[VA - The Best Of Love Songs (6CD) - 2011
Laurice Whack
Knowing how much joy they would have brought Mr. G, I packed them up and prepared to ship them home. But not before my mind wandered and I started to imagine what my perfect 6-CD stack would be. What would I be sliding into the changer to replace them?
Very cool and interesting article. That warm feeling you describe, when thinking of how much the previous owner enjoyed the car with the music he enjoyed, is very familiar to me. I recently purchased my 3rd car from Japan and I always truly hope to find some stuff, like CDs or HDDs in it. In my S15, there was an aftermarket stereo in it, with an HDD packed with music. Is there anything better, than imaging, how my S15 rolled on the streets of the Atsugi area with Lady Gaga blasting? My recent buy, a Toyota Crown, just had one CD in it and to be honest, its terrible, but I still dig the ownsers taste. Maybe it was a car, which a mum used for the kids. Most likely it was a VIP styled car before. Thinking of how it was maybe used in its previous life is just so cool.
However, when driving around for the last months in my Passat 3B, I had the same choice to make. It was equipped with a 6 CD changer in the trunk, so which CDs did I chose? In all honesty, it was way more fun going through the long forgotten CDs of my teenager time, than expected. Most of them were own playlists, some albums like "Songs for the Deaf" from Queens of the Stone Age were also included in my choice. So it was kinda time of a time capsule. Driving around in a car from 98 and hearing music of the early to mid 2000s. Period correct by accident, if you want to call it like that. The interesting thing is, that I tried to find one CD for every mood AND ones, which you never get tired of, which was a tough decision in the end.
Great article!
Cars and music, they belong together indeed.
In the 4th gen Camaro I owned, I had the pleasure of a 12 disc CD changer, so I could throw in a lot of music for many pleaseant rides.
But if it came down to six, it would be something like this:
Metallica - Symphony & Metallica
Jay-Z and Linkin Park - Collision Course
Some recent Armin van Buuren Stuff
I'd burn CD of Dash Berlin's DJ set at A State of Trance 650 in Utrecht (it was awesome and I was there).
Racoon - Live at Chass theater Breda (a Dutch ensemble, sounding very Irish).
Jason Mraz, We sing, we dance, we steal things
Very different kinds of CD's for different moods or drives...
I too love to sit in traffic, listening to the sound of diesels rattling and talk radio leaking out of other cars.
If you think six CDs and a headunit are going to slow you down, you have a hilariously high opinion of yourself XD
Then don't listen to it Or do something about that. The fact that you complain about diesels of other people tells me that you drive a modern car. Otherwise you won't even hear them. A car has it's own orcestra once you remove the insulation. The same goes for cupholders. A car is used for driving. Think of it as the kermit thing....
As for slowing you down: My car currently weighs 598 KG, down from 767KG. Thats with all the fluids in it. So yes, I take that seriously. A simple headunit weighs about 3kg at minimum. Speakers about 1 KG each, so 4KG. Subwoofer weighs a shitload, and tweeters weigh next to nothing so I won't take tweeters into account and I'm also assuming that there isn't an aplifier installed. There is however a CD changer, because you cant fit 6cd's into one headunit. So ad 3kg. I also won't take wiring into account since that will add an extra KG because of length. I've estimated all at the lower spectrum of things, because they still need magnets.
That adds up to 10KG. in it's current state thats slightly over 6% of its total weight. a.k.a. a shit-tonne.
Add to that that it's a lot of mass high up in the car and you understand that the weight penalty add's up. Its why Colin Chapman used to say: to add speed, add lightness. Guess what: Opposed to radio's in a car. So was Alec Issigonis, Or Jay Leno, or Chris Harris. I wonder why????
That's funny because I went the other way. I drive an Ariel Nomad and I put a JBL Flip in my car just so that I could have some tunes while driving. I'm definitely okay with adding an extra 12.3 ounces to my car so that I can drive around with some music. Nothing better than blasting some K-Pop while driving up the West Side highway in an Ariel Nomad. Haha
OK but you know, no one's really interested in knowing about your life or what the hell you do with with it. So "thanks" I guess, for you totally useless, hilarious, and mostly irrelevant 2-cents about the topic of this article.
Sounds like your driving a track car on the street. I am sure it is amazing on drives at 6am on a Sunday morning in the country but in the real world where you sit in traffic an hour each way to work 5 days a week i'll quite happily take my cup holders and 16 speakers. Cars and music go together like bacon and eggs. Spirited driving is great but didn't most of us cement our love of cars as teenagers cruising with our mates?
As for the stacker in my S15 (bought it new in 2002) it was in dash so I changed regularly but it always had Music for the Jilted Generation and Enter the Wu Tang in there.
Allmost: Rally car. And I do drive it in traffic a lot as it's my daily. It's just a different mindset: Business suit on in a rally car with a full harness. Or going somewhere with the dogs and the wife. People are just to used to luxery aren't occupied with driving.
And don't get me wrong: Music has it's place: I for one am more of Fat of the land guy (especially Narayan), although Jilted comes second. (does the pendulum remix of Voodoo People count?). Just not in a car....
Damn it, Ryan. This has caused me serious anxiety trying to narrow it down to six.
1. Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
2. Metallica - Master of Puppets
3. System of a Down - Toxicity
4. Kendrick Lamar - DAMN
5. Foo Fighters - Greatest Hits
6. Queen - Live at Wembley Stadium
Tame Impala - InnerSpeaker
Metronomy - The English Riviera
Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
Sugar Candy Mountain - 666
Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Multi-Love
Daft Punk - Homework
Such a great question. Congrats on the 996! One of those definitely has a place in my dream garage. This would be my six, although there is a long list of honourable mentions:
1. Curtis - Curtis Mayfield
2. Good Kid, M.A.A.D. city - Kendrick Lamar
3. Maggot Brain - Funkadelic
4. Where the Light is: John Mayer live in Los Angeles
5. CTRL - SZA
6. Axis: Bold as Love - The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Ryan,
My dad and my brother were professional musicians. I grew up with jusic. Wasn't until I got older that I discovered REAL music! Acid Jazz. It combines classical, funk, fusion, house, rock, Salsa, etc. in one song. You wanna hear some SERIOUS music? Check out Mark Farina, OM Records, Jamiroquoi. Prince has more music than most all other artists! I have almost 200 cd's I collected over the years. And now rental cars do not have cd players. Gasp! Hated those Porsche headlights! Porsche people complained so much to Porsche, they got rid of them! Thank God!
I liked how you mentioned you were listening to all the creaks and rattles on the way home. I had that very experience after picking up a cheap r53 Mini Cooper S a couple of weeks ago.
It would be great if you someone at Speedhunters could follow up on this article. How about how to bring a car stereo into the digital age while keeping the original head unit or a head unit of the same era.
I couldn't find any articles on the net on adding bluetooth to my original unit but I did find ones on how to add a 3.5mm headphone jack. While searching on eBay for the headphone jack using PicClick (this is to search eBay using images) I saw a picture of something similar with a bluetooth receiver and a Microphone. This was for a BMW of the same vintage with an Alpine head unit. I promptly found some images of the back of the unit on my car and saw the plugs matched the BMW unit. $28 au later I crossed my fingers and mentally prepared myself for the month or so wait for the bluetooth receiver to come from China. Will it work? From what I read and what I understood of wiring diagrams (which is very little) I think so. Will it sound as good as a cd? Not a chance. For some reason flac files seem to sound a lot better than equivalent MP3's but they don't seem to hold a candle to a cd.
Looks like my 6 cd's have already been mentioned by others though I would add anything by A Perfect Circle and bring it on! by Machine Gun Fellatio.
I do remember reading something about a company modifying a head unit for an old Porsche using modern internals as well.
Articles such as this and the types of responses from not only the readers but also the author's is one of the reasons I check on Speed Hunters almost every day (the insane photography and the variety of cars/bikes and styles help too). There's never any toxicity (System of a Down excluded) and when someone posts something a little antagonistic the replies are measured and thoughtful.
After the loss of my project car due to financial/medical reasons coming here has been a real joy despite being unable to drive or having a car for the last couple of years.
J Dilla - The Shining
Company Flow - Funcrusher Plus
Sean Price - Mic Tyson
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
D'Angelo - Voodoo
The Roots - Things Fall Apart
I remember the days of struggling to think of what CDs to bring for road trips...trying to make sure it was albums that contained little to no skips...given that this predates burning CDs as well as curating your own playlists on flash drives that can hold 12,000 songs (technology gives and takes...I swear) Best CD mix trip I ever had was on a drive from northeastern North Carolina to the metro DC area (4.5 hour drive starting at 2 in the morning) I didn't miss a beat...barely hit my forward button...the worst? I missed horribly on my album choices on a 3 1/2 hour drive from northern Va. to Raleigh...the risk of hitting up Borders books and bulk purchasing 8 new CDs on a whim. They were not all hits I'll tell you that.
I would love to do all of this rowing through the gears on a backroad laden drive to some destination nodding my head the whole way.
Great question, great article....thanks for the reminder.