WARMER MIXTAPES #1058 | by Sabrina B. [Sizzy Rocket]

1. LCD Soundsystem | I Can Change
I found this song exactly when I needed it, about two years ago when I really fell in love for the first time. To me James Murphy perfectly captures that feeling of being young and not really knowing who you are yet, caught between wanting to change for that one person so they'll fall in love with you and wanting them to just accept you for who you are. This was also the first time I really discovered New York Electro-Punk and DFA Records, my first time hearing LCD's synth sounds. This record was the soundtrack to my life at that point. I would listen to this song over and over walking down the streets of Chinatown drunk and underage and just feeling everything.

2. Nine Inch Nails | The Hand That Feeds
This song really inspired my entire record coming out in May, from the vocal delivery to the aggression of the guitar. From top to bottom I just love the heaviness of it all - the way it grabs you. This entire album actually, With Teeth, really inspired my record, but this song in particular because of the energy. There's something so torn, so bleeding heart and vulnerable about it that I really relate to. You can hear the internal struggle in Trent Reznor's performance and the slow build at the end with the repeated lyric - will you bite the hand that feeds you... - it's so confrontational and raw, and there isn't anything quite as powerful as that.

3. Blood Orange | Champagne Coast 
The simplicity in this record is so moving for me. I always strive to write as simply as this, to explain the complex so beautifully. The guitar melodies are also just so sexy, so soft and moody yet jarring and expressive. I was listening to this song a lot last year when I was just getting over someone, and it's perfect for a complicated situation like that. I particularly love the line what's the joy of giving if you never please. It's so accurate. Actually Charli XCX does a really great cover of this on one of her mixtapes.

 4. Gorillaz | To Binge (feat. Yukimi Nagano of Little Dragon)
I really think Plastic Beach is one of the most underrated and potentially classic albums of the last 20 years, it's one of my favorites. This song, though one of the more chill from the album, really stands out to me. The melodies are so eerie, the lyrics are so full of self-doubt and angst, it's a very pure moment in the body of work and so reflective of human life. I just have to tell you that I love you so much these days - such a brilliant line. I actually saw them live on this tour at Madison Square Garden and it was one of the most explosive, most incredible and fantastic live shows I have ever seen.

5. The Stooges | I Wanna Be Your Dog
This song was the first pure Punk song I ever heard and it completely changed my life. It's what made me decide to become Sizzy Rocket. I am in love with how unedited Iggy is, how wild and charismatic and how much of a villain he was. There doesn't seem to be anyone brave enough to be the villain in Pop Music anymore. He is one of the truest frontmen in the history of Rock 'N' Roll. I would kill to have been part of the Punk movement in 1970's New York, when Iggy and Bowie and Warhol and Patti were really going. This song just solidifies that moment in time for me. It's the closest I will ever get.

6. The Kills | U.R.A. Fever
There isn't a combination quite like Jamie and Alison, so dangerous yet flirty and just oozing with sexuality. I am a fever, I ain't born typical - I can't quite think of a lyric more perfectly Rock 'N' Roll, more passive aggressive than that. Midnight Boom is actually one of my favorite albums. I love how The Kills combine rumbling guitars with tin can drum programming, and the dial tone sample in this song is so riveting to me. If you haven't gotten drunk and driven around LA in a bright red Mustang to this song, do it immediately - I did it one night and I swear I have never felt more infinite.

7. Peaches | Fuck The Pain Away
Aside from the iconic drum programming, moaning synths, and playfully assaulting lyrics, Peaches is an important artist for me because of the way she represents sexuality for the contemporary Female Pop Artist. I love the way Peaches uses her lyrics and her body and performance to express femininity in a dominant and otherwise masculine way. There isn't anyone who does it quite as well. This record is the most emulating of this part of Peaches' work for me. Plus, when this song comes on in a gay club in New York at 3am it's like the rebirth of gender queer glamour right there in the middle of the dance floor.

8. The White Stripes | Ball And Biscuit
The White Stripes are my biggest musical influence - they raised my young ear and trained me to sing the Blues. Ball And Biscuit may be my favorite song performed by Jack and Meg White because for me it's the band in their purest state. The way Jack spits on this record, plus the three unholy guitar solos, plus the sexual nature of the lyrics still gets me and I've listened to this record probably over a thousand times. I may have never returned from seeing it live for the first time in 2005.

9. Yeah Yeah Yeahs | Maps
Karen O reminds me a lot of Ziggy Stardust - there's something so powerful, supernatural, seductive and yet vulnerable about both characters. For me Maps is Karen at her most vulnerable, her most feminine and I really love when artists show their fans their bones and their blood and their heart the way she does. Wait, they don't love you like I love you may just be one of the most iconic lines in Indie Rock band history and is definitely a heartbreak anthem for me. And if not for the lyrics, for at least one of Nick's pulsating guitar solos at the end.

10. Bright Eyes | Hot Knives
I listened to a lot of Bright Eyes growing up (who didn't) and Conor Oberst really changed the way that I write lyrics as an artist. Hot Knives is one of my favorite songs by him because of the way that it unfolds a seemingly fictional yet specific story about a character using imagery that is universally relatable. There is so much going on emotionally on this album that it can be overwhelming, especially for a young heart. This song will always be one of my favorites, and like an old diary or a photograph, I feel like I can always go back to it to relive certain moments of my young life.