I’ve already taken a shot at a Valentine’s Day Mix — and, being properly cynical, I did it in October — but I’d hardly consider it definitive, and I’m always delighted to spot a workable alternative.

This compilation by a Michigan law student looks promising enough that I may actually put it together myself, and damn the iTunes expense. It’s more contemporary than mine, which cuts off in the 1970s: the leadoff track is “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me” by the Jayhawks, which is not the song of the same title that every single Motown act seems to have recorded at one time or another.

Rather a lot of songs begin with this admonition, and the young lady with the weapon (she was actually selling hosiery, but who’s to know?) might be in a mood to enforce it. My first search for “Don’t” songs produced a list of nearly eight hundred; restricting it to those actually beginning with “Don’t” cut it back by three-fourths, and these were the ones that made the final, um, cut.

Track listing for 111130-2:

1. Electric Light Orchestra: Don’t Let Me Down
2. Elvis Presley: Don’t Be Cruel
3. Patty Duke: Don’t Just Stand There
4. Joe South: Don’t It Make You Want to Go Home
5. Herman’s Hermits: Don’t Go Out into the Rain
6. Beverly Bremers: Don’t Say You Don’t Remember
7. The Orlons: Don’t Hang Up
8. The Beach Boys: Don’t Worry Baby
9. The Beatles: Don’t Let Me Down
10. The Marvelettes: Don’t Mess with Bill
11. Paul Revere and the Raiders: Don’t Take It So Hard
12. Bettye Swann: Don’t Touch Me
13. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Don’t Do Me Like That
14. The Animals: Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
15. Petula Clark: Don’t Give Up
16. Crowded House: Don’t Dream It’s Over
17. Gerry and the Pacemakers: Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying
18. Peppermint Rainbow: Don’t Wake Me Up in the Morning, Michael
19. Elton John: Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me
20. Della Reese: Don’t You Know
21. The Human League: Don’t You Want Me
22. The Searchers: Don’t Throw Your Love Away
23. The Buckinghams: Don’t You Care
24. Dionne Warwick: Don’t Make Me Over
25. Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds: Don’t Pull Your Love
26. The Band: Don’t Do It

As of this moment, we are now running WordPress 2.1. If you see anything that looks any more out of line than usual, please advise.

I stumbled upon this piece, and decided it was far more thoughtful than anything I was likely to write this week, so I excerpt it here:

A mix tape is created to convey a number of sentiments such as an introduction to new music or a shared adoration for a particular genre. More often then not a mix is made to convey one thing and one thing only: Love. In all its splendid forms, a mix tape was most often utilized to clue someone in on raging crush or to further emphasize preexisting feelings. The reason that the tape is so heartfelt is because one must take a number of conflicting albums and mold a song from each into a cohesive entity. As the tape formation is under way, the creator is hearing how the music will mesh together to illustrate the concept that they want the recipient to garner from hearing the tape. A mix tape is an audio Valentine for any time of the year. One knows that there was a person not a computer pushing the stop and record button from the beginning to the end while the tape was being made. This fact is actually more important than one would think.

As technology has developed, cassette tapes have become obsolete and were replaced with mix CDs. Neither of the digital forms of music could truly replace the mix tape. Personalized covers can be made for both the tape or the CD but CD covers are usually produced with computer design kits. Some may choose to decorate their tapes with stickers or decals (I prefer heart and star stickers), this is not possible with a CD. A mix CD can be created within a matter of minutes while a mix tape is undeniably an hour project if not two or more. Compact discs will always last longer than tapes and will not wear out as fast but the more innovative technology becomes, the more depersonalized.

I admit to having put together a mix tape with romantic intentions, although it was more a theoretical exercise than anything else, since I am unlikely ever to find anyone for whom to make such a tape. (It’s also not available on CD.) And it takes me hours to do a decent CD, partially because I am seldom satisfied with my initial song selections, but also because I burn at the slowest speed I can manage, in the interest of higher fidelity and stability. (You may not care, but the stereo in my car is a trifle finicky, and this is where I listen to a lot of this stuff.)

Because I can, again yet another collection of songs that are seldom heard in stereo, with yet another variation on the same cover art. This includes rather a lot of DES — “Digitally Extracted Stereo” — which is essentially fakery, but often really good fakery. One such (no points for guessing which one) actually made it to a commercial release.

Track listing for 111129-2:

1. The Surfaris: Wipe Out
2. Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich: Save Me
3. The Crystals: He’s Sure the Boy I Love
4. The Beach Boys: Help Me, Rhonda
5. The Essex: A Walkin’ Miracle
6. Procol Harum: A Whiter Shade of Pale
7. Bill Justis: Raunchy
8. The Zombies: She’s Not There
9. The Dave Clark Five: Because
10. Diane Renay: Kiss Me, Sailor
11. The Marvelows: I Do
12. Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames: Yeh, Yeh
13. Jerry Butler and Betty Everett: Let It Be Me
14. Leapy Lee: Little Arrows
15. The Dixie Cups: Iko Iko
16. Jimmy Reed: Big Boss Man
17. Spencer Davis Group: I’m a Man
18. Terry Stafford: Suspicion
19. Senators Bobby and McKinley: Mellow Yellow
20. Neil Diamond: You Got to Me
21. Sam Cooke: Wonderful World
22. Manfred Mann: Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo)
23. Jorgen Ingmann: Apache
24. The Ronettes: Do I Love You
25. Herman’s Hermits: A Must to Avoid
26. Ritchie Valens: Donna
27. The Nashville Teens: Tobacco Road
28. Thurston Harris: Little Bitty Pretty One
29. The Champs: Tequila

This is a sequel of sorts to Choice of Colors, from many months back. Originally this was going to be simply a Blues collection, to be titled after the Bobby Vinton cut included herein, but I decided that this was sheer overkill. Speaking of sheer, the young lady in the picture is wearing hosiery by Alba; tinting by yours truly with as much mechanical assistance as possible.

Track listing for 111128-2:

1. David Bowie: Golden Years
2. Bobby Vinton: Blue on Blue
3. The Nightcrawlers: The Little Black Egg
4. The Browns: Scarlet Ribbons
5. The Rolling Stones: Paint It, Black
6. Jim Lowe: Green Door
7. Van Morrison: Brown-Eyed Girl
8. It’s a Beautiful Day: White Bird
9. Gary Lewis and the Playboys: Green Grass
10. Petula Clark: The Other Man’s Grass Is Always Greener
11. The Hollies: Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress
12. UB40: Red Red Wine
13. Madonna: True Blue
14. Clear Light: Black Roses
15. Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs: Li’l Red Riding Hood
16. Neil Diamond: Forever in Blue Jeans
17. Nick Drake: Pink Moon
18. The Marcels: Blue Moon
19. Brian Hyland: Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini
20. Cat Stevens: Bitterblue
21. The Doobie Brothers: Black Water
22. Yellow Balloon: Yellow Balloon
23. Sheb Wooley: The Purple People Eater
24. Ram Jam: Black Betty
25. The Lemon Pipers: Green Tambourine

I’d still never come up with a compilation idea this brilliant:

We’re starting with a thought that actually came to us almost by accident a few weeks ago, that in this 50 year history of pop music no single drumbeat has had the cultural impact of the four-beat Wrecking Crew seconds of intensity that kicks off Pitchfork’s sixth greatest song of the 60s and Rolling Stone’s 22nd best of all time, the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby”. (Alright, “Funky Drummer” has its fans, but that’s more for its intricacy and the fact it’s had the song named after its fill.) It seems resonant of an era, a genre and a possibility all at the same time, and with its comparative simplicity that even the most amateur of garage band skinbeaters can copy it’s no wonder it’s been co-opted so often in much. Once we’d got the obvious in as track one we found a good 35 or so songs that featured the beat in some way, shape or form, eventually cutting down to a trim 21 replicants, all of which feature it in its purest form and use it at the start or near enough.

And that’s exactly what you get: the original Hal Blaine thunder, and re-creations thereof that fit a lot better than you’d think they do.

I’m not quite sure what’s more amazing: the idea of Scarlett Johansson making a record album — and an album of Tom Waits tunes, at that — or that it’s going to be on Atco, fercryingoutloud.

Normally I don’t think of these as being “old-time,” but then I don’t think of myself as “old-time” either, and these songs, like me, date back fifty years or more. Mostly they come from the rhythm-and-blues side of things, though there are some pure-pop tunes sprinkled here or there for balance — or at least enough balance to justify not having to throw in any Eddie Fisher records, which were huge hits and which leave me cold as a cod. As for the young lady in the photo, I don’t think she’s really playing the piano: how could she work the pedals?

Track listing for 111127-2:

1. Wynonie Harris: Good Rockin’ Tonight
2. The Drifters: Money Honey
3. Ruth Brown: Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean
4. The Chords: Sh-Boom
5. Anton Karas: The Third Man Theme
6. The Orioles: Crying in the Chapel
7. The ‘5′ Royales: Baby Don’t Do It
8. Faye Adams: Shake a Hand
9. Arthur Godfrey: Slap ‘er Down Again, Paw
10. The Crows: Gee
11. Johnny Maddox: The Crazy Otto
12. Elvis Presley: That’s All Right (Mama)
13. Ella Mae Morse: Oakie Boogie
14. Bill Haley and the Comets: Rock Around the Clock
15. Nappy Brown: Don’t Be Angry
16. Etta James: The Wallflower
17. The Four Lads: Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
18. The Penguins: Earth Angel
19. Les Paul and Mary Ford: How High the Moon
20. Little Walter: My Babe
21. The Moonglows: Sincerely
22. Fats Domino: Ain’t That a Shame
23. Julie London: Cry Me a River
24. Jimmy Forrest: Night Train
25. The Platters: The Great Pretender
26. Big Joe Turner: Shake, Rattle and Roll
27. Patti Page: Mister and Mississippi
28. Chuck Berry: Maybellene
29. The Spaniels: Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight

There’s a lot less of it around these days, to be sure.

Case in point: Well-known record dealer John Tefteller has three copies of Meet the Supremes (Motown 606) in his September auction, all three mint, all three still sealed. The minimum bid he’ll take on the mono version is $250; on the stereo, $200.

Both of those have the 1965 reissue cover, which you can see here. The original “stool” cover from late 1962, which shows the girls perched on barstools, used for mono copies only — there was no stereo mix until ‘65 — pushes the price up to $1000.

(Incidentally, I used to follow Tefteller’s auctions in Discoveries, which is being folded into Goldmine starting next month; Tefteller says he’ll stick to the Web from here on out.)

(Update: My Goldmine subscription has started, in lieu of Discoveries, and Tefteller is back into the fold.)