Mike Hampen November Mix - Comments Page 2

This is the "extra disc" sent to my by Josh Benton with the November trade. Simply titled, in a blank CD case with just an e-mail address to contact the maker. The tracklisting is on a simple CD label.

1. White Stripes "Fell in Love With a Girl" - Apparently, everyone is into this band. I'm not, really. They aren't bad, especially the live version of "You're Pretty Good Looking," found on November's Crabwalk mix of the month. This song isn't nearly as good, but it's not bad either. Typical post-punk stuff.
   
2. AC/DC "Back In Black" - A classic. I have this one on record, tape and several CD's. Who doesn't have this one?
   
3. Fuel "Sunburn" - It's okay, but nothing special. Typical pop-rock song you'd expect to find on the radio.
   
4. Ten Years After "Hey Joe" - I much prefer the original. This is a live version with nothing special in it.
   
5. Three Doors Down "Kryptonite" - Eeewww... it's Three Doors Down. Oh, wait. It's a pretty good song. Not bad at all, actually. It's got quite the groove to it. I vaguely remember this being a radio hit at some point.
   
6. Led Zeppelin "The Lemon Song" - Nice to hear this one again. I haven't heard it since I put away my Zeppelin tapes with the rest of my casettes. I only have the two disc sample from the Remasters boxed set now, so the more obscure songs aren't there. Dig deep into some Zeppelin albums and you find some real gems in between the smash hits we all know. This is one of those. Nice dirty little blues feel to it. Great bass line, too.
   
7. Three Doors Down "Down Poison" - Them again.... "Kryptonite" is a much better song. The opening riff sounds like Metallica. The rest of the song is annoyingly "nu-metalish". It actually sounds quite a bit like a Creed song to me.
   
8. Jimmy Hendrix "Purple Haze" - What can I say? Stand back, the master is at work, still. This is still a smokin' song, how many years later?
   
9. Robin Trower "All Along the Watchtower" - Live version, which is cut off at the end which is rather annoying. I'm not sure where this came from, since I can't locate it on any discography I've seen. I like his newer stuff, but this one doesn't even sound like him. Check out "Twentieth Century Blues" to see what I mean.
   
10. Santana "Black Magic Woman" - Another classic. I'm not a big Santana fan, but I think everyone knows this song.
    
11. Pink Floyd "Comfortably Numb" - Ewwww. I'm not a big Floyd fan and this particular song greatly annoys me. This is the even more annoying live version, I believe from The Delicate Sound Of Thunder.
    
12. Guns 'n Roses "Welcome To The Jungle" - Another one everybody in the entire free world has. Not the best GnR song, but not the worst, either. I remember when this was a huge radio hit. I loved this album when it first came out, then the radio was playing them every 30 seconds or so and you couldn't go anywhere without someone sharing GnR with you. I got really, really, really tired of the entire album. Now that it's been several years, I can listen to it again. In hindsight, it wasn't as good as it seemed back then.
    
13. Metallica "Whiskey in the Jar" - Thin Lizzy did it better, but I enjoy this version too. Most of the first disc of Garage Inc was quite the diversion from the covers I had heard from Metallica at that point. It was interesting to hear this one and "Turn The Page." I love the CD though. It was much better than "Load" and "Re-Load," which I thought were crap.
    
14. Aerosmith "Janie's Got A Gun" - Another song I hate. This song was super-annoying when I heard it every five minutes on the radio and it hasn't aged well, either.
    
15. White Stripes "Dead Leaves and Dirty Ground" - A rough, demoish cut. This sounds nothing like any of the other White Stripes stuff I've heard. It kind of sounds like early Lynyrd Skynyrd, actually. That's not a bad thing, though. It's a good song with a nice groove.
    
16. Led Zeppelin "Kashmir" - Another Zeppelin classic. I never cared too much for this particular song. I love Zeppelin, just not this particular song.

Wow, looking back at that review, it's overwhelmingly negative at the individual songs and/or bands. Actually, I found this mix rather enjoyable to listen to. I guess I'm not too big on the individual songs, though, if that makes any sense. This disc had a nice mix of the familiar and the new and it was much heavier than the other discs I've gotten from this trade, so I liked it. It wouldn't make me run out and buy every album the songs came from, but I would definately listen to it again.…