Super Awesome Mix

Matt and Sam are back with new music for the month of April! We start in bright, timeless territory with Bruno Mars and a throwback pop approach that feels built for wedding dance floors, then slam the door into heavier energy with Muse leaning into hard rock and metal textures. From there, we dig into Fantastic Cat’s sharp songwriting, where a simple hook hides surprisingly dark, observant lines...

Prepare to immerse yourself in the 1980s rock scene as we explore the electrifying world of Van Halen. Matt and Samer take you on a fascinating journey through the band's evolution, sharing personal insights and experiences that bring the music to life. Learn why the band's famous concert rider demanded no brown M&Ms and how this quirky detail ensured the safety of their elaborate st...

Matt just turned 49, and instead of doing a normal birthday playlist, we turned it into a rule: only songs from the years he hit perfect-square ages. That one idea creates a timeline you can actually hear, jumping from 1978 to 1981 to 1986, then into 1993, 2002, and 2013, with two tracks per year and a lot of life packed in between. We talk through why each pick makes the cut and what it carries w...

This week's Mixtape Rewind takes us back to Season 1 when Instagram picked our summer soundtrack, and we just tried to keep up. We asked listeners to send their best summer songs, then built a real mixtape out of the chaos: 12 tracks that feel like heat haze, long evenings, and that first day when summer finally clicks into place. Along the way, we shout out the people who submitted picks and...

Spring shows up and suddenly the release calendar explodes, so Matt and Sam do what we always do on Super Awesome Mix: sift through the chaos and hand you a March new music playlist that’s actually worth your time. We start with U2’s “Yours Eternally,” a collaboration that pulls in Ed Sheeran and Ukrainian artist Taras Topolia and frames a protest minded moment with an unexpectedly hopeful finish....

This week's Mixtape Rewind take us back to the end of 2022 as we countdown our final 12 songs of the year.  We argue, laugh and occasionally get a little existential about the songs that earned repeat plays, the lyrics that won’t let go, and the artists who made the whole internet stop and listen. We start in motion with a driving track that brings back the pre-smartphone road trip era and th...

A steel town becomes a stage, a chorus becomes a dare, and a new record asks what we’ll do when the comfort runs out. We sit down with XBYRDX (aka Bird), a southern Indiana singer‑songwriter, to trace six formative tracks—Springsteen’s Youngstown, The Jesus and Mary Chain’s Just Like Honey, The Clash’s White Riot, The Replacements’ Unsatisfied, The Cure’s Plainsong, and Hüsker Dü’s Don’t Want to K...

This week's Mixtape Rewind has our friend and the host of the podcast What Are You Listening To?, Jenn Tully, joining Matt and Sam to present her Desert Island Mix.....which may have changed since we recorded this episode. From 80s powerhouses to modern indie storytellers, Jenn maps the songs that shaped her life and the moments they still soundtrack. We start in montage mode with John Waite’...

Blizzard warnings outside, sonic weather systems inside. Matt and Sam pulled together twelve new tracks that cut through the February haze, from Bruce Springsteen’s lightning-fast protest release to Charli XCX’s orchestral, slow-burn elegance. The throughline is momentum—how artists old and new push ideas forward, whether by turning up the amps, sharpening the story, or stripping a feeling down to...

This week's Mixtape Rewind takes us back to Season 3 when we first thought of the idea that would become our podcast, The Battle. What happens when two totally different songs share the exact same title? We built a “battle mix” to find out—pairing heavyweights and outliers across genres and decades—then we argue, analyze, and crown winners. From Go to Get Back, each round reveals how a single...

What do you do with songs you adore but can’t file anywhere? That was the inspiration for Sam's 2026 birthday mix.  He shares with Matt everything from TV themes that outshine their shows, soundtrack deep cuts that became life markers, long builds that earn their intensity, and genre-bending grooves that defy labels. We start with Benjamin Clementine’s Nemesis and the power of a great intro t...

This week's Mixtape Rewind takes us back to season 2 where we started off looking at second albums from artists.  We pull from a wide spectrum—Bowie and Springsteen, Weezer and George Strait, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and Kacey Musgraves, Childish Gambino and AJR, Vampire Weekend, All-American Rejects, Foo Fighters, and Kanye—to map the patterns behind sophomore success. The result is a gui...

New year, clean slate, and a mixtape that refuses to play it safe. We kick things off with ASAP Rocky’s Helicopter, a three‑minute charge from Don’t Be Dumb that sets a confident tone for a tightly curated run through surprise genres, sharp writing, and risky ideas. From there, we veer into Band of Heathens shifting into country textures, then drop into Iron and Wine’s porch‑warm melancholy and An...

This week's Mixtape Rewind takes you back to where Matt and Sam reviewed memorable first tracks from albums.  The first track can make you stay, skip, or fall in love. We dove into 12 album openers that don’t just start a record — they define it — and traced how a great intro sets the promise for everything that follows. From the sunlit optimism of the Beach Boys’ Wouldn’t It Be Nice to the n...

What if the sixth album is where artists finally step into their truest selves? We kick off season six by chasing that idea across genres and decades, building a mix from Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen, Kendrick Lamar, Prince, Beyoncé, The Beatles, Jay-Z, John Mayer, The National, Michael Jackson, Foo Fighters, and A Tribe Called Quest. The pattern that emerges is hard to ignore: at album six, craft...

A voice can be an instrument, a mirror, and sometimes a battlefield. That’s the ground we cover with actor-singer Winter Andrews aka the “indie sorcerer”—as we trace how mimicry, rhythm, and empathy shaped both his acting and his music.  From being moved by Regina Spektor’s allegory in Samson to discovering the strange peace inside Hozier’s Shrike, Winter opens up about the songs that taught him t...

The first few minutes the audio might get choppy but it's fixed for the majority of the episode afterwards! Apologies for that. The moment Tori Norman Castillo quit her Wall Street job from an LAX terminal after attending the Grammys, she knew her path forward would be different. As co-founder of Kelzana Artist Management, she's now revolutionizing how musicians build sustainable careers...

Sam's had a big year and now he gives Matt and all the listeners his top 12 songs of 2025! We open with punchy rock and bass-heavy pop, shift into raw confessionals, and close with orchestral EDM that practically lifts you out of your seat. The throughline is contrast: songs that hype you up, songs that make you think, and songs that do both without breaking a sweat. We kick off with Wet Leg’...

This week Matt brings his 12 best songs of 2025 to the mix and Sam helps him count them down. We start by turning chaos into rhythm—yes, we joke about measuring chores in “Bruno Mars minutes”—and then dig into the textures that made this list sing. Inhaler brings that recognizable lineage without slipping into pastiche, while Jon Batiste crossfades jazz, soul, R&B, and hip‑hop into one irresis...

In this week's mixtape rewind, we go back a couple of years to when Matt and Sam did a deep dive into music supergroups. Imagine loading a playlist where legends keep walking through the door. That’s the ride we built as we dive into supergroups that actually deliver, from the crunch of Audioslave and the finesse of Cream to the indie cohesion of Boygenius and the pure joy of the Traveling Wi...

Just a quick message of gratitude for our listeners.   Also, you can publish your own Best Of mix with our Mix Tape Cards and save 20% from now until the end of the year with the Promo Code: BESTOF Go to My. SuperAwesomeMix.com and start using our new app on any device - mobile or laptop.  Copy and paste a link to your playlist then turn it into an old school mixtape in minutes!   Support the show...

Sam is back!  He and Matt reunite just in time for Thanksgiving to give everyone a mix of songs featuring the term Thank You. We kick off with Sly’s Thank You and the relief of being yourself again, then trace how Dido’s gentle melody got flipped into Eminem’s Stan without erasing its original warmth. Andrew Gold’s Thank You for Being a Friend sparks a riff on friendship rituals, party etiquette,...

This week's mixtape rewind takes us back to 2023 when Matt and Sam put together a mix for the Women's World Cup. The whistle blew, the bracket shifted, and the story changed—so we built a soundtrack that changes with it. Our U‑S‑A chant mix isn’t about pretending the loss didn’t happen; it’s about finding the spark that keeps fans singing and players pushing. We start with Haim’s “Up Fro...

Jenn Tully joins Matt Sidhom for the last new music mix of 2025!  They trace November’s most interesting new releases and rare finds, from soulful love songs to rediscovered Springsteen, with detours through genre-bending pop and hopeful rock. Surprises, callbacks, and a few future anthems round out the mix. • Why St. Paul and the Broken Bones still hit with tender, timeless soul • The Neighbourho...

This week's Mixtape Rewind takes you back to January 2022 when Matt and Sam gave you 12 new tracks from the latter part of 2021.  Sam is almost certain one song is Norwegian but later realizes it was actually French - you'll have to listen to find out what that's all about. (The perils of recording early in the morning). Nearly four years ago, we went from a posthumous Juice WRLD cu...