The Monday Mix - The Soundtrack That Changed Your Life

"You gotta hear this one song — it’ll change your life; I swear."

You may not have been an indiephile but you probably listened to some indie music before 2004. It likely wasn't a prescient choice, and you probably didn't realize that some of your favorite songs were pushed to your favorite radio stations by indie labels. But then Sam swore to Andrew that the song New Slang by The Shins was going to change his life.

It did, and it changed yours too. That single scene from the movie Garden State helped to cultivate an entire population of indie music fans that flocked to get their hands on the movie's iconic, wistful soundtrack.

Garden State celebrated its tenth anniversary earlier this summer.

What made the soundtrack album so endearing to such a broad audience was that each song selected for inclusion in the movie seemed genuinely to be music that the scripted characters would pick to soundtrack their own lives.

Further, a lot of Garden State's character development and several key scenes in the movie managed to generate understated humor and pathos through the addition of indie music to its cinematic scope. At times, Director Zach Braff let the music tell whole parts of Garden State's story. At other times, he used songs to create an accompanying narrative. It was more than mood music, and in some cases it was blatant commentary, but as viewers we almost always related. The party scene featuring the song In The Waiting Line by Zero 7 offers a great example. Braff puts us in the drug-induced hazy mindset of his character by speeding up the playback of the film while layering it against the subdued arrangement of the song.

Finally, though drugs were a big part of the movie, the message was that drugs worked in opposition of finding true happiness. It was music, and a common love of similar music, that seemed to be the go-to catalyst for blissful companionship. Braff made limited stability, quirkiness, apathy and insecurity socially acceptable, if not downright cool, and the soundtrack parlayed that message.

The Garden State soundtrack is the perfect indie mixtape, an example of elusive musical flawlessness that hobbyist indie mixtape producers spent decades trying to construct, and something that socially awkward, pre-hipster young adults needed to validate their idiosyncrasies.

Before Garden State, indie rock was "a style and a movement in music that had previously been more of a word-of-mouth type of thing, and that soundtrack introduced bands like The Shins to a much, much wider audience," said Rolling Stone editor Simon Vozick-Levinson. A growing platform of internet community through sites like MySpace furthered the indie movement, and mass undertakings of indie music discovery were born.

Braff put considerable thought into soundtracking this film. Credit producer Gary Gilbert, who financed most of the movie, for trusting Braff in his directorial debut. Gilbert and Braff won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature Film.

Braff was an early champion for The Shins and many of the other artists included in the soundtrack. He was directly responsible for the scene direction and for the film score and wrote the "change your life" line. In theory, Braff, Gilbert and The Shins formed a creative partnership, one that sold a lot of movie tickets and a lot of music. The film grossed $36 million dollars on a budget of about $2.5 million. The soundtrack sold 1.3 million copies within two years of the movie's release.

After Garden State, "a lot more big Hollywood movies tried to re-create the emotional moments where you have a really stirring indie rock song soundtracking an epiphany or an epic moment," according to Vozick-Levinson. "It wasn't the first movie to do that, but it was certainly a really representative one and it was definitely something you can look at as being influential in that way."

In the years after Garden State, a number of producers began tapping into indie music to score their film projects, a likely byproduct to the way that the music of this film became inextricably linked to the widespread appeal of the movie, and vice versa. The songs were certainly memorable -- they may have in fact changed your life -- and they still represent well ten years later.

INDIE ALBUM OF THE WEEK



Purchase:iTunes | Amazon
Stream: Spotify

STAFF SIX PACK

Six singles we are digging on this week by Jivewired artists.

• Jacques Cousteau by Y LUV
• Don't Worry 'Bout Us by Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount
• Defection by Kilto Take
• Like You Do by Jay Stolar
• Hey Hey Hey by The Quick & Easy Boys
• Hold Yr Ground by Sleepy Kitty

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

In The Waiting Line by Zero 7
 

ABOUT THE MONDAY MIX

The Monday Mix airs from Noon to 5:30PM CDT each Monday and is designed to help you get through that brutal after-lunch, energy-sucking span that kicks off every work week. This particular show will be a mix of old, deep album cuts and new indie music with a lot of genre crossover. No Adele. Sorry.

What else does The Monday Mix do? Well, it helps you discover new indie music by combining some really great under the radar tracks with more established songs that were, once in fact, under the radar as well. The hope here is that the culture shock of discovering your next favorite band won't be so enormously imposing if we surround the new stuff with some of your old, familiar friends.

Jivewired supports independent musicians by paying royalties for airplay on Jivewired Radio. Please help us support indie artists by listening to our station and by purchasing indie music. Thank you. The links on the radio player will give you download options if you really dig on the music and some of the songs are offered for free.

To listen, just press play on the following radio widget or use this link to open in a new window that will allow you to listen when you navigate away from this page:

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Programming Note: Monday Mix Playlists now run for two consecutive weeks in an effort to double the exposure for our indie artists, and because we have had a number of requests for people who miss the show. Also, the Monday Mix will re-air at Midnight CST each Monday night.



MONDAY MIX PLAYLIST FOR SEPTEMBER 22, 2014

1. Dirty Movie by Willy Porter
2. Entertain Me by Bear Ceuse
3. The Fool I've Been by Whitney Mann
4. Gimme Something Good by Ryan Adams
5. Mrs. Potter's Lullaby by Counting Crows
6. Never Mine by Vintage Trouble
7. The Only Place by Best Coast
8. Don't Panic by Coldplay
9. Caring Is Creepy by The Shins
10. In The Waiting Line by Zero 7
11. New Slang by The Shins
12. I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You by Colin Hay
13. Blue Eyes by Cary Brothers
14. Fair by Remy Zero
15. One Of These Things First by Nick Drake
16. Lebanese Blonde by Thievery Corporation
17. The Only Living Boy In New York by Simon & Garfunkel
18. Such Great Heights by Iron & Wine
19. Let Go by Frou Frou
20. Winding Road by Bonnie Sommerville
21. Master Hunter by Laura Marling
22. Lost In The Light by Bahamas
23. I've Been Thinking by Handsome Boy Modeling School feat. Cat Power
24. Lost In My Mind by The Head & The Heart
25. If Love Were An Airplane by Willy Porter
26. Lightning Bolt by Jake Bugg
27. Some Place by Nick Waterhouse
28. Milwaukee Man by Hugh Bob & The Hustle
29. North Side Gal by JD McPherson
30. Past Lives by Langhorne Slim & The Law
31. Tokyo Sunrise by LP
32. Steal Your Car by Jeff Campbell
33. Hold That Thought by Ben Folds Five
34. Make You Crazy by Brett Dennen feat. Femi Kuti
35. Cold October by Escondido
36. T.H.M. by Deerhunter
37. Wild Heart by Bleachers
38. Hold Yr Ground by Sleepy Kitty
39. Just A Ride by Jem
40. Where Not To Look For Freedom by The Belle Brigade
41. Teenage Icon by The Vaccines
42. The Corner Man by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
43. Drugstore by The Can't Tells
44. Delusional Waste by SPC ECO
45. Jesus, Etc. by Wilco
46. Big Love by Matthew E. White
47. Good Change by The Big O Trio
48. Moving On (Towards Better Days) by Luke Winslow-King
49. Palisade by Parker Millsap
50. Steve Earle by Lydia Loveless
51. I'll Take Care Of You by Joe Bonamassa & Beth Hart
52. Life Before Insanity by Gov't Mule
53. Lariat by Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks
54. Forever & A Day by Giant Giant Sand
55. Sirens by Pearl Jam
56. Shine by Star Anna & The Laughing Dogs
57. Compromised Intentions by Massy Ferguson
58. Little Too Late by Nicki Bluhm & The Gramblers
59. Send Me On My Way by Rusted Root
60. Don't Worry 'Bout Us by Julia Massey & The Five Finger Discount
61. All I've Ever Known by Bahamas
62. Yellow Red Sparks by Yellow Red Sparks
63. I Need Better Friends by Cracker
64. Sorry About Last Night by Wally Dogger
65. I Got Loaded by Tweed Funk
66. Sure Thing by St. Germain
67. Wanna Be On Your Mind by Valerie June
68. The Happy Birthday by Megan Slankard
69. Raggamuffin by Selah Sue
70. Crossroads Of Desire by The Outer Vibe
71. Song For Zula by Phosphorescent
72. Open by Rhye
73. Silhouettes by Colony House
74. Jacques Cousteau by Y LUV
75. Uh Oh by Super Water Sympathy
76. Body and Soul by Goldenboy
77. Before We Run by Yo La Tengo
78. Serpents by Sharon Van Etten
79. Merry Go Round by Shani
80. Midnight In Her Eyes by The Black Keys