This year a friend and I embarked on a sustained plan of compilation creation. The plan is to create 12 themed comps - one per month - taking turns to pick the theme. So far, we've had Drone/Noise (his), fast songs less than 3 minutes long (mine), avant-garde female-fronted music (his again - he likes to be veeery specific), and a comp made entirely of sixth tracks on albums (I enjoy a slight random factor).

Maths geniuses amongst you will have worked out that I have four more comp ideas to come up with. That's where you come in. Any theme ideas would be most welcome, along with suggestions for the contents of said musical splendours. Ideas can be as simple or complex as you like, but not too abstract - I need clear boundaries that must not be crossed (on pain of pain).

Empty your brains into my waiting arms, oh musical Matazonians.

Oppression and/or controlling people.

(The Paper Chase would be a good place to start with this one)

risk versus reward/extremely guilty pleasure/egocentric piece (not, o-ohhh I just ate chocolate and now I may get fa-aaaat etc.)

I also THINK I got the concept of this thread, but I've also just woken up.

For your inspiration: http://muxtape.com

Songs made by musicians who died before they hit 28.

A friend of mine once made me "a" mix-CD. It was called Mr Driver's Legendary Music Collection (Vol. I-VI) and was f***ing amazing! But he did it all on CD RWs and I haven't yet got round to converting them into MP3s/ CDRs. It's been 2 years >_>

sounds like a fun competition! we should do something similar here!

how about...
songs with a word/phrase repeated X amount of times
songs with nonsense bits like do de da la la la
songs that tell a story
songs which have samples from a well known film
songs where unusual instruments are used
songs about maths
songs about geniuses
a compilation where no two songs are from the same decade

B-sides that should be A-sides?
Remixes?
Burt Bacharach songs as performed by various artists over decades?

cover songs that are in a totally different genre to the original
songs with a name in the title
songs with both female & male vocals
songs with hand-clapping
?

More excellent ideas. I'm on board with the B-side idea (I've got flippin' loads of old singles where the B is superior to the A in every way), guilty pleasures could be fun (although I don't tend to experience much guilt when I get my pleasure) and almost everything that crazymat has posted has either inspired or amused me (handclaps? genius!).

I've also thought of trying a colour-themed comp - either band names or song titles. Perhaps a rainbow of sorts, culminating in Boards Of Canada's 'Roygbiv'.

I do like the colours idea.

How about a compilation of songs by Broken Social Scene and related bands/soloists?

The Canadian megabands!

Interesting. Perhaps a similar idea using the Fence collective, or the Accidental. The latter would be a piece of piss, as a recent issue of Word magazine came with a family tree of sorts showing how all the 'nu-folk' (gack... I hate made-up genres, especially if they contain 'nu-') bands link together via the aforementioned, and I own a fair representation of the lot.

Food for thought, this is.

A collection of songs where none of the lyrics have anything to do with love or relationships. (Which discounts 'Not About Love' by Fiona Apple immediately!)

I ws just directed to this.
/spam?