The Bleak Mix

So a few weeks ago, for no reason except for maybe the endless threats of summer that never materialized amid the endless low fog, I started thinking about songs that make you feel bleak.

I'm forever working on these little mixes I prepare for the radio. I've got the next month or so lined up in the Notes app on my phone. Sometimes I think of a song I already have. Other times I think of a song I haven't heard in 20 years, which entails a pirating mission of some sort.

I don't feel the least bit bad about pirating music because the way I figure it, with all the records and CDs

Yes, they do. PSA fail.

and tapes I've bought in my lifetime, the music industry pretty much owes me. Also, I think that if they really want to line their pockets with more filthy lucre, they can get up off their lazy asses and come up with a new business plan that involves the 21st century rather than wasting time trying to convince First World children that music piracy is a moral crime akin to stealing bubble gum from the local shopkeeper. It's not. And the emerging economy kids aren't buying that bullshit anyway. It's so easy to hook up free music there are 12-year-olds here who have never done it any other way.

Copyright is copywrong. I want to have a T-shirt made with that.

Anyway, the mix I made for a couple of weeks ago when I broke the radio was still fitting for last week because summer had died again even though my mood had lifted for equally inexplicable reasons. But it's still fun to wallow in a bit of musical bleakness.

Here's the mix.

Bleak from istsstranger on 8tracks Radio.

And here's the songlist.

Candy Says-- Velvet Underground (it's about a pre-op transgender prostitute that died from too many cheap, bad hormone pills-- fucking tragic and gorgeous song)
We Stand Alone-- Covenant
Of Course-- Jane's Addiction
Venus In Furs-- Velvet Underground
Muscle Museum-- Muse
Coma Black-- Marilyn Manson (good thing we didn't have him when I was an angsty teen-- "I kill myself to make everybody pay"-- we had to make do with Depeche Mode when we felt all wrist-slitty in my day)
Something I Can Never Have-- Nine Inch Nails
World Full Of Nothing-- Depeche Mode (is it possible to make a bleak mix without Depeche Mode? No. No, it's not)
1959-- Sisters of Mercy (ouch. Gothy)
The Villain-- Austra
Chelsea Girls-- Nico (more tragic hookers via the Lou Reed connection)

Anyway, that's the story. I'm leaving out the part where the kid who comes after me on the radio explained his simple solution for my radio killing. It involved a restart, which I was too chicken to brave. These kids are ever so sweet.

Tomorrow's mix promises way more happy shit, I hope. But I'm not going to spoil the surprise.

Also I don't know for sure I'm not gonna break the radio again.