I am the first to admit that I emulate my musical influences. I’m pretty confident that I always manage to fall well on the proper side of plagiarism, but it’s impossible not to emulate the styles of the musicians I admire. In fact, emulating their styles is pretty much the point.
With that in mind, I compiled a list of the artists and songs that influenced me as I created Anagrammatic Pseudonyms just like I’ve done in the past with the album notes I post here.
This time I’ve taken it a step further though: I’ve created an iTunes iMix. You can buy it now on iTunes. Here are the songs:
“Pocket Calculator” by Kraftwerk
“Axel F” by Harold Faltermeyer
“Get Up Offa That Thing” by James Brown
“Let’s Work” by Prince
“White Mountain” by Genesis
“Inertiatic ESP” by The Mars Volta
“Out of Town” by Zero 7
“With Jupiter in Mind” by Joe Satriani
“Nobody’s Fault but Mine” by Led Zeppelin
“Anchor Drops” by Umphrey’s McGee
“Your Most Valuable Possession” by Ben Folds Five
“Hold the Line” by Toto
“We Own the Sky” by M83
“Clocks and Clouds” by National Health
“Down by the Sea” by Men at Work
Note that the songs in this iMix are in the same order as the songs on Anagrammatic Pseudonyms that they influenced (although there’s not a 1-to-1 relationship: some AP songs have more than one representative here — “Candor Stetson” has four — and some have none).
This iMix has a total running time of 73 minutes, which means that it’s a great set to put on a CD if you decide to go buy it (or if you’re as crazy as I am and already have all of these songs in your iTunes library).