While it took a little longer than planned, FRAMED is back with a new crime mixtape—the student edition.
Students in my media and crime class this semester were asked to create their own crime mixtapes. We used this exercise to also talk about censorship and criminalization of music. Now that the semester is over, I finally had time to put their class song collection together.
For their mixtapes, they could pick a genre of music, a theme, or just create an eclectic collection of crime songs. Crime-specific playlists include themes of injustice, real crimes, murder, and drugs. Not surprising the most common genre submitted was hip hop, but there was Americana, country music, and classic rock.
In class they shared their playlists and were asked to pick one song that best represented their collection. This crime mixtape is the compilation of the songs submitted that day.
There are some crime-song classics, like Suffer the Little Children, Dirty Deeds, and Goodbye Earl. Eminem was the artist of the day with Stan, Kim, and D12’s Purple Pills. Musically, two of my favorites on this mixtape are “An Unhealthy Obsession” by The Blake Robinson Synthetic Orchestra and “Hayloft” by Mother Mother, both of which are new songs for me.
I hope you enjoy this eclectic music mix.