How to create your own all-US teen drama soundtrack

You know the ones... originally crafted by the makers of Party of Five and My So Called Life, the tactic was mimicked by Dawson's Creek, The O.C., and One Tree Hill (which, although I never watched, surely contained the same types of plotlines, montages and over conscious dialogues as the rest of the clan.)

The strategy is basically to comb through indie labels past and present, look for jazzy cover versions of well-known classics, make the soundtrack CD pretty much the only place on earth you can buy that ever-so-catchy-I-must-have-it title song, and hey presto - just shy of an hours worth of tunes that "define a generation" - or at least defines what TV they watch. They'd spend days or weeks looking for heart-string tugging tunes, breathy vocals (think Elliot Smith) and acoustic guitars all to create a cocktail that isn't even an album, it's just an echo of this year's season - but we love them so much!

Anyway, I found out how they do it these days. Go to Pandora.com and click "Create new station". Enter "How to save a life" - great track from The Fray. "Create". Done. It will then create an almost infinite playlist of tracks that all work so well as an all-US teen drama soundtrack... perfect, if you're inviting your sexually awkward neighbour in through the window any time this week. It'll give you some nice classics from usual suspect Counting Crows and Fountains of Wayne as well as stuff you don't know - like Goldenboy, Bernard Fanning and What Made Milwaukee Famous... all legititmate band names.

The one trick that the original guys missed was that New Season = New Soundtrack.... ah think of how much mid-nineties indie loveliness we missed out on!

Losing my conversation

I can feel my spanish drifting away from me, even with a co-worker from Madrid, I don't have the time or energy to devote myself to the language in the same way that I did in New York. I guess having to work full-time means that it has to take a bit of a back seat, but I'd still like to be progressing. Maybe I'll find a new CD to work through or something like that.