Photo by Bartek G via Flickr

At the end of every year I make a mix CD and mail it out to a growing list of people. (Yeah, I still actually bother to burn the songs to a disc; an online mp3 mix seems so impersonal, and most people still don’t have iPod jacks in their car stereos.) I have two rules, and they’ve got very little to do with Nick Hornby. Rule 1: Though they don’t have to be in my personal top 20 for the year in question, the songs have to have been released at some point during the previous 12 months. Rule 2, which has become increasingly rigid in recent years: I alternate hip-hop tracks with non-hip-hop tracks. There’s no socio-political or artistic reason for rule No. 2; it’s a gimmick, pure and simple. But it forces some interesting compromises and allows for some unusual transitions. (Nas into Neko Case, the Walkmen into Mobb Deep, KRS-One into Glen Campbell, Joe Budden into Alkaline Trio — that kind of thing. I aim for surprises.)

Problem is, I have a hard time finding enough rock tracks that fit. It’s not that I don’t listen to enough of it; anecdotally, I’d say 55 to 60 percent of my annual music consumption would qualify as rock. But my rock tastes generally trend toward the snob/nerd sector — semi-obscure shit and indie shit, genres that end in -core, low-fi masterpieces, that kind of thing — and when it comes time to sequence that stuff among a bunch of lovingly produced, bottom-heavy hip-hop tracks, the rock tends to sound kind of weak. True-blue punk and garage rock can be too tinny. The more experimental acts make songs that are either too long, too tricky, or too meandering — at least for mixtape usage. And the heavy stuff to which I gravitate — Napalm Death, Mastodon, Pig Destroyer — simply chews a hole in the flow. The result? I’m usually left with a pile dominated by Pitchfork-loved and Paste-favored hits.

Some years are more adventurous than others. In 2008, I found a home for Jay Reatard and No Age, and a Torche song slid right in. In 2007, I mostly stuck to the yuppie-indie faves — Arctic Monkeys, Spoon, The National, Radiohead, Les Savy Fav, and so on. In 2006, I easily inserted the Pink Razors, the Thermals, and Comets on Fire, while a Be Your Own Pet song stood up mightily when surrounded with T.I. and Clipse. Still, most of those choices felt like compromises.

If one rocker hits the sweet spot consistently, it’s Jack White, whose songs tend to have the perfect combination of muscle, melody, and grit. I’ve put his White Stripes songs up against the deep stoner churn of Cannibal Ox and the West Coast funk of Lyics Born, and they’ve delivered. (I’ll confess that I didn’t use a Raconteurs song in 2006 or 2008. Maybe I thought it would be too obvious.)

In the process of thinking about this year’s mix, I’ve realized that nothing from White hits that sweet spot harder than his latest project, The Dead Weather (with The Kills’ Alison Mosshart, the Raconteurs’ Jack Lawrence, and Queens of the Stone Age’s Dean Fertita). Considering White’s comments about hip-hop over the years — he’s an eternal skeptic — I’m not going to argue that the band’s debut, Horehound, is a response or a reaction to the overall sonic primacy of hip-hop. (White doesn’t pick culture battles; he just makes records.) Nonetheless, Horehound is a reminder of hard rock’s status as one of the ancient building blocks of hip-hop. White forgoes his guitar to play drums and produce the songs — and his models, for the most part, are the boom of Black Sabbath and the bap of Led Zeppelin. It’s ruggedly funky stuff, with full-footed bass-pedal work and deliberate snare hits. And it sounds absolutely great on my iPod next to this year’s Raekwon, MF Doom, Mos Def, and Diamond District albums, or whatever hip-hop single might pop up.

Listen to the big beats and choppy, a-melodic vocals of “Treat Me Like Your Mother” or “I Cut Like A Buffalo” — and it’s not outlandish to think of Run-DMC or Lil’ Jon at full throttle. Those are grooves built for talkin’ shit, stompin’ on the sidewalk, and callin’ out suckers. In fact, I might just build my entire 2009 mix around Horehound. It’s a weird, loud, crowd-pleaser, and that’s usually what I’m shooting for, anyway.