Finding Bowie, Understanding Mr. Blue Sky, and Fridays in Love
From artists who found him at the right moment to songs that became part of his story, Los' picks reflect a listener who sees music as part of his life story.
Some music finds its way into our lives immediately. Other music takes time before it reveals why it matters. Los (@themidnightmixtape) seems drawn to those moments of discovery and return, where artists can arrive at exactly the right time, albums can uncover new layers years later, and songs can become inseparable from the memories attached to them.
The July 28 to August 1 prompts explore the different ways those connections develop. The first looks at a colorful album cover, leading to a reflection on how a striking visual identity can become tied to the way we remember a record. The second turns toward an artist whose work he has recently begun exploring, opening the door to a deeper appreciation of an artist’s catalog. The third asks about a song that reminds him of a friend, becoming a reflection on how music can become intertwined with love, memories, and the people who shape our lives. The fourth explores a lesser-known album, leading to a reflection on the pivotal moments in an artist’s journey and the records that mark a transition between different creative eras. The final prompt looks at the perfect song for midnight, capturing the darker, more vulnerable, and immersive qualities that can make certain songs feel like they belong to a specific moment.
What’s a colorful cover you love?
I remember my dad having Out of the Blue on cassette as a kid and I always picked it as one of my favorites because it just looked cool. It had one of those black plastic cases so it made the colors pop even more. The cover has this really futuristic looking neon space station with a shuttle entering its docking bay. Full disclosure: I’ve always had a thing for space travel and astronomy, so the idea that this band was clearly out of this world just stuck with me. When I started doing some research for my reviews with The Midnight Mixtape, I learned that this cover was designed by Kosh, which is the same person responsible for the Abbey Road and Hotel California, both also iconic album covers.
The songs always sounded so futuristic too, with robots and strange space sounds, and as I grew older, I came to appreciate just how much that was their whole intention. They used a vocoder for some of the vocals to create a robotic sound and then combined that with lots of synth along with their classical orchestral instruments and made this retro-futuristic masterpiece.
This double LP is one of the greatest albums in rock history. It’s full of absolute bangers, like “Turn To Stone,” “Sweet Talkin’ Woman,” and “Mr. Blue Sky,” just to name a few of the popular ones. The third side of the album was written by Jeff Lynne to be this 4-track rock suite which he called “Concerto for a Rainy Day.” The whole side is this conceptual masterpiece where he uses weather as a metaphor for human emotion; it really is something special and something I would recommend listening to, if you haven’t already.
The first track on the side is “Standin’ in the Rain.” It has this really kind of dreary intro with actual audio from a thunderstorm and someone using a vocoder to give off this kind of spooky intro. The orchestra is in full swing on this one. Literally, the song is about a person stuck outside during a storm. It captures the isolation of the individual in the song, as he sits there getting soaking wet, ignored by all the others who are pre-occupied by their own troubles. The song establishes this feeling of an emotional storm, all the feelings of being depressed and conflicted but not having anyone who will listen. “I’m doing my best, but what do I get? The good intentions and the pain.”
The second track, “Big Wheels,” is probably Jeff Lynne’s most beautifully constructed ballad. The song is about fate and acceptance of things in life. I’ve always understood it as the moment that the individual in the song (or the concerto) realizes that he had it made at some point, but lost it due to life being life and in some metaphorical way didn’t save enough of those happy moments to get him through the tough ones. Its acceptance that he cant change what’s happened.
“Summer and Lightning” is the third track and it is the big change. It instantly sounds more upbeat. This one has always felt like sort of recovery song. He’s accepted that things aren’t going to be the same, so he chooses to see the beauty of the moment. “It’s all around me. It must be magic.” He sees that the terrible rainstorm is just a summer rain. There is this fun moment towards the end of the song where everything is upbeat. I always kinda picture it as one of those random scenes in movies where the protagonist breaks out into an unnecessary musical dance number.
The final song on the side is one of their best ever. “Mr. Blue Sky” has a completely different sound from the rest of the side. “The sun is shining in the sky. There ain’t a cloud in sight.” The full release from the episode he was going through. He’s asking Mr. Blue Sky through the song why he has “hide away for so long”, but I think it’s actually an internalized question. He’s realized he spent all of that time dreading and depressed only to find happiness at the end. Now, I have enjoyed “Mr. Blue Sky” since I was a kid, but the first time I actually stopped and listened to this side as a whole, it completely changed how I viewed this song. Its cheery and upbeat, yes, but its actually just the end of a really bad episode. Genius work if you ask me. As a single it did great and its been used in movies like Guardians of The Galaxy Vol. 2. Also, at the very end there is that vocoder again saying “please turn me over” as a reminder that there is a whole other side to this album.
Which artist’s work do you want to explore more?
I’m a firm believer that music is the universal language. Sometimes the universe doesn’t think you’re ready for certain artists, and so it keeps them from you, until the time is right. For most of my life, I avoided David Bowie. No real reason why, I just never found myself drawn to his music. I knew his hits and enjoyed some of them from time to time, but I never really sat and actually listened. I could never quite figure out why everyone was so obsessed with his music.
Then, earlier this year I did a series on the most essential albums of 1969. David Bowie’s self-titled album (aka Space Oddity) kept popping up on every list and with every person I spoke to, so I decided to give it a try…..Man! Not only did it make my list, but it completely changed my view on Bowie.
I immediately went down a Bowie rabbit hole and listened to a few of his most recommended albums, and I found myself getting lost in the uniqueness of every one of those albums I listened to. This wasn’t an artist who was content just writing the same song over and over, but instead he reinvented himself every time he felt like it. I found myself going back to albums multiple times, whether it was because a song would get stuck in my head or I’d think “what was that song about?” I realized his music wasn’t just meant to be heard once or just played in passing, this was music meant for feeling, meant for introspection, meant for interpretation. It wasn’t meant to be defined as just classic rock or art rock… this was its own genre.
So what’s left of Bowie to explore for me? Well, it feels like everything, if I have to be honest. Every one of his albums carries this aura around them and a tight fanbase that differs from one to the other. Its almost as if I have to be in the right headspace for each individual album. I got a taste of how much he can differ from one album to the other while listening to his “Berlin Trilogy” (the name given to the 3 albums he recorded while living in Berlin; Low, Heroes and Lodger). I think my next dive into Bowie is going to be those early to mid 70’s albums. Those seem to be along the lines of what I enjoy more… though I wouldn’t be surprised if I find myself journeying around his discography, because I truly don’t think he meant for his albums to be heard in sequential order, but instead just when the time is right.
What’s a song that reminds you of a friend?
I met my best friend my senior year of high school. She was transferred into my Creative Writing class a few days after school started and ended up sitting at the desk right in front of me. I don’t know if I necessarily believe in love at first sight, but whatever that initial feeling was, it was something my seventeen year old heart had an immediate reaction to. I like to think that we hit it off right away. She was into sports and music and she liked bands I had never even heard of. We were different styles, but we had similarities. After a few awkward teenage weeks, we exchanged phone numbers and began a run where we would talk every single day for the next twenty-one years.
Now, she has always been a fan of having her phone on silent, and in those days, if you were cool, you would have a custom voicemail greeting, and if you were really cool, it would be a grainy recording of your favorite song. Her voicemail greeting was The Cure’s “Friday I’m In Love.” It seemed like more often than not when I would call, I’d get a serenade by Robert Smith telling me about how miserable his week was, right up until Friday, when he would finally get to be in love. And while I liked The Cure just fine, I grew pretty tired of hearing him.
Thinking back on it, it was actually oddly metaphorical for me; I would listen through this voicemail greeting hundreds of times, but eventually, she would call back… and that feeling was something like what the song was about. I suppose at the risk of being introspectively cliche, I think I’ve been living in a perpetual Friday like the one Robert Smith sang about; we have been the best of friends since that first day we met… and years down the road, we got married and started a family.
We still enjoy listening to The Cure and got a chance to see them in 2023 and it was one of the most epic concerts I’ve ever been to; they played for 3 straight hours. It was absolutely amazing. Of course they played “Friday I’m In Love” and I would be lying if I said a part of me didn’t get those little strange teenage butterflies in my stomach when the song came on. There I was, sitting there next to the girl who had forced me to listen to this song over and over for so long, still completely in love.
Which lesser-known album do you love?
A little over 4 years before Electric Light Orchestra released their magnum opus, Out of the Blue, they released what I believe to be one of their greatest contributions to classic rock with On the Third Day. The album is something of a pivot point for the band as it was the first album that had Jeff Lynne in full creative control. An absolutely amazing album, albeit it’s a bit of a sonically two-faced record.
The first side is made up of these progressive, continuous, complex tracks, with some crazy tempo shifts, that flow like what you would expect a band with “orchestra” in their name to sound like. Now there is a song, “Showdown,” which is not only one of my favorites, but at some point was praised by John Lennon as a “Son of Beatles” song. Depending on which version of the album you listen to, it could be smack dab right in the middle of the side, or not included at all. Luckily, most modern digital formats have it at the “end of the side,” which is a great fit for it.
The second side is where it really shines, it lets go of the idea of having seamless songs and rolls right into some “heavier” rock, starting with this really cool instrumental called “Daybreaker.” It really bridges the two sides by serving as this sort of buffer. The second track on the side is one of their more well known singles “Ma-Ma-Ma Belle” and it is a complete departure from the clean cut songs earlier in the album and just goes into some classic heavy guitar riffs. The third track is this multi-part track called “Dreaming of 4000” that blends some heavy riffs with some really aggressive strings and has this cool futuristic vibe that to me are a little preview of what ELO would eventually become… and then finally it ends with this absolutely insane reinvention of the classical “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” there is this cool violin solo and synthesizers and this eerie creeping main composition played by strings and synth together and then BOOM there is this all out explosion of just awesome classic rock. Even if you don’t listen to the whole album, this track alone is really worth the listen.
Ultimately, On the Third Day stands as this awesome bridge between early experimental ELO and their later more refined symphonic pop, but it is, in my opinion, one of their most worthy contributions to classic rock.
Which song is perfect for midnight?
What does midnight sound like? It’s the moment where we are at our literal darkest, our senses distorted by that darkness, exposed, yet completely aware of every little noise and movement… with it comes this hidden sense of optimism; we know the morning sun is a short while away. So, what does the perfect midnight song sound like? Well, I need it to be dark, vulnerable, but not necessarily quiet, metaphorical, psychological and it needs to be a banger.
Enter Depeche Mode and the “Zephyr Mix” of “In Your Room.” The original track is this very on-brand Depeche Mode track with this slow burning brooding tone that plays like a ballad. Depeche Mode, and specifically Alan Wilder, had a way of giving synthesizers this almost sensual sound. Then there is the “Zephyr Mix”; mixed, or more like completely reconstructed, by Butch Vig, the drummer for Garbage and the producer behind Nirvana’s Nevermind. The synthesizers are all stripped back, there are guitars and drums and at a slightly different pace. While they are the same vocals, they have this extra layer of energy that the original track just didn’t have. They’re dark but not hidden behind walls of synthesizers. There is this slow build up with the original, but this mix just goes in, like it has a sense of urgency.
“In Your Room (Zephyr Mix)” lyrically is what midnight feels like. Martin Gore’s lyrics have always had a dark feeling to them, but in “In Your Room” they are at their most vulnerable and exposed. They paint the picture of simultaneous isolation and control, that hyper focus on a singular objective. Dave Gahan’s vocals are as haunting as the lyrics allow them to be. He is almost singing in a loud whisper for most of the song, but takes a strong commanding tone for the choruses.
The song is quiet, but loud. The lyrics are vulnerable but commanding. Full of so many musical elements throughout the song that it forces the listener to have to pick which instrument they want to listen to and fixate on that, much like the lyrics. It’s a song that can be danced to, but also just listened to in the dark. It’s about as close to a perfect midnight song as I think it can get.
Los has two very different ways of listening to music. There is the person who can spend hours going through an artist’s entire catalog, figuring out how one album led to another, catching a tiny sound buried somewhere in the mix. Then there is the person who puts a playlist on shuffle and lets whatever happens next happen.
Both versions seem equally important. The curiosity is there, but so is the instinct to simply enjoy a song when it finds its way to him. Maybe that comes from growing up around so many different sounds. His dad’s classic rock records, Cuban music at home, the hip-hop and reggaeton of his teenage years, the emo and hardcore scenes that came later. None of it needed to fit together neatly. It already belonged together.
That is probably why his taste feels less like a list of influences and more like a timeline. Certain artists point back to specific people. Certain songs bring back specific moments. Others open the door to entirely new parts of an artist’s world.
After decades of listening, there is still the same curiosity that was there at the beginning. Another album to explore. Another detail hiding in the background. Another song waiting to become an earworm.
A father, husband, and music enthusiast whose lifelong love for songs has been shaped by classic rock, different cultures, and a curiosity that keeps him exploring new artists.
