August 01, 1992

N's Music Mix #6

SIDE A
  1. "Train in Vain", aka "Stand By Me", the biggest pop chart hit for the Clash.
  2. "No Surrender", Bruce Springsteen
  3. "Undercover of the Night", The Rolling Stones most New Wave single.
  4. "Bullet the Blue Sky", U2
  5. "This & That", Michael Penn's debut album March included a novel combination of acoustic guitars and drum machines, and/or heavily processed drum sounds.
  6. "Talk About The Passion", R.E.M.
  7. "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic", The Police
  8. "She Blinded Me With Science", One of my favorite novelty songs of the New Wave, from Thomas Dolby.
  9. "Perfect World" is from the Huey Lewis & The News album Small World, their first album after they peaked with the one-two punch Sports and Fore!
  10. "Glamour Boys", Living Colour
  11. "Hard to Handle", The Black Crowes
  12. "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)", Billy Joel
SIDE B
  1. "Games Without Frontiers", Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush
  2. "I Can't Dance", Genesis
  3. "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)", Hall & Oates
  4. "Join Together", The Who
  5. "Should I Stay or Should I Go?", The Clash
  6. "You Can't Always Get What You Want", The Rolling Stones
  7. "After Midnight", Eric Clapton
  8. "I'm Goin' Down", Bruce Springsteen
  9. "Bloody Well Right", I bought Supertramp's Hits CD sometime late in high school. My friends hooked me on Supertramp, but they were so uncool, I basically shunned the band once I hit college, and I eventually dumped the CD at a yard sale circa 1999.
  10. "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around", Stevie Nicks with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
  11. "Tusk", Fleetwood Mac, featuring the USC Trojans Marching Band
  12. "You're Only Human (Second Wind)", A wildly overproduced Billy Joel song, with extremely contemporary synthesizers and drums. This track was one of two new songs added to Joel's first "Greatest Hits" package.
(100 minute Maxell cassette)

N's Music Mix #5

SIDE A
  1. "Smells Like Nirvana", is one of my favorite "Weird Al" Yankovic parodies, because Yankovic is parodying the song itself. Many of his parodies are not about the song he's singing. Other Yankovic songs like this include "(This Song Is) Six Words Long" (a parody of the endlessly repetitive "Got My Mind Set On You", and "Achy Breaky Song" (a parody of the awful "Achy Breaky Heart").
  2. Rock and Roll, Led Zeppelin
  3. Janie's Got A Gun, Aerosmith
  4. Under The Bridge, Red Hot Chili Peppers
  5. Superman's Song, Crash Test Dummies
  6. That Would Be Something [unplugged] Paul McCartney
  7. Let Me Roll It, Paul McCartney & Wings
  8. Losing My Religion, R.E.M.
  9. Stand Back, Stevie Nicks
  10. Everybody Wants to Rule the World, Tears for Fears
  11. Right Here Right Now, Jesus Jones
  12. Slap and Tickle, Squeeze
SIDE B
  1. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana
  2. I Know What I Know, Paul Simon
  3. D'yer Maker, Led Zeppelin
  4. The 7" remix of the B-52's "Roam" is nearly identical to the album version, with a much better introduction.
  5. Spirit of Radio, Rush
  6. Jack & Diane, John Cougar Mellencamp
  7. Behind Blue Eyes, The Who
  8. Dream On, Aerosmith
  9. Sultans of Swing, Dire Straits
  10. When We Was Fab, George Harrison (featuring Ringo Starr on drums)
  11. King's Highway, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
  12. Figure of Eight, Paul McCartney
(100 minute Maxell Cassette)

July 01, 1992

N's Music Mix #4

Re-reading these cassette track lists is reminding me of my process back in 1992. A few minutes ago I was thinking "why do I keep repeating the same artists on a mix?" Now I remember: Making a mix tape in 1992 is a lot different than clicking and dragging an iTunes playlist in 2008. In 2008 I literally have 13,000 songs at my fingertips. In 1992, I would load a pile of CDs in a bag and head to the recording studio at school, so I could use more than one CD player, plus a mixing console and a professional quality cassette recorder. If inspiration struck mid-way through a mix, I couldn't just grab the CD or MP3 I wanted, I was stuck with what I had on me.

I think I would even intentionally repeat an artist on both sides of a tape. There are also some cases where an artist shows up early on Side A, then near the end. This was because I'd have some tape left over after my planned playlist, and I would fill out the side with a repeated artist. This was the way it worked back then!

NOTE: Some of you may think "professional" and "cassette" don't belong in the same sentence, but trust me, there's a big difference between pressing "REC" on your boom box with dual tape decks, and using a professional deck with input level dials, VU meters, and an expensive mechanism. I am listening to this cassette on my PC's internal tape deck right now, and it sounds great, 16 years later.

SIDE A

  1. Good Stuff, The B-52s (this song was also on mix 2. What was I thinking?)
  2. You Make My Dreams, Hall & Oates
  3. Can't Get There From Here, R.E.M.
  4. I Won't Back Down, Tom Petty
  5. Blue Sky Mine, Midnight Oil
  6. "Lightning Paul" is a song from an Irish band called The 4 Of Us. When I was a DJ at my high school radio station WBMT, we were on the mailing list for Columbia Records, so we received the LP and CD of The 4 Of Us album Songs for the Tempted in 1989. I randomly listened to and liked the songs enough to include a bunch of their songs on mixes. Naturally, I never heard from them again and I feel like I must have dreamt the whole thing.
  7. Rattlesnake, Think Tree
  8. Cherry Bomb, John Cougar Mellencamp
  9. If You Love Somebody Set Them Free, Sting
  10. Sunshine Of Your Love, Bobby McFerrin
  11. Stay Up Late, Talking Heads
  12. Watching The Detectives, Elvis Costello & The Attractions
  13. Say It Isn't So, Hall & Oates
  14. When I saw the title "Tape Decks All Over Hell" typed on the cassette insert, I remembered the song but totally forgot the band until I Googled the song title and there they were: Boiled In Lead, the self described "Rock’n’reel. Punk-folk. Country music from many countries...BiL play fiddle, guitars, bass & percussion with loads of power and emotion." "Tape Decks All Over Hell" is from their CD Orb.
SIDE B
  1. Drag My Bad Name Down, The 4 of Us
  2. Good Lovin' Bobby McFerrin
  3. Runnin Down A Dream, Tom Petty
  4. Who Do You Love? George Thorogood & The Destroyers
  5. Go Your Own Way, Fleetwood Mac
  6. Love Is The Seventh Wave, Sting
  7. Listen To The Music, The Doobie Brothers
  8. The Valley Road, Bruce Hornsby & The Range
  9. Radio Free Europe, R.E.M.
  10. Check It Out, John Cougar Mellencamp
  11. Kiss, Prince

N's 3rd New Mix

Between my sophomore and junior years of college, this mix feels trapped between my high school tastes and my new college tastes. Bands that are lingering on this mix, but soon to be old news: Supertramp, Rush, Yes, INXS, and The Eagles. New music which I was just discovering: the new Red Hot Chili Peppers single, more music from Shockra, and the new U2 album.

SIDE A

  1. Lucky Town, Bruce Springsteen
  2. Dirty World, Traveling Wilburys
  3. Life is a Highway, Tom Cochrane
  4. Already Gone, The Eagles
  5. Gun, Shockra
  6. Dude (Looks Like A Lady)
  7. Yesterday Girl, The Smithereens
  8. Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen
  9. You Talk Too Much, George Thorogood & The Destroyers
  10. Sledgehammer, Peter Gabriel
SIDE B
  1. 57 Channels (and nothin on), Bruce Springsteen
  2. Cannonball, Supertramp
  3. New Sensation, INXS
  4. The Body Electric, Rush
  5. Give It Away, Red Hot Chili Peppers
  6. Even Better Than The Real Thing, U2
  7. Love Will Find a Way, Yes
  8. Middle Man, Living Colour
  9. Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me and My Monkey, The Beatles
  10. Bad To the Bone, George Thorogood & The Destroyers
  11. Rebel Rebel, David Bowie
(Maxell 100 minute cassette)

N's 2nd New Music Mix

Subtitle: "Good Stuff To Drive To"

SIDE A

  1. Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You, Led Zeppelin
  2. 25 or 6 to 4, Chicago
  3. Philosopher's Song, Third Estate
  4. Good Beat, Deee-Lite
  5. The Globe, Big Audio Dynamite II
  6. Who? Where? Why? Jesus Jones
  7. We'll Be Together, Sting
  8. Set Adrift on Memory Bliss, P.M. Dawn
  9. Where Did You Go? The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
  10. Little Miss Can't Be Wrong, Spin Doctors
SIDE B
  1. Good Stuff, The B-52s
  2. Getting Better, The Beatles
  3. Sweet Emotion, Aerosmith [album version]
  4. It's The End of the World As We Know It, R.E.M.
  5. Jumping Jack Flash, The Rolling Stones
  6. Don't Let Go, Jeff Lynne
  7. Rock This Town, The Stray Cats
  8. Take The Money and Run, Steve Miller Band
  9. Get It On (Bang a Gong), The Power Station
  10. Underground People, Shockra
  11. Near Wild Heaven, R.E.M.
(Maxell 100 minute cassette)

N's New Music Mix

My first mix in a continuing series, my "Good Stuff To Drive To" mix is very rough around the edges. As time went on and I got better at the song selection and sequencing process, I made some rules for myself. Some of those rules are broken here:
  • Don't put the same artist on a mix more than once
  • Don't put an artist (The Beatles) and a solo act from the same band (McCartney, Lennon) on the same mix
In the summer of 1992, I was working at WERS Radio at Emerson College, and the influence of my time there is showing: Shockra was a world-music influenced local funk-rock band whom I became a big fan of. I hope this is the last mix on which I include "Start Me Up"!

SIDE A

  1. Middle of the Road, The Pretenders
  2. Ob La Di, Ob La Da [alt version], The Beatles
  3. Question Air? Shockra
  4. Squeeze Box, The Who
  5. And She Was, Talking Heads
  6. Shiny Happy People, R.E.M.
  7. Fool In The Rain, Led Zeppelin
  8. Everyday I Write The Book, Elvis Costello
  9. Let My Love Open The Door, Pete Townshend
  10. Cool For Cats, Squeeze
  11. Modern Love, David Bowie
SIDE B
  1. Channel Z, The B-52s
  2. Helen Wheels, Paul McCartney & Wings
  3. Nobody Told Me, John Lennon
  4. Would I Lie To You? Eurythmics
  5. Monkey On My Back, Aerosmith
  6. Closer To Fine, Indigo Girls
  7. Ticket To Ride, The Beatles [no fadeout]
  8. Love Shack, The B-52s
  9. Into The Great Wide Open, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
  10. La Grange, ZZ Top
  11. Sweetest Thing, U2
  12. Start Me Up, The Rolling Stones
(100 minute Maxell cassette)