Happy Canada Day in advance! (Fun fact: Canadians celebrate their day of independence on whatever day is convenient because no one knows the real date.) Did you know Nickelback is from Canada? (Thanks Canada!) But so are The New Pornographers, Leonard Cohen, and Neil Young. Of Montreal is from Georgia but they're named after a bad ex of the bandleader who lived in Canada so that counts. Below are the instructions for adding to this week's Friday Mixtape: Oh Canada (it's funny because it's their anthem).
The playlist: Oh Canada
Add a song: Upload
Username: gawkercanada
Password: gawked
For reference, here is Wikipedia's exhaustive list of Canadian bands, and here's a shorter list.
Maybe I just have an inferiority complex about my novelty-music past, but I feel guilty about my love for song covers, particularly cross-genre covers. I even love when one hit song inspires dozens of covers. But instead of mocking the artists who remade "Crazy" or "Umbrella," shouldn't we honor them for reviving the "standards" tradition that enriched decades of jazz? Below are a few of my favorite sources for covers and the username and password for adding to 
I assumed until a few days ago that everyone had a playlist full of sad songs for when they felt really low. I mean I only had two mix CDs in college: Favorite new music, and the sad playlist. I've curated that sad playlist (now named "Blue") for six years. It's not that I'm a sad person, but a soundtrack soothes me in a time of sharp emotion, and certain songs will always hit me in the chest. So I've put a couple of songs from my "Blue" playlist on