Forever Valentine

Those of you with significant others/hot dates have probably already started working on your mixes, at least if you’re as geeky as I am. Mine is in two parts. Part 2 is going to be 70s soul (suggestions/mp3s appreciated), but here’s part one, with selected tunes for your downloading pleasure.

1. The Constantines – “Love In Fear”
2. Doves – “Sky Starts Falling”
3. Spoon – “Anything You Want”: mp3
4. The Wrens – “This Boy Is Exhausted”
5. The Shins – “Girl Inform Me”
6. The Supremes – “Baby Love”
7. The Count Basie Band – “One O’Clock Jump”
8. Fennesz – “Shisheido”: mp3
9. Radiohead – “Worrywort”: mp3
10. Yo La Tengo – “Our Way To Fall”
11. Mia Doi Todd – “What If We Do?”
12. Richard Hawley – “The Ocean”
13. Kings of Convenience – “Know How”

Girls Can Tell has been dominating my iPod lately. I love Spoon but their last couple albums felt inconsistent to me, whereas GCT is wonderful all the way through. “Worrywort” is one of my favorite Radiohead songs and happens to be a b-side, and Fennesz is long overdue for some love around here.

This mix pretty obviously has two halves. At this point, I’m trying to feed the gf things she likes (Constantines, Wrens, Doves, Richard Hawley — man, I’ve trained her well), throw in things I’m reasonably sure she’ll like (Spoon, Mia Doi Todd), and stuff I adore that she’ll ignore (Yo La Tengo, but maybe not). Obviously some of these songs have personal implications, but not all.

Post yer own favorite v-day mixes in the comments, gang.

So many good records coming up. Can’t wait ’till they start coming out f’real so I can actually review them.