Oh, Canada! The Birthday Suit Edition (Volume 2)

Every year on April 12, I team up with Allison from My Quarter-Life Crisis to do something fun and imaginative for her birthday. In 2010, we teamed up for Bloggerstock. In 2011, she commissioned myself and several other unwilling victims participants to send her a Birthday Playlist of songs that are all about her. Narcissist. <3<3<3

Last year... well, last year, we got lazy and I think I just sent her a card or something. Oops. FAIL.

This time, I really wanted to make up for my lack of creative juices (haha. "Juices."), so I decided to go all out. Allison is Canadian (and also from the hometown of my future child support, Ryan Gosling), and she claims that they have very limited access to all things Dunkin' Donuts. This is unacceptable to me, because Dunkin' Donuts brews the world's greatest coffee, so I sent her a packet of that. She was also curious as to how Kit-Kats in this country are consumed (is this Canada or Neptune?), so I threw in a bag of those as well.

Allison and I also decided to make each other mix CD's. This could be because we wanted to keep with our "music" theme, or also because we're terrified of getting older and are desperately trying to hang onto our last shred of immaturity. At any rate, I went a little overboard and chose so many songs that they spilled over onto two discs, because that's how I roll.

I tailored my CD's specifically toward Allison- I included songs that had good beats for running, some picks from the aforementioned birthday post and, of course, the requisite Canadian tuneage. I also made sure to have some songs that were geared towards the two of us and our remarkable, heart-tugging friendship (i.e. The Good Life, One More Time, Raise Your Glass, anything Foo Fighters). Also of course there's some Radiohead on there, because it wouldn't be a Nugs-made product if there weren't.

Here are Allison's Birthday Mixes, for your perusal:

OH, CANADA! PART 1:
All I Really Want- Alanis Morissette
Gold Lion- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Rock & Roll Queen- The Subways
Parallel Universe- Red Hot Chili Peppers
Los Angeles is Burning- Bad Religion
Gold on the Ceiling- The Black Keys
Clumsy- Our Lady Peace
Karma Police- Radiohead
The World Is New- Save Ferris
Alison- Elvis Costello
Raise Your Glass- P!nk
Borderline- Madonna
We Are All Made Of Stars- Moby
The Good Life- Cracker
One More Time- Daft Punk
We Are Young- Fun.
Any Time At All- The Beatles
Shining Light- Ash

OH, CANADA! PART 2:
Move Along- The All-American Rejects
Steady As She Goes- The Raconteurs
Teardrop- Massive Attack
Young Blood- The Naked and Famous
Promises- Nero
Marigold (Live)- Foo Fighters
All I Ever Wanted- The Airborne Toxic Event
Everybody Got Their Something- Nikka Costa
Dog Days Are Over- Florence + The Machine
American Girl- Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
Fight For Your Right- Beastie Boys
Queen- Another One Bites the Dust- Queen
You, Me and the Bourgeoisie- The Submarines
Do Everything Now- Saint Motel
Heartbeats- The Knife
If I Had a Gun- Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
Since U Been Gone- Kelly Clarkson
Dancing On My Own- Robyn

I did try to be all "forward" and shit and find a bunch of artists that Allison might not know and therefore would discover and think of me whenever she visualized her cooler friends, and I assumed that I did a really good job with this until I received her mix:


AL'S MIX:
Keep The Car Running (Live)- Foo Fighters
Stompa- Serena Ryder
John Lennon- Arkells
Wicked and Weird- Buck 65
Almost Crimes- Broken Social Scene
My Body's a Zombie For You- Dead Man's Bones
Miracle Mile- Down With Webster
Shadow of a Ghost- Emma-Lee
The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead- Final Fantasy
Canada Geese- Gord Downie
The Hazards of Sitting Beneath Palm Trees- Hayden
Seeds- Hey Rosetta!
Alison- Jeremy Fisher
Hayloft- Mother Mother
Top Yourself- The Raconteurs
Yellow Brick Road- Raine Maida
The Bootleg Saints- Sam Roberts
One Great City!- The Weakerthans
Wolves- Whaletooth
No Glamour in the Hammer- Whitehorse
Honeypie- Wil

Wow. FAIL! on my part, again.

There are some parallels (read: a few of the same bands; songs called Alison- see what we did there? We're so clever), but basically, what this tells me is that Allison is way cooler than I am with a much better taste in music. She also thought to put a song from Ryan Gosling's band on there, which I played over and over (and over) again before actually listening to it.

Since today is Allison's birthday, I have a whole new calendar year to think of something to prove that I'm not completely inept. Just know that it will most likely involve Baby Goose, and quite possibly bail money.