Posted on May 20th, 2008 by Colin
I recently found out via a comment about my last Muxtape that, like myself, my friend Hannah loves to sit in her room and listen to depressing music! Also, I learned that we both have what we consider to be excellent taste in emotional music! And since we’re really emotionally complex people who need to just feel things, we’re having a competition for which of us can make the saddest mix in the world.
Both of us had the same difficulty with this. There’s just so much depressing music that we both love. Limiting our Muxtape to 12 songs made us both feel like the mixes had certain inadequacies. Needless to say, Hannah brough her A-game. Both of the mixes available after the jump.
First, I present you with Hannah’s saddest muxtape in the world.
And now, my effort to create the most soul crushing, yet reflective, mix of music.
We both really seem to have brought our A-game here. Hannah’s inclusion of Tom Waits’ “Take It With Me” is particularly suicide inducing. In retrospect, I would have loved to have included some Antony, old Neko Case, or some Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, but what’s done is done.
With the exception of Xiu Xiu, we have very little band overlap, which makes our mixes in combo particularly dangerous. I claim no responsibility for any cutting that might arise as a result of listening to these alone in your room. I do, however, competently support consuming entire pints of Haagen Dazs in a single sitting as an alternative response.
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May 20th, 2008 at 11:14 am
neck-and-neck! for extra pain, start with colin’s and end with mine, since colin felt his beginning was strongest, and i feel my ending is.
i really wish i’d included some early fleetwood mac though. shit.
YAY FOR SUFFERING!
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May 20th, 2008 at 11:36 am
hannah wins. cubs for five = aural manifestation of a century’s worth of pain and waiting
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May 20th, 2008 at 11:58 am
I’m going to have to give it to Hannah. She started with Patsy Cline, that’s total A-game! Plus I have a hard time considering Guided by Voices sad. Genius, yes. Sad, not so much.
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May 20th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I’m going to give Colin my qualified vote. While there are certainly a lot of sad lyrics on Hannah’s, listening to Colin’s makes me sadder.
That said, points to Hannah for incorporating more genres and periods, and major demerit to Colin for stacking the deck by including TWO songs by Elliott Smith, even if one of them was a cover. That’s cheating- Elliott Smith is the most depressing person ever!
I think I’m going to make a muxtape when I get home just so I can contribute a glimpse of my own depression. I totally have a sad mix already made.
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May 20th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
GUYS,
Because of the depth of sadness I felt from BOTH of those mixes, I decided to make my own.
I decided to restrict myself with my mix to
1. only music that was already on my itunes
2. only being able to scroll down itunes once
3. not pick any artist used by Colin or Hannah
If my mix were ever implemented as a weapon, war would be over and the world would flood with tears.
LISTEN TO IT HERE :
http://michaelellecram.muxtape.com/
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May 20th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
It made me sad and depressed when I voted for Hannah’s muxtape and not Colin’s - so does that make Colin’s muxtape sadder? I’m confused.
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May 20th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
while i “enjoyed” these mixes (muxes?), i just can’t get behind a candidate that doesn’t endorse “Strange Fruit” as the Saddest Song In The World.
I’m endorsing these songs, most for their lyrics, as the saddest songs in the world:
http://joeyotis.muxtape.com/
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Fist Patrick reply on May 20, 2008:
I think I officially declare you the winner over both of us. I wish I had some of these songs on my computer. I love Will Oldham’s cover of I See A Darkness so much; it’s totally wrist slitting material.
I will be listening to this over lunch tommorrow crying into my Chipotle.
joe reply on May 21, 2008:
I agree about “I See A Darkness”, but it’s funny how many people think that the Johnny Cash is the original. It’s the other way around. Cash covered Bonnie Prince Billy, née Will Oldham.
Another note about the song–This American Life used it at the end of a story about a guy trying (unsuccessfully it turned out) to prevent his friend from committing suicide. It’s the only time hearing a song made me cry. At work. All over my keyboard.
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1061
May 20th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
Hannah, Colin: allow me to take you to school.
http://sadschool.muxtape.com
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hannah reply on May 21, 2008:
okay, so christopher’s is definitely the most heartbreaking so far, BUT I FEEL LIKE I NEED TO TELL EVERYONE THIS AS A PUBLIC SERVICE: he had a radio show in which he basically played the world’s most depressing music for at least a year or two in the not-so-distant past. so he has more “professional” depressive experience.
just sayin.