Every summer, Mr. Eades hosts his spectacular Summer Mix Series, a website project that collects enough user-submitted mixes to easily soundtrack your entire summer. As I write this, there are nearly 100 mixes currently listed on the website, and I expect they'll keep trickling in until the project's end date of August 23.
This year, Michael challenged all mix-ers to be rather creative with their theming, which definitely sparked some excellent concepts - like Sounds Vintage, Don't Call It Inadequate, Kill Me Softly and Songs to Frag By. And I definitely had trouble coming up with my own creative idea - I pretty much peaked with Whistle While You Work two years ago (which I still listen to pretty regularly) and was stumped when it came to another well-themed mix.
Weather Systems is the result of my eventual light bulb - a mix (kind of) about the weather. But instead of filtering down the 3,000 songs with "rain" in the title, I decided to go with all songs that actually include weather sounds - whether rain, thunder, or both. My inspiration was two songs that are in pretty constant rotation around here - Paul and Linda McCartney's "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" and one of my all-time favorite Spoon songs, "They Never Got You."
[ download .zip ]
1. The Temptations - I Wish It Would Rain
2. The Move - Flowers In the Rain
3. Paul & Linda McCartney - Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
4. Spoon - They Never Got You (mp3)
5. The Kinks - Rainy Day in June (mp3)
6. Cat Power - Say (mp3)
7. The Smiths - Well I Wonder
8. Beach House - Some Things Last a Long Time
9. ELO - Rain Is Falling (mp3)
10. The Ronettes - Walking in the Rain
11. The Arcade Fire - Ocean of Noise (mp3)
12. Moby - The Rain Falls and the Sky Shudders
Be sure to check out the rest of the submissions in the Summer Mix Series. And remember you still have time to submit your own!
