Thursday, June 12, 2014

Victor's Ultimate Birthday "Meh"-ga Mix '14

I know, I know. You've been jamming out non-stop all this week to the blissful tunes of this year's edition of the Mega Mix and the last thing you want is the harsh buzzkill of the Ultimate Birthday "Meh"-ga Mix. Well, listen up joy boy, life is all about the highs and the lows, the sweets and the sours, the season 4 Simpsons and the season 24 Simpsons. It'd be against the laws of nature to just have the hits, one has to recognize the misses.

As much as this year was the most difficult yet in terms of picking the top four songs, it was even harder picking the bottom two. After three previous years of mix making, my friends are getting annoying good at this business. The overall quality improves every year and picking the duds is becoming increasingly a game of inches. At this rate I may have to give some consideration to dropping the category all together (although one or two tracks still usually come along each year to renew my commitment to this mix). Perhaps one day there will be a haul of mixes where the task of culling the worst would be too difficult to attempt, but until then enjoy the blah.

Sunday, June 08, 2014

Victor's Ultimate Mega Mix '14

It's been just over a month since that bleak day in May when I turned thirty. I am still waiting on that wisdom and insight stuff that supposedly comes with old age. In the meantime I have an assortment of birthday mixes to keep me entertained.

I know I say it pretty much every year, but this year's haul of five mixes have been the strongest group yet. I don't know, maybe it's because of the milestone year, but I felt that my friends really put in an extra effort here. Great job everyone; though this is setting up the mixes for my 31st birthday to be quite underwhelming (I guess the silver-lining would be a really strong class of "worst of" mix songs). Bonus kudos to everyone for not kicking a sad man when he's down and loading up the mixes with depressing tracks about aging. I know I definitely would have if the roles were reversed (and I most likely will for your milestone birthday mixes; I even keep a running stockpile of those kinds of songs to use on all birthday mixes).

Before I get to the big reveal I just wanted to note a few interesting observations about the mixes this year; actually these sort of coincidences happen every year but I never bother to make a note of them. In the case of tracks repeated across multiple mixes, the simultaneous track of the year award goes to "Move That Dope" by Future featuring Pharrell, Pusha T, and Casino. I really did enjoy this fantastic piece of coke rap and it fell just shy of making the top four in both mixes. Another song appeared twice but under two different versions. The original 1982 version of "Mama Used to Say" by Junior made it to one mix while a 2009 cover by the group Jupiter made it to another. I enjoyed both versions (it really is a sneaky good birthday song) and it was hard cutting both of them from their respective top 4s. Finally, I had two different songs by Chance the Rapper on two different mixes. My quick review on him is, interesting style and lyrics and hip-hop is all the richer for having a unique artist like him, but I find his voice fairly irritating.

Speaking of irritating, remember to keep an eye out for the "worst of" mix in the next few days.