leaning into the speakers while shushing people around you so you can hear the music and nurse your hangover.

10 Henry Threadgill Very Very Circus, "In the Ring"
Is a ring a geometric shape? Sure it is. Anyway, this one also has a drum solo for about half it's length to make up for the drumless half of the Vishwamohan Bhatt track. Ooh, symmetry! Kinda.

11 Dizzy Gillespie, "Ool-Ya-Koo"
The 'dumb lyrics' question always gets me to wondering. Are you looking more for bombastically artless and stoopit lyics like Foreigner or do you prefer crazy nonsensical scatting, like say, Dizzy Gillespie. Man, no contest.

12 Goodie Mob, "Fly Away"
This track really isn't any more than a footnote on the album it's from Still Standing, and in fact Khujo's rampantly, disgustingly homophobic third verse is dumber than any "Yabada-oolya," but on a hot summer night at Stubb's, it was a brilliant Dirty South anthem that really got the place jumping. Too bad you couldn't hear that instead of this.

13 XTC, "Sgt. Rock (Is Going to Help Me)"
Heh! Just as I was typing this I realized that not only is this a great comics reference and extended metaphor for the 'battle' of the sexes, but finally it dawned on me that Sgt. Rock commands 'Easy Company.' Oh man! Oh woman!

14 MC 900 Foot Jesus, "Stare and Stare"
Fucking hell, what a lousy goddamn name Mark Griffin chose for his musical career. As a rap fan, it's always kind of suspect to me when some white guy wants to call himself an MC but clearly doesn't have any of the traditional strengths of good rappers. But Mr. 900 Foot Jesus (as the NYT might have called him) isn't really trying to be that at all. This is a kind of atypical track from the album One Step Ahead of the Spider, which is full of what could most kindly be called 'tributes' to Miles Davis' fusion period. I'd just started listening to that stuff when I first heard this, and was pretty knocked out by the idea that people were still Agharta so faithfully 20 years later. This track doesn't do that, though, but it does have the least Vernon-Reidy Vernon Reid cameo I know.

15 Maceo Parker, "Sax Machine"
Supported by Fred Wesley, Bootsy Collins, Bobby Byrd, Bernie Worrell, T-Bone David, and uh, Bill Laswell. From the album Axiom Funk That's two X-es. Yeah.

16 Graham Parker and the Rumour, "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down"
Fine, I admit that I never actually heard this in elementary school, as in while hanging out with playmates in the schoolyard or what have you. It does have the virtue of being one of the earliest 'grown-up' songs I remember digging from my dad's collection. Initially, while we were living in Algeria with very little in the way of western culture to connect to (this would be fourth grade) and later in Oakland the summer before sixth grade with a strange kiddie nostalgia for what was just a year and a half or so gone. Props to Gary Mairs for hooking me up with a copy.

17 Charles Mingus, "You Better Get it in Yo Soul"
Way back, in my sophomore year in college, when I started getting into jazz this was the song that I kept coming back to. I had no idea at the time that it was considered an immortal masterwork, of course, it was just unlike any other music I had ever encountered. Simultaneously complex, passionate, joyous, irresistible for dancing, and even for an atheist like myself, spiritually stirring. This song changed the way I hear, no doubt about it.

Okay, now you!