That's What They Always Say

1. Fake Shark - Real Zombie - Designer Drugs
2. Hadouken! - Dance Lesson
3. Xerox Teens - My Favorite Hat
4. Bolt Action Five - Girl Howl
5. Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow
6. Stop Die Resuscitate - Hello
7. Pull Tiger Tail - Animator
8. New Young Pony Club - Ice Cream
9. Fake Shark - Real Zombie - Shame On You Scabs
10. Hadouken! - Superstar
11. Punk Bunny - 076 Slut (Remix)
12. Danananaykroyd - Totally Bone!
13. Dresden Dolls - Backstabber
14. The Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control
15. Matters Of State - Fraud In The 80's
16. The Deftones - Pink Cellephone ft. Annie Hardy
17. Pull Tiger Tail - Mr. 100 Percent
18. Hadouken! - Tune In
19. Untitled
20. Bolt Action Fiver - Spring Heel Jack
21. Klaxons - Gravity's Rainbow (Nightmoves Remix)

Myspace dayz.

As far as I can recall Myspace would have been my first real experience of social media. As I'm sure it will have been for many. I never had Bebo and sometimes lurked various forums but wasn't a big contributor. But Myspace was something different. For me it was where I learned the rules and etiquette of digital interaction and where I first saw its value. 

In the beginning it was like the Wild West on there. Anything goes. That freedom was really exciting to this noob.  You could change the design of your page, the colours and add pictures. You could post blogs. Post photos. Post links. Start discussions. You could create an online persona that could be used as an avatar. You could talk to people you wouldn't normally be able to. People anywhere in the world. You could be provocative with out having to answer for it. Anonymity. And importantly you could choose how to soundtrack the whole thing.

Any artist could have their own page and upload tracks and then you could add one to your profile. You could change it as many times as you liked. Suddenly there was a platform where new artists could connect with a wide audience immediately. They could share songs with the world before they'd even played a single show. The whole process was flipped upside down and back to front. And it was horrible. And amazing. And great. And the worst. It was exciting and it was excruciating. Music executives must have been pretty startled to have so much of their power fall from their grasps in an instant. Again.

These were also the Mediafire dayz. The zShare dayz. The second evolution in the filesharing era. Napter and then Audiogalaxy and Soulseek and Limewire and the rest opened the floodgates. As soon as a song or album was available somewhere it was available everywhere. And for free. Completely illegally of course. Myspace was the Wild West, this was the high seas and piracy was rife. These new filesharing sites simplified things further. Name the music you wanted and you could more or less type it into Google followed by the words zShare or Mediafire and you'd find the mp3 of the song or a zip file of the album. Too easy.

Between all these sites it was all way too easy. For a music fan it was like being given the keys to the biggest record store on the planet and being told 'go ahead, take whatever you want, I'll grab a van and give you a hand'. From classic records to new demos by young artists, it was all in there. So much stuff and so much of it not good. In fact so much of it was terrible. With the capability to share without the filters of live audiences and record labels and producers everyone from the supremely talented to the tragically deluded were free to unleash their 'art' on the general populace. 

But that was part of the fun. You'd spend hours wading through garbage and then you'd hit upon something really special. When that happened if felt earned and personal. Your own little discovery. The digital version of digging in the crates.

The other week a friend asked me if the fact that I couldn't remember most of the tracks on a compilation I made less than 10 years ago says more about the disposable nature of music at that time or about how bad my taste was at that time. I told him I thought it was a bit of both. The massive explosion in availability and exposure to new music as it was happening made me get perhaps a little too excited too soon. Premature you could say. I was young, give me a break. Every new band or artist could potentially be the next greatest thing. But very few of these acts ended up holding my attention very long. I could easily be seduced by the idea of a band and convince myself that they were good for a short time before sobering up and realising that they were not.

Of all the acts on this mix I think only a few are still going with any kind of audience. Obviously The Deftones were big long before I made this mix in 2006 and continue to be, this song though is not their finest hour, just a curiosity being that it features Giant Drag's Annie Hardy on vocals. Gossip, a band that I for some reason always thought were called The Gossip, had released a couple of records prior but this was their big moment (however their Aaliyah cover is the best thing they ever recorded), they're still going but not as visibly as they once were. Klaxons have quietly worked away under the radar, largely forgotten. Same goes inexplicably for Hadouken! who as I've stated before are as terrible now as the ever were. I think New Young Pony Club are still about. As for the rest I have no idea and frankly have no inclination to find out. Most of the songs on here are fine at best or utterly forgettable or unlistenable at worst. Some of the tracks are untraceable online and that is a blessing to be quite honest. I may have the only copies in existence. I will guard them with my life. Don't want them falling into the wrong hands.

But ah, the Myspazz dayz eh?

Clay Shirky says that "Communication tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring". I think that was what was happening here. We got shown the vast possibilities and it was too much. We didn't know what to do with it so we did EVERYTHING. Oversharing and overindulging.  Dr. Ian Malcolm said it best when he said, and I'm paraphrasing, "you were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn't stop to think if you should". I think we've moved past this stage in the social media landscape and have gotten to a better place. Some of us have anyway. Some platforms are still used idiotically by morons but that's always gonna happen. Okay, scratch that maybe it hasn't gotten better but at least we've all calmed down a bit in the way we share and experience music, its a little more measured and level-headed now. Right?

Until Beyoncè releases a new song that is. Then everyone loses their shit. Me especially.