New Wave Outpost Forum

What are the most important things you keep in mind when creating a music compilation?

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The audience it's intended for.
It's easy if it's for me or even my wife.

To make sure it contains the most esoteric and atonal music possible - stuff that likely no one else on the planet has heard except me and the musician's mother - so that people know what amazing taste I have.


Er...or what abacab said. I like a flow much like what Nick Hornby in High Fidelity suggests...

[i]To me, making a tape is like writing a letter — there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with "Got to Get You Off My Mind", but then realized that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straightaway, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you've got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs and...oh, there are loads of rules.[/i]

I'm kinda with Mike on this one. When making playlist on iTunes I seem to always have songs that are of a certain mood and that all the tracks seem to have a certain feel to them.

Here's an example of a list i have called Dark Wave:

Bel Canto - Dreaming Girl
Chris & Cosey -Deep Velvet & Rise
Moev - Wanting
Poeme Electronique - The Echoes Fade
Xymox - Louise
Secession - Touch
Delerium - Flowers Become Screams
Xymox - Muscoviet Mosquito
Front 242 - Masterhit
A Split Second - The Colosseum Crash
Handful of Snowdrops - Gabrielle
Moev - Clerk Charade
Heavenly Bodies - Rains On Me
Secession - The Magician
The Hunger - Shock
Meat Beat Manifesto - Psyche-Out
Moev - Capital Heaven
Screaming For Emily - The Love
Shona Laing - Soviet Snow
Section 25 - Looking From A Hilltop



~~~~~~Always remember you are unique....just like everyone else.~~~~~~

It takes me a very long time to come up with a "finished product" when making a comp. To me the most important thing is to make sure that the songs all flow into one another, or are at least suitable. Now, occasionally I will want a comp that "changes moods" so to speak so there may be 2 or 3 "breaks" in the flow but then it will be followed by a clump of similar songs. Some times as well I will start and end the comp with very similar types of music but with the stuff in the middle being different.

That quote from High Fidelity is sort of the way I see it too. The first song needs to grab you, but it shouldn't be the best song on the comp, that one should be later, near the middle or even end. And I think the last song should be a good example of whatever music you're going for as well.

With all that said actually I'm nearly done with a huge project I was working on awhile back which was to make comps of all the different "types" of 80's music. When doing this I also wanted a mix of "popular" songs as well as some rarities for each genre. The problem became I kept changing them or adding new ones, but I'm very near having it finished.

So far I've got:

New Wave
Adult Contemporary
Soul & R&B
Bubblegum Pop
Dance
Darkwave
Hair Metal
AOR
Rock
Pop N' Lock

And I even have a 2nd comp for the Soul & Adult Contemporary ones. I don't really have enough Punk nor like it enough to make a comp for that one but I would be willing to send these out to anyone whose interested.
-------------------------------------------------
What is love after all
but occasional steps
of a dance.........
.......In a trance?

Please provide a list of those that request your Pop N' Lock mix so that they may be summarily ejected from the forum. [:o)]

^^^ too funny! C'Mon Mike you know you loved that Breakin' movie!

~~~~~~Always remember you are unique....just like everyone else.~~~~~~

Nuh-uh. [i]Beat Street.[/i][^]

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<p align="justify">Sometimes, it can take me a week or two to compile a good set of songs for a cd or cd-set.

1. Every song has to have lyrics that [I feel] reflects the person. If there's a line I don't like in an otherwise perfect song, I won't include it.
2. I cannot place two songs by the same artist... with the exception of solo work (e.g., Morrissey and The Smiths, Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music can be in the same compilation). A compilation has to have variety because the selection is limited to 80 minutes.
3. I place the songs in a specific order. Examples:
- alphabetically by song title
- alphabetically by band/artist name
- chronologically by year (up or down)
- the titles of the songs spell something out (I try to keep the phrase or name at less than 16 letters in case there are long songs).
4. The songs have to flow from one to the other (i.e., I never place R&B music with New Wave or upbeat music followed by downbeat music, etc.).
5. OR I could throw those rules out and place songs in random order as long as they flow into the next (still, no two songs by the same artist/band and the lyrics have to appropriate).

Actually, I'm in the process of planning out a compilation for a colleague's birthday. I have "Happy Birthday" and "All Tomorrow's Parties" songs chosen along with songs that talk about a day of the week (i.e., "Manic Monday," "Tuesday Afternoon," "Wednesday Week," "Thursday," "Friday, I'm In Love," and so on). I will also include songs that talk about days in general; something such as "This Is The Day," "Today," "Yesterday." I'm just trying to figure out whether I'll weed out songs that don't flow or just add them into a mish-mash as long as they keep the "birthday" and "days" theme going[}:)]


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[quote][i]Originally posted by XXX[/i]
<br><p align="justify">Sometimes, it can take me a week or two to compile a good set of songs for a cd or cd-set.

1. Every song has to have lyrics that [I feel] reflects the person. If there's a line I don't like in an otherwise perfect song, I won't include it.
2. I cannot place two songs by the same artist... with the exception of solo work (e.g., Morrissey and The Smiths, Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music can be in the same compilation). A compilation has to have variety because the selection is limited to 80 minutes.
3. I place the songs in a specific order. Examples:
- alphabetically by song title
- alphabetically by band/artist name
- chronologically by year (up or down)
- the titles of the songs spell something out (I try to keep the phrase or name at less than 16 letters in case there are long songs).
4. The songs have to flow from one to the other (i.e., I never place R&B music with New Wave or upbeat music followed by downbeat music, etc.).
5. OR I could throw those rules out and place songs in random order as long as they flow into the next (still, no two songs by the same artist/band and the lyrics have to appropriate).

Actually, I'm in the process of planning out a compilation for a colleague's birthday. I have "Happy Birthday" and "All Tomorrow's Parties" songs chosen along with songs that talk about a day of the week (i.e., "Manic Monday," "Tuesday Afternoon," "Wednesday Week," "Thursday," "Friday, I'm In Love," and so on). I will also include songs that talk about days in general; something such as "This Is The Day," "Today," "Yesterday." I'm just trying to figure out whether I'll weed out songs that don't flow or just add them into a mish-mash as long as they keep the "birthday" and "days" theme going[}:)]


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[/quote]

Whenever I make a mix tape/CD, I generally let the mood and production values of each track dictate the flow. If there's horns on a track I try to place it alongside another track with some brass instruments, etc.
Tempo plays a big part as well. The "Alternative Archives" links I post every week are basically glorified mix CD's with the chosen year that week as the overall theme.

<p align="justify">I just made a rough draft cd compilation for an upcoming birfday[}:)]

01. "Lovely Lauren" by Oliver Jones
02. "Red Roses For A Blue Lady" by Bert Kaempfert And His Orchestra
03. "Happy Birthday, Love" by Springs
04. "Days Like This" by Van Morrison
05. "These Are Days" by 10,000 Maniacs
06. "All Tomorrow's Parties" as performed by Japan
07. "Forever Young" by Alphaville
08. "Sunday Sun" by Beck
09. "Rainy Days And Mondays" by The Carpenters
10. "Tuesday Afternoon (Forever Afternoon)" by The Moody Blues
11. "Wednesday Week" by The Undertones
12. "Thursday's Child" by David Bowie
13. "Friday, I'm In Love" by The Cure
14. "Saturday Night" by The Bay City Rollers
15. "Special To Me (Phoenix Audition Song)" by Paul Williams/Jessica Harper
16. "This Is The Day" by The The
17. "Sing Today's Praise" by Asobi Seksu
18. "Remember" by Air
19. "Lauren Caught My Eye" by The Crash
20. "One More Time" by Daft Punk
21. "Asleep From Day" by The Chemical Brothers/Hope Sandoval

I listened to this and I have to change the order of some songs, replace a few, and add more blank tracks to reflect her age (i.e., if she's 23, add a coupla blank tracks to have the number of tracks total 23). One thing I do wish is to be able to control the volume from track to track and be able to do some cheep fade-ins and outs. I'm too lazy to learn, but I really should[}:)]

One thing I wanted to ask some of yous is how do you upload your music into the computer - what program and in what format (mp3, wav, flac, etc). I've been using Windows Media Player to rip everything into mp3 at 320kbps. I think I fucked up[}:)]


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I think everyone here has great ideas and rationale for how to make a compilation. But, I want to just ask WHY you make a compilation? To turn someone onto music, to a loved one or friend you want to excite with your tunes, cherry-pick your favorites. Do you think that CDs (albums) are sequenced as a whole anymore or as a collection of independent singles and that maybe this thinking has arrived with the iTunes store and the limited attention span. Just thoughts, no judgements here. I used to make mixtapes from vinyl because it was just easier to play in my car:) and play in my walkman my favorite songs of the moment but mostly just for me unless someone has inspired me to put a "theme" together especially for them. Would welcome any thoughts or insights. Thanks for the thread!

elektrikblu
"Don't look at the carpet/ I drew something awful on it/ See."