Mixtapes #4: Frank Kogan
The best of lists that pop up at the end of the year are often hobbled by chronology or genre. It suggests that listening begins in January and ends in December or that people are experts in only one kind of music. People never really only listened to that which was made in one year, and the modern rock crit area was birthed by professional nostalgists and crate diggers. In asking a variety of professionals to mark what they were really listening to while maintaining the concept of an annual I didn’t want to engage in that act of crate digging, but I really did want to get a sense of what people were listening to. Think of it as the games people play with mix tapes, if mix tapes where really about what people listened to in 2006. The entries, comments (if offered) and biographies (if offered) are written by the critics (with their own eccentricities) themselves and they are arranged by their arrival in my inbox.
Frank Kogan's Left Hip ballot, 2006
Bio:
The Frank Kogan story: I bought a guitar, daydreamed fame, riffed harder with my pen, drew diagrams, asked questions.
SONGS:
- 1. Hilary Duff "Come Clean" (2003 [Buena Vista])
- 2. Jessica Simpson "I Think I'm In Love With You (Peter Rauhofer Club Mix)" (2000 [Sony])
- 3. Mahshar "Vase Chi" (circa 2004)
- 4. Loto "Back To Discos" (2004)
- 5. Avril Lavigne "Unwanted" (2002, album track, Let Go [Arista])
- 6. Katy Rose "Watching The Rain" (2004, album track, Because I Can [V2])
- 7. Betty Hutton "Murder He Says" (circa 1943, live clip)
- 8. Kelly Clarkson "Because Of You" (2005 [RCA])
- 9. Ashlee Simpson "Say Goodbye" (2005, album track, I Am Me [Geffen])
- 10. Liz Phair "Mother's Little Helper" (2005, album track, Desperate Housewives soundtrack [Hollywood])
ALBUMS:
- 1. Ashlee Simpson - Autobiography (Geffen, 2004)
- 2. Ashlee Simpson - I Am Me (Geffen, 2005)
- 3. Various Artists - Guitars Of The Golden Triangle: Raw, Rare & Forgotten Archival Recordings from 1970's Shan State. Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar (Burma) Vol. 2 (Sublime Frequencies, 2005)
- 4. Kelly Clarkson - Breakaway (RCA, 2004)
- 5. Avril Lavigne - Let Go (Arista, 2002)
- 6. Various Artists - Dukes Of Hazzard: Music From The Motion Picture (Sony, 2005)
- 7. Hole - Celebrity Skin (Geffen, 1998)
- 8. Marion Raven - Here I Am (Atlantic, 2005)
- 9. Flyleaf - Flyleaf (Octone, 2005)
- 10. The Electric Boogie Dawgz - Sloppy, Fast & Loud (Hooch, 2005)
As far as I know, all the albums are in print. Most of the singles are also album cuts; the Jessica Simpson track is one of the club mixes on the CD single, which you can find used on Amazon (Sony released a Jessica remix alb several years ago, but I have no idea if this version or even this song is on it). The Betty Hutton clip is on YouTube and may also be part of a DVD collection; the studio versions are on various Betty Hutton compilations. Mahshar is an Iranian disco singer; you can probably find her track on the Interwebs; you can listen to the Loto track on the Loto MySpace (www.myspace.com/iloveloto) and on their album The Club, though Amazon knows nothing about Loto albs.