Brood XIII: In the Mix

We have to admit, with all the cicada madness tromping through the Midwest these past few weeks, the Chicagoist music bullpen has felt a little left out. It's bad enough that they've stuck us in a corner of the office surrounded by a moat of flaming alligators -- we suspect it's due to the fact that we keep name-dropping famous people none of the other writers have ever heard of (or care about) -- but when fun insect-related topics arise, we never get to tackle them. It's harder than you think to relate six-legged creepy-crawlies to the music biz, despite what you might have heard of the feeding and mating habits of industry flaks.

Luckily for us, local MP3 blog Can you see the sunset from the Southside has done us a huge service by uncovering the previously unknown connection of cicadas to popular music. They been nice enough to compile a lovely little downloadable mix of tunes related to, or containing the name of, the invading hordes that have so captured the public imagination. Thanks folks!

Now if someone would be kind enough to post the sound of ACTUAL cicadas, we'd appreciate it, because we have yet to see a single one around our stomping grounds, yet ...