Pitchfork

The box-office nosedive of The Real Cancun-- a throwaway cockumentary that combined The Real World with Girls Gone Wild-- taught the purveyors of this junk culture a painful lesson: Americans love reality-based entertainment as long as its free. Below the Radio, an album of songs compiled by Grandaddy's Jason Lytle, might prove to be a similar acid test for the indie fan's mixtape. You probably enjoy making, giving, and receiving mixes. The question is whether or not you're willing to pay regular CD price for one, even taking into consideration that its creator is an indie celebrity of, presumably, the most refined and immaculate tastes.

Mixtapes are great for self-expression, for deepening interpersonal relationships, and for allowing non-musicians to participate in creating music's context. The creation of a successful mixtape is a delicate, nuanced art, and the phrase itself is so entrenched that it persists despite the primacy of CDs. But it seems dubious that such a populist, grassroots phenomenon can make the transition to regulated commerce and remain intact-- can Lytle's offering truly even be considered a mixtape?

Collecting previously released music from various rock bands on a CD isn't a new idea; we simply call them compilations instead of mixes, which identifies by omission a couple crucial characteristics of the mixtape-- it must be free, and created specifically for the recipient. As such, Lytle's mix seems like a compilation in disguise. It was created for an unknown audience, and he sure as hell isn't giving it away. But while most compilations are united by a theme such as genre, label, time period, or subject matter, Lytle's is built upon the mixtape keystone of Songs I Like, and is being marketed as one as well.

Often, the tapes you or I make are influenced by their recipients-- romantic songs for a significant other, heartbreaking songs for an ex, songs with happy associations for friends with shared history, etc. Since Lytle's mix is for strangers who only know him through his music, it seems prudent that, for the most part, the songs he selected sound quite a bit like his own band. Lush yet sleek and slightly sterile is the dominant style of Below the Radio, and one can easily imagine Grandaddy playing Beck's weary, 50s-style pop ballad "We Live Again", Beulah's gleaming, harmony-laden "Burned by the Sun", Earlimart's creeping wash of beeps and strings, "Color Bars", and Snow Patrol's frosty guitar anthem "Run".

Because the songs are so redolent of Grandaddy, Below the Radio has a sense of continuity. The record flows through a polished initial section that culminates with the velvety jangle-pop of Goldenboy's "Wild Was the Night" and then shifts to a looser mode that includes Fruit Bats' comparatively shambolic "The Little Acorn", the four-track folk and cracking vocals of Home's "Comin' Up Empty Again", and the rickety, key-hopping charm of Little Wings' "Sand Canyon"-- the melody of which is strikingly similar to the Decemberists' "I Was Meant for the Stage". So the mix is well-sequenced, with no jarring transitions and even some that are ingeniously seamless (the percolating drone that closes Beulah's track seems to naturally birth the heart-rate monitor pulse that opens Earlimart's). The record is closed by its only previously unreleased track, Grandaddy's "Nature Anthem", a pleasant if undistinguished campfire sing-along that reasserts Lytle's kindred spirit with the songs he selected.

Lytle should also be credited for avoiding obfuscation. Let's not shit ourselves-- when we make mixes, we don't always just choose songs we hope the recipient will enjoy. We create palimpsests of our personalities, and the urge to fudge is strong. You know that Swell Maps song you always put on mixes even though you never listen to it, knowing that the recipient will be impressed and pretend to like it as well? That's not included here. There are no hipster oddities or historical remnants on Below the Radio. The oldest and probably weirdest track is Pavement's 1995 melange of detuned organs and ratcheting embellishments, "Motion Suggests". Instead of presenting us with difficult, cool songs we'll start skipping after a couple listens, Lytle has packed his mix with more melodic and accessible fare, which is admirable-- if it's hard for us not to want one person to think we like Merzbow, how hard would it be to pass up the chance to make thousands think we like Merzbow?

There's one more mixtape pleasure that we've yet to address-- on any good mix, the listener will inevitably come away with a new band to cherish and seek out. Somehow, until I heard Below the Radio, I'd managed to avoid ever listening to Giant Sand. After hearing "Bottom Line Man"-- a lovely, sly ballad that closely resembles one of my favorite bands, Silver Jews-- this will certainly be remedied. The discovery of a new favorite is worth the price of admission; perhaps there's a similar treasure for you to exhume from Below the Radio, or an old favorite to rediscover.

 

"