DEEP AS LOVE

So a couple weeks ago, for whatever reason (bored at work), I suggested my #1 radio fan/requestor clean up a Lisa Frank-inspired mix she had made in response to previous prodding. I'm glad I feigned toughness and jerkiness because she did in fact produce a splendid mix of cute pop candy. It's great, you should check it out.

Anyway, the grounds of the suggestion were basically that I would put forth a counter-mix to end all fake-mix-beefs. This gave me good reason to dust off like 55% of a mix I had fooled around with months before but neglected, leaving it to collect dust and wonder if it would ever be tampered with again. Finally, after way too long, these songs have been arranged just right.

There's no real single source for this mix's inspiration -- one part early MTV memories, one part DJ Darmok vibes, one part escapism into a dream world where one can be as smooth as their wildest dreams paint them. But most of all the mix stands in response to all the girly pop found on the all-female-fronted Lisa Frank mix. While a bunch of those older songs seem to be lost in some vintage void where wives and girlfriends wait patiently for their husbands and boyfriends to return from a day on the job, the songs found here are songs performed by men, or groups of men, with the sole purpose of selling records to these same swooning women.

The decades have changed, but the same sentiment rings true - the consumer wants to hear a pop song that affords them the opportunity to imagine what it'd be like, even if just for the duration of the tune, to be the one who these songs were written for. Heterosexual men (primarily) want to imagine The Angels are singing about them when they harmonize like "ba-ba-ba-oooh" just like men fantasize about what it'd be like to be one of those male models in a golden age Mariah Carey/Janet Jackson video that they're fretting over/falling for.

The songs on this mix take on the other end of the binary, providing pop fantasy fodder for (primarily) heterosexual women to gush over. What if my body was the body that was calling to R Kelly? What if Silk wanted to freak me? What if Roger Troutman wanted to be my man?

Marketing ploys aside, these songs provide a very, very small peek into some of my favorite R&B/soul songs from the late 70s to the mid 90s. There's some truly sensual excursions into soul, enough R&B cheese to rot your teeth and tons of blood-boiling sexual imagery (obviously).

It is with a strange amount of pleasure that Friendship Bracelet presense Deep as Love: A Mix for Midnite. Turn down the lights and shut the blinds - it's going to be a long nite.



DEEP AS LOVE: A MIX FOR MIDNITE


LUTHER VANDROSS - A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME

SHAI - IF I EVER FALL IN LOVE (REMIX)

SILK - FREAK ME

FREDDIE JACKSON - TASTY LOVE

NEW EDITION - HIT ME OFF

READY FOR THE WORLD - LOVE YOU DOWN

TEDDY PENDERGRASS - CLOSE THE DOOR

ZAPP & ROGER - I WANT TO BE YOUR MAN

R KELLY FT. AALIYAH - YOUR BODY'S CALLIN' (REMIX)

SHAI - IF I EVER FALL IN LOVE (ORIGINAL A CAPELLA VERSION)

LENNY WILLIAMS - 'CAUSE I LOVE YOU