Super Awesome Mix
"I made you a mix tape" -- some of the best words to hear from someone you care about! Join Matt and Sam on a weekly mix tape adventure: each guest is asked to pick a theme and make a mix tape, which will be unveiled over the course of the episode. You're guaranteed to hear about good music, some new music, and even learn some trivia along the way. Come listen with us, and be sure to grab your copy of the mix made available in the Super Awesome App in each episode's show notes. IG/Threads: @superawesomemix
Super Awesome Mix
Matt's Birthday Mix: Debut Albums of 1995
Matt's birthday-inspired journey through debut albums from 1995 reveals the remarkable beginnings of artists who would shape music for decades to come.
The mix includes everything from Alanis Morissette's record-breaking "Jagged Little Pill" to Dave Grohl's post-Nirvana reinvention with Foo Fighters.
The mid-90s represented a pivotal moment in music history. Grunge was evolving, electronic music was gaining mainstream traction, and powerful female voices were reshaping rock and pop. We dive deep into tracks that showcase these shifts – like Garbage's ironic commentary on angst in "I'm Only Happy When It Rains" and The Chemical Brothers' groundbreaking electronic soundscapes on "Exit Planet Dust."
What's particularly striking is how many of these artists continue creating vital music today. Ben Folds, Guster, The Chemical Brothers and others have evolved their sound while maintaining the creative essence first displayed in those 1995 debuts.
https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/matt-2025-birthday-mix/pl.u-EPWWTVMmxr
1. Leave Home - The Chemical Brothers
2. All I Really Want - Alanis Morissette
3. Where I Go - Natalie Merchant
4. Santa Monica - Everclear
5. Only Happens When It Rains - Garbage
6. This is a Call - Foo Fighters
7. Cruisin' - D'Angelo
8. Make My Heart Flutter - Jack Ingram
9. We Danced Anyway - Deana Carter
10. Guinevere - Edwin McCain
11. Fall in Two - Guster
12. Underground - Ben Folds Five
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welcome back to another super awesome mix. My name is matt said home, alongside my co-host and co-founder of super awesome mix, sam abu salbi sam. How we doing this week.
Speaker 2:You know I'm doing fine, but how are you doing?
Speaker 1:because it is your birthday happy birthday, thank you, thank you. Somehow you managed to remember every year and on the spot, I then make up a mix in honor of my own birthday, and you have to adjust on the fly. So I mean yeah, we had something else, complete with something else, completely different plan, but since you remembered it was my birthday, I put together a birthday mix yeah, one of these years I'm not going to remember.
Speaker 2:And then what we're going to do? We're just going to go with whatever the plan was.
Speaker 1:Because remember we're changing this on the fly, on the fly, yeah.
Speaker 2:What's weird, though, is that I guess I'm going to know what songs you have in your mind, because I will be presenting every song to you.
Speaker 1:So don't worry about yeah, that's true, that's true. Yeah, you'll kind of just know.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I'll just kind of know but yeah, tell me about this year's birthday mix you did this year's birthday mix, yeah, um.
Speaker 1:so here was my thought process, and and there's one song on here that kind of triggered this thought process but, uh, it's my 30th high school reunion this year, and so I started to think back about what bands are 30 years old, and specifically so in 1995, the year I graduated high school. Like okay, what did we get for the first time that year from these bands? Like so this is a list of songs from debut albums from various acts.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think by and large they are acts people have heard of. A lot of them have gone on to huge things since here, and there's just a number of others that I think most people have heard of. I don't think there's too many deep cuts on here, but I thought it was just kind of a cool exercise to look back at that year. You know we love the 90s on here. You're a huge 90s music fan, so I'm hoping there were some on here that you really enjoyed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's funny. I don't know how this worked out, but if this was an A-side B-side mix, like the first six tracks are all songs that made me so happy to listen to, like I just loved, loved, loved them and I knew them. I'd heard them a million times before and then b-side, I hadn't heard of most of them.
Speaker 1:Funny enough, like I'd heard the band, but I hadn't heard of the song.
Speaker 2:You know, like I um so like a lot of the b-side was like completely new for me all these years later, um other again, others than the artist, but yeah, it was. It was really funny how that worked out, um, so I'm a big fan of the a side. At the very least you've got that going for you, I love that.
Speaker 1:I love that. I figured, as I was going through this I was like, oh, he loves I. There were definitely some bands on here I know you love and um, I don't know. I just I was like I think he's going to be a big fan of this mix. So complete opposite of last week's episode where we intentionally tried to make things miserable on each other. Really thought here, you were going to love this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, no disrespect to Bruce, but he's nowhere in sight on this mix, which is just amazing for any mix on our show.
Speaker 1:You know, bruce's debut album was a couple decades prior to 1995, so he was not eligible for this mix on our show. So you know, bruce's debut album was a couple decades prior to 1995, so he could not, he was not eligible for this mix uh, you probably could have done like 30 albums out and he could have been eligible probably not. Yeah, that's right, that's right all right.
Speaker 2:well, let's kick this off your first track here and uh, just as a reminder, I will be introducing every song, but we start off with a wonderful song. Love these guys.
Speaker 1:This is Leave Home by the Chemical Brothers yeah, so the debut album was called Exit Planet Dust and this is actually the first track off of that album. I don't think they got really popular from like a radio airplay standpoint until maybe a couple albums in. So like listening back at this, I don't remember a lot of these songs and it was also a time like I was going to remind people this you know, 30 years ago, there's no iTunes, there's no streaming, there's no, you know, satellite radio. So you know if it's not kind of top 40 and just sort of listening, you know, being played on your local radio station or you knew someone who knew someone who could get you a tape of somebody.
Speaker 1:It was really hard, I think, to discover new bands back in the day. But anyway, so the Chemical Brothers something a little different here I mean kind of electronic music. And yeah, this lead track, I just loved it. I thought it had great energy to it. I also just love how it kind of repeats this sample of the brother's going to work it out, which I think is a pretty bold choice for your lead track and your debut album. And you're known as the chemical brothers because you're kind of just, you know, shot across the bow there that like, hey, we're going to figure, gonna figure this thing out, we're gonna be around for a while, um, but sure enough, they really have been. I mean, I think we just featured new music from them maybe last year or something like that.
Speaker 1:I mean they're they're still cranking out a lot of music yeah, no, it is, um, it's.
Speaker 2:It's great. I love this track, um. I again always shout out the the lyric writer, although these days it's probably just AI, but I love the faithful recreation of Brothers Gonna Work it Out over and, over and, over and over again. That's right. So you know, if you want to do karaoke to the song you'll probably get bored, but you know you're going to hit every single line. You know it's going to be great.
Speaker 1:Nothing should trip you up, yeah.
Speaker 2:Nothing's going to trip you up yeah, gonna trip you up. Yeah, you're just gonna work it out. You're gonna work it out. Um, but yeah, they are just so good at electronic music and this is one of those ones where it's like you, I could go back and listen to this one and still enjoy it all these years later.
Speaker 2:And I feel like that's difficult for some edm artists, because edm is just like it just has changed so much and the genre has expanded a tremendous amount and certain things that I mean, like dubstep right, we covered dubstep last in in the worst mix last week yeah um, where it's like it went through a moment and now I feel like I don't know, it's certainly not as popular as it was in that moment and it's kind of difficult to listen to some of those. But this one you're like yeah, okay, like you can, you can bop along to it. So I really like this.
Speaker 1:I think it's like this, like fat boy slim and like a number of others who came out in this time, still very listenable and, and I wonder too from their perspective, how much technology has changed what they do and the way they do it, because you think about back here like to mix all these songs together like that. That must have been quite the chore, whereas nowadays, with you know the computers and the electronic files, I'm sure splicing things together is significantly easier than it used to be yeah, absolutely yeah, no, it's so true.
Speaker 2:All right, well, um, we're gonna leave the edm world and go into a completely different direction.
Speaker 1:Another great track, though this is all I really want by alanis morissette yeah, I mean the biggest selling album in 1995 and and still one of the biggest selling albums of all time is alanis morissette's debut album, jagged little pill. Um, which is remarkable to think that was her debut album and and it still holds all these records. Um, of course you've got hits like you Oughta Know. Ironic Hand In my Pocket. This was the lead song on the album All I Really Want, and this has always been my favorite song from that album.
Speaker 1:I just love the energy of it. It's kind of got the same energy as you Oughta Know, but I just haven't heard it one trillion times. So that kind of I don't know maybe makes it cooler. I also love the part where she says why are you so petrified by silence here? Can you handle this? And then it just goes silent, which I think is really cool. So you think about it. You're putting this record on, you know, 30 years ago. You've never heard this artist before and they actually, you know, spend a few seconds just in complete silence on the first track. So I think that's kind of a bold choice there, but a lot of bold choices on this album. Um, there's a reason it's so good you can go back and listen to it, um, over and over she. You know she never quite hit the same heights, but I think she continued to still put out some pretty quality music even after this album.
Speaker 2:But this one will always be one worth revisiting yeah, I think a while ago we did like a best debut album mix or something, and I if if this wasn't on there I can't remember now it absolutely could be, because it's, it's so, so good, um, and and definitely holds up this many years later. I also was gonna call out the the, like the moment that the song cuts out, because it does actually give me like a little bit of anxiety in that moment. Um, so it works really well, you know, like for what she was going for? Um, the other thing that's really funny is like I, when I read the title, all I really want it's impossible for me to not then immediately sing, it's to have some fun like because of that other song.
Speaker 1:Wait, the cheryl crow song yes, which I know you love that's terrible, oh my god.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, I've been programmed to just hear all I really, and and that's it. It doesn't matter anyway, all I want to do. That's so funny, you're right you know she could have gone with. All I really want is to have some fun. That was to her. You know, grammatically I feel interchangeable.
Speaker 1:Well, I thought, yeah, I was. I was kind of racking my brains when you threw that out there. I was like, what song is that? Is that a beach boy song? And then I'm like, wait, does he mean Sheryl Crow? Yeah, all I want to do.
Speaker 2:Oh goodness, I need more coffee. It's still early here, all right, all right. Well, this is where I'm going to go next, and this is track number three, and it is when I Go by Natalie Merchant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, natalie Merchant. This was her debut solo album, so prior to this she was best known as the lead singer of 10 000 maniacs and I think just prior to this they had put out uh, mtv used to do a show called unplugged, where bands would come on there and sing, like a bunch of songs from their catalog, you know acoustically and um, 10 000 maniacs had a huge appearance on there like, and that was that was one of their really big albums, was their mtv unplug appearance. But she goes solo with this one. Again, a couple of massive hits from this one. This was actually a really big record.
Speaker 1:Wonder and Carnival are two songs that still get a lot of radio airplay and she's made a ton of solo albums since then, so she's definitely someone still out there. I like this song and really I like the whole album. She's got a voice and I don't think I'd ever made this connection before, but she kind of reminds me a little bit of Nora Jones and there's just something really comforting about her voice when you, when you hear it. So, um, this is a cool track again.
Speaker 2:The whole album is is worth going back and listening to yeah, I think we've been spending too much time together because I have like the exact same notes. I I'm gonna need to take a break here. I I literally wrote kind of reminds me of nora jones, and then I followed it up with a very calming track.
Speaker 2:So yes you're totally spot on with both of those things. I, I love the lyrics, like I just they match the vibe perfectly. You know, like she just paints this really pretty picture, like find a place on the riverbank where the green rushes grow, see the wind in the willow tree and the branches hanging low. You know, I go to the river to soothe my mind, to ponder over the crazy days of my life. Like it's just very poetic and it's sung so beautifully and so, yeah, this is a song you can just kind of like put on, lose yourself to um with her, her voice and the lyrics, everything. So I, I totally agree with everything that you just said. It's really, really nice, all right. So next up, another longtime favorite of mine.
Speaker 1:This is santa monica by everclear yeah, these next three tracks I think I don't think they're as calming as maybe the first. Uh, the first three, yes, um. So yeah, uh, santa monica by everclear, uh, debut albums called sparkle and fade. This was my favorite song from this album and probably still my favorite everclear song. But they've obviously they're still making music. They've put out a ton of huge songs since then, but, um, I just love how this one builds up. I feel like you're probably going to be a pretty big fan of that. I think it paints just such a cool picture, like lyrically, and um, I just love the old school notion of like california being this sort of land of hope or something like that and you know, new beginnings or something. I feel like that's such a that used to be a really big thing, I feel like in the 50s and 60s, like going west and starting over and so it's kind of cool to hear that in a song from the mid-90s.
Speaker 2:No, you're absolutely right. I'd never really considered that. But it just popped in my head like Mad Men you know in the show at some point where he goes to California, that movie about the band that I'm blanking on. But they go to California and it's like this whole experience for them.
Speaker 1:But anyway, yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 2:That Thing. I think it's that thing you do, yes, yeah, yeah, no, it's great. I mean there's definitely that cultural phenomenon, I guess going all the way back to the founding of California, of like there was promise there, there was a gold rush, et cetera, et cetera. So you're right, I think they really capture that in this song. I never really like the lyrics of you know, to our point, like we could live beside the ocean, leave the fire behind, swim out past the breakers and watch the world die, just like letting you know, letting everything be in your past, basically, and watch it from afar. So it's a great track. All right, five your next pick. It is, and I totally agree with the sentiment um, I'm only happy when it rains by garbage all right.
Speaker 1:This is from their self-titled debut album. Shirley manson the lead singer here. I think the debut single was stupid girl. I think that was the one that kind of caught on early on, but but this was ended up being a pretty big hit as well.
Speaker 1:Um, interestingly enough, the band said it was kind of written in response to a lot of the angsty grunge rock era that that dominated the early 90s, and I kind of love that, just because for me at that time, like I never got into a lot of that music.
Speaker 1:I think looking back I can appreciate it a lot more. But at the time I like I never got into a lot of that music. I think looking back I can appreciate it a lot more. But at the time I just wasn't very unhappy and just listening to these songs everyone just seemed very unhappy. So I love the irony in this one of just kind of only happy when it rains and, you know, pour some misery down on me. Like she repeats that over and over and because, yeah, that really was sort of of that era where it's like every all the all this music was super popular but also just a lot of unhappiness there. So it was kind of a cool note to dig up on this one yeah, I hadn't ever heard that either, but I I saw the same thing.
Speaker 2:Uh, and it totally makes sense. And for some reason now grunge music only ever reminds me of an episode from the simpsons. It was like mid. You know later seasons of the simpsons, but it's called that 90s episode and homer actually starts like a grunge band you know, very similar to like nirvana, and he has a song. I think we featured it in our like fake songs mix um from tv shows or movies oh, yes, yes where he, he parodies glyine, but he sings it margarine.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And yeah, he's just, you know, very morose and down, even though he's living this like beautiful mansion and has all this success and everything. It's so great, wonderful episode of the Simpsons. I go back and watch that one often, but yeah, everything was just kind of like. They also poked fun of the Smashing Pumpkins and the Simpsons too, where they featured them, and it actually was Billy Corgan, I believe he lent his voice for the episode, but at some point near the end of that episode he's like all I've got is my fans, my money, my success, my music. And he's like oh, I guess things are not so bad. It's something like that. It was so funny. It was so funny. Obviously, smashing Pumpkins is another band that is just so woeful in their music, despite everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably day-to-day life pretty good for them right, all right.
Speaker 2:So track number six, obviously one that I love and know very well, this is this Is A Call by Foo Fighters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, another self-titled debut album. This was highly anticipated really at the time, because it was, you know, just a couple years after Kurt Cobain's death. And now it's like, hey, remember this guy from Nirvana, remember the drummer? And it's like not really. It's like remember the drummer and it's like not really. It's like, yeah, well, he's gonna put out an album, he's got a whole new project, that's like right, all right, what is this gonna be?
Speaker 1:and, uh, dave grohl, when he recorded this album and correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he played every instrument in the studio as they actually laid down the tracks here so I also thought that was kind of cool. I didn't know about that at the time, but, yeah, I this was just kind of a big. I just remember this being kind of a big event because it was like, okay, what is this going to be? Because Nirvana was so hugely popular and then now here comes Dave Grohl putting out some music and there was even some, um, some controversy with, uh, courtney Love and Dave Grohl, like some friction there, and I think some friction probably still exists. But anyway, yeah, but obviously a really strong debut album. And Foo Fighters maybe the biggest rock band in the world, like just pure rock, I mean, even today. So 30 years onward. So just kind of crazy to think that they are a 30 year old band and seemingly still getting bigger and bigger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's true. I mean they absolutely fill stadiums around the world anytime they go on tour. So, yeah, I love this song. You know it wasn't the first Foo Fighters song that I had heard. That was Learn to Fly, which also had a very silly music video, and I think that's actually how I was introduced to them because, again, that was back when MTV showed actual music videos, um, and so you know, I got intro to them there and then obviously discovered the rest of the album through like Napster days or buying a CD or whatever. But what I love here is like the lyrics really are so nonsensical and Dave Grohl even at some point goes back and he quotes like the lyrics are so dumb, they're so bad. For the most part it was nonsense, and I'm just glad that he finally admitted that, because I think people try to find meaning in them.
Speaker 2:He literally writes like fingernails are pretty, fingernails are good. Sometimes it seems that all they ever wanted was a marking you know, like truly nonsense stuff. But wanted was a marking, you know, like truly nonsense stuff. But I imagine people poured over them at some point in his you know post like massive success of trying to find meaning in it and he's like nope, they're just dumb lyrics. I think he does that fairly often, you know.
Speaker 1:Sometimes he'll just like put a lyric in just because it works and not for any other reason I'm sure there's plenty of high school yearbooks where people's senior quotes are something from the Foo Fighters that are they've all just intended to be nonsense right all right.
Speaker 2:So let's go on to track number seven, the so-called b-side, if you will.
Speaker 1:So this one is where I'm a little less familiar with these, and this is Cruisin' by D'Angelo yeah, d'angelo maybe not as there's a couple artists on here that probably aren't as well known as some of the others, but his debut album, brown Sugar, came out in 1995. I mean, he's still making music now. He's an R&B singer. I remember owning this album and just really enjoying it and he's got a great voice, he's got a great sound. This one's definitely worth looking back on. You can go through his Apple profile or Spotify and just find stuff that you're going to enjoy because he's just a good singer, good musician.
Speaker 1:Interestingly enough, and it kind of made me think and there's a couple other artists on here that when I was going through their debut album, this was the same case.
Speaker 1:It's like you used to have to put out a full-length album, right, like that was kind of a big deal to. If you were going to be an artist, your, your debut should be a full-length album and as a result, you saw more debut albums with just cover songs on there just to kind of fill out the album, and I think that was the case here, as well as a couple other artists, and it just it's just kind of interesting because nowadays I mean, you and I could make a single and put it out there. You know, I don't know how popular it would be, but we don't need to go sign a record contract and come up with 12 songs for a full album. We just need any one song, or you could put an ep or whatever. So it's just I don't know. I just found that striking too to see how how much the music industry has evolved that's all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's an excellent point. Um, or even just like our last new music mix, I believe you know, I've featured a young, uh, new yorker who basically started his music career uploading things to youtube or soundcloud or whatever. It was right. Like, um, kids with with phones basically can then go on to sign record deals one day.
Speaker 1:It's really really wild or not deals and just make money off streaming.
Speaker 2:Right exactly yeah, no, exactly, um, but no, this is a really, really, really good track like. This is just like a classic r&b track. It's just so smooth. I think this is. You know, we talk about cover songs that like maybe don't need to exist. Um, this is not one of those. I think this is absolutely like a cover that's worth existing. It's. It's really well done, but I had not heard it, so I really enjoy listening to it all right track eight. Another song I hadn't heard of, but I had heard of the artist. This is make my Heart Flutter by Jack Ingram.
Speaker 1:Yeah, jack Ingram's well known to country music fans, but maybe not as broadly. This was his debut album. He's had a couple of moderate radio hits, but he's been a touring musician for 30 years and, interestingly enough, when the 2011 Dallas Mavericks won the NBA title, he was the Mavericks good luck charm in that they were undefeated every time he sang the national anthem before the game. So that was kind of a funny note on Jack Ingram. But again, that was 2011. This was 1995.
Speaker 1:This is a kind of a clever sort of classic country song. I think that's what drew me to it was just lyrically. It's pretty well done. He's got a sound very similar to Keith Urban and Keith Urban has just had a monster career and has been on American Idol and put out a ton of albums. So it's just kind of funny to hear him go back and listen to this and it's like it's really not that far off from like a Keith Urban record and yet somehow Keith Urban has has hit much higher heights than Jack Ingram has. They're both still working artists, so nothing bad there, but it was just an interesting comparison, I noticed.
Speaker 2:Hmm, yeah, no, I'm not. I mean, I'm not super familiar with Keith Urban. I know the name but I'd not listen, so I can't comment on that. But I did really like this track. I mean it's a cute song. I did note that it's not a song that ever would have made my library in 1995, or in the late 90s.
Speaker 2:Correct, correct brothers as we talk about it. Um, but you know I I can appreciate this song now because it is cute, the lyrics are nice, it's just like a cute little love song, so I enjoyed it all. Right track number nine um, this one I think I was just fully not familiar with, like uh, both artists and song.
Speaker 1:This is we danced anyway, uh, by deanna carter yeah, deannaanna Carter had an album called Did I Shave my Legs for this? That came out in 1995.
Speaker 1:Great album name yes great album name and the lead single was Strawberry Wine, which was just a monster country music hit and it's something that still gets played today and people are huge fans of it. But this whole album was actually really good. Like she is, it's kind of rare, but I think she's a country music one hit wonder. It is where the category I would put her in. But this was the second single from this album and I think it's actually kind of a better song than strawberry wine, although strawberry wine's great, um, but it's just kind of paints a great picture like great lyrics. I think musically it's really good, um, it's. It's really kind of remarkable when you go back and listen to this album why she was never able to recreate this and come out with something bigger. So I feel like if the uh, you know, if anybody at cmt, if country music television is still out there and they want to do a behind the music on Dina Carter, like I would definitely tune in for something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I was familiar with Strawberry Wine when he said it, I recognize that. But I had not heard this one. But I really liked it. I thought again, another really cute song, you know, nice little like kind of love song. It reminded me almost of like a, like a female counting crows you know, in a way, Like it just had. It kind of had that vibe to me.
Speaker 1:So I really enjoyed it. The la, la, la, la la's. I think so Exactly. Yes, I think that's exactly it.
Speaker 2:That's kind of his whole thing. But no, it's a really nice track, so I liked it. All right Home stretch here, track number 10.
Speaker 1:Guine all right home stretch here. Track number 10 guinevere, by edwin mccain all right, edwin mccain really hit, like I don't know, stratospheric, stratospheric heights with the song I'll be like, which is like by far his biggest hit. Um, but he's not at all like a one hit wonder and he he's been making music for for a long time and I think that song was probably what 2007, 2008, somewhere around there, and uh, this was a dozen years before that, in 1995. Um, the album's called honor among thieves. Um, it's a.
Speaker 1:It's a really good album, but it is squarely a 90s album. Right, like you could have played this for me and told me it was better than Ezra or any number of other like 90s bands, and I would have believed it. Like it wasn't something where it's like oh, this is a, it's a distinctive sound for the era. So that's that's what I kind of loved about it, maybe really like. If you like 90s music, you can go back and listen to this album and you'll probably dig the whole track or the whole thing. But I went ahead and picked this track but could have picked a few others.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this one, I believe. Yeah, I wrote here that it reminded me of. There's this like easy listening station that my parents used to have on in the car all the time. I think it's called 95.5 something, but it was like that. You know, smooth, like quote, unquote, smooth rock, right, like no, no one's gonna be offended listening to it, like you can just kind of put it on and it'll just be in the background, like that style of music, and I feel like I could like it. Probably played on that radio station is what I thought of when I heard this song. But yeah, and I think it had a nice saxophone play in it too. It's a nice little instrument there. It's not often you hear a saxophone in a.
Speaker 1:I mean that's pretty crucial for soft rock, right, right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:All right, track number 11 here it is, fall in Two by Guster.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is off their album Parachute, and this was actually somebody had mentioned this recently. This album and this was what got me thinking about debut albums from 1995 was this mention. It's a really strong album. But Guster's a band that I think we've featured on the show multiple times with something from either a new music mix or songs we've thrown on other mixes. So they've continued to make good music. But this was a really strong debut album. The song Parachute itself was a really big song, but I went ahead with picking this one. Some of the lyrics why does a river spread us thin? What he could start, no one would finish, I just thought kind of really struck me because I don't know whether we felt it ourselves or thought about that with other people. It was just sort of those people who kind of try to do everything and just have these impossible tasks ahead of them. I don't know, I think that those lyrics really stood out for me. But yeah, great song and just really an album definitely worth revisiting or just visiting for the first time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I had not heard the song from Gus Star. I started listening to them, I think, in like the early 2000s with one of their subsequent releases, but I really enjoyed this track. I think it's you know to your point about the lyrics I wrote here. That was a really nice kind of storytelling track, Just one of those where you can just kind of like listen along and get a sense of this person that they're singing about, and so, yeah, I really liked it. And I need to go back and revisit this album because I have always Guster is probably in that category of bands where anytime I listen to a track of theirs I'm like, oh right, Guster, I should listen to them again. That's right, yes.
Speaker 1:They are very much in that category.
Speaker 2:Yes, but I never think about them top of mind. So yeah, it's great. Thank you for reminding me about their existence. All right, track number 12, your last one on this year's birthday mix for you, and it is Underground by Ben Folds 5.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ben Folds is still doing music now. I think we had him on a new music mix maybe just last year, but he started out as part of the Ben Folds 5, which I think, ironically just contained three band members.
Speaker 2:Very confusing.
Speaker 1:I feel like maybe a very 90s thing, I don't know to sort of misname your band. Yeah, they hit it huge. A couple years later they put out a song called Brick which was by far their biggest hit. But this was their debut album and just it's got such great energy Like I love.
Speaker 1:You know he plays a piano and there's so many you know great instruments on this track and really, like I said, the whole album. But this one in particular is about kind of being an outcast, which I think is kind of a running theme for Ben Folds throughout his albums, is just sort of how and he describes it as being part of his childhood how he just wasn't part of the cool crowd, he wasn't one of the cool kids and you know this kind of speaks to a place, whether it's literally or metaphorically, you know the underground where it's like you know sort of these outcasts get together and sort of find a community in some way. So I think it's something almost very relatable today too, because I'm sure some people don't have a community necessarily that they could directly tie into and so they could probably relate to a track like this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really like that. I like that aspect to it. I really like this track. I also had not heard it, so again, like a lot of new discoveries on the back side of this mix. But, um, someone noted, I think, in the comments that it sounds almost like a Billy Joel track and I totally agree with that. I think, oh yeah, it kind of has that vibe to it which, I mean he's a classic, so this works really well. Um, I found it to just be really catchy and obviously I like in my head, ben Folds and piano go really well together, which I think is very similar to the obviously Billy Joel. But I think the piano play works really really well in this song too, so I enjoyed it for that aspect. Um, also a huge fan anytime piano makes an appearance in a track, so I enjoyed it totally agree all right.
Speaker 2:Well, that is the end of your birthday mix. Um, I really enjoyed it. 1995, great year for music. I'm a little sad you didn't suddenly fudge it to do 1997, but I'll take it. You know, I really enjoyed it. 1995, great year for music. I'm a little sad you didn't suddenly fudge it to do 1997, but I'll take it. I'll take it.
Speaker 1:That's what I should have done. Yeah, I've made myself younger. I think that probably would have benefited me it probably would have liked the music on there just a little bit better, but that's okay, maybe next year we'll do that. Okay, no one will remember my actual, my actual age, so that'll work out.
Speaker 2:That's right, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, there you have it, Another super awesome mix for your collection. Sam and I have plenty other mixes to work on. You could follow us at super awesome mix on social media. We are on threads, we are on Instagram and, sam, we're on YouTube, correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, we are. You can find all kinds of new videos that we've been publishing and lots of new stuff coming out there, so you can find us on YouTube at super awesome mix. We have all of our shows content there, not just this one, but also what are you listening to and super awesome you, and then eventually the battle too. We will get that uploaded shortly, so pretty exciting development for sure all right.
Speaker 1:Well, sam and I will get to work on our next mix. So for sam, this is matt and we'll see you next time.
