XF Project #7: The Music Of An X-Phile

For this week’s X-Files Project-ing… (yes, I made that a verb, which I suppose could also technically be “projecting”…). There’s been some tweeting going on in regards to X-Files related music and I really felt this was the perfect opportunity to delve into one of my favorite X-Files inspired projects: My X-Files Playlist. It is over 8 hours long and to this day remains my favorite thing to listen to because it even continues to grow.

The history of this playlist spans the quickest era of technological advancement as far as music is concerned. Its beginning can probably be traced all the way back to the time of mix tapes, the ones I made to listen to in my car in high school. But the actual list in the variety that it is today, didn’t really come to be until I was in college, when the creation of Naptser and CD burning made it a little easier.

Oh, Napster… the beginning of it all. For those who don’t know, it was the first music/file sharing program. You could upload all of the music on the CDs that you owned to Napster and your friends could listen to it, anyone could listen to it, and even download it!   For the first time ever, we had the world of music at our finger tips! It was free! It was fantastic! So of course, it quickly came to an end.  Artists still need to get paid.

During that short, yet revolutionary time, my friend Audrey and I collected a good chunk of music that was X-Files related and we started burning CDs. The playlist really hadn’t come into existence yet. You couldn’t travel with your Napster music. It needed internet access and therefore it was tethered to your computer, which was really not mobile by any stretch of the imagination, even if it was technically a laptop. You had to put it back onto a CD or one of those early mp3 players that held maybe 20 songs… maybe.

We dubbed our CDs The X-Files Greatest Hits and even made covers for them. Using, get this… The Print Shop! Yes, this was even before it was a regular thing to have Photoshop. It was also, not common to have a CD burner, so we had to search out acquaintances who did. We had three volumes by the time we graduated from college. They kept us entertained for many a late night light hang or set build in the theatre. We blared it from our dorm room on 10/13 and 11/21 and pretty much every other day of the year.

Cover of Vol I by Audrey

The requirements for a song making The X-Files Greatest Hits were as follows:

1. The song was either used in or mentioned on the show.
2. The song mentions the show or any of its characters and/or actors.
3. The song related to the show in our geektasticly obsessive x-phile brains.

After graduating from college, I took my copies of the CDs with me. As technology progressed and iTunes came into existence, the CDs made the transition to playlist. I put them all together and then was able to add the entirety of the various soundtracks in existence. Whenever I hear a new song that just fits, something along the lines of, “This is a Mulder and Scully song!” goes through my head …and it gets added to the list.  The invention of YouTube has also helped in having a central location for fan videos (you used to have to search harder for those), which is a great way to discover songs that other fans connect to the show.

The playlist was one of the first things synced to my first ipod and then onto my iphone. It’s still there. It’s the only playlist that is always there. It goes on trips with me. It’s been heard during set builds, in prop shops, and theatres all around NY. I frequently get remarks about the interesting mix of music that people assume isn’t connected in any way. When I tell them it is, the most fun comes from them trying to figure out exactly how each song fits into The X-Files. It makes my geek heart happy.

So with social media and new music sharing capabilities, I have now taken the list one step further. I’ve added it to Spotify. You can listen to it two ways.

1. For those who appreciate the lost art of the mix tape, I have the original X-Files Greatest Hit compilations (I, II, and III)in their own individual playlists in their original very thought out play order (a few tracks are missing, and some are not the original versions due to Spotify restrictions).
2. You can listen to them all together in the playlist called “X-Philed” with all the other songs that I have added since.

Enjoy! And be sure to grab your partner and dance when Walking In Memphis comes on.

Front of Vol II

Back of Vol II (you can see the ones I couldn’t include on Spotify)

Cover of Vol III