i have always been a music lover. i would often sit in the living room on my parents’ brown corduroy couches (yeah) listening to their old records and cds. when my older brothers weren’t around i’d sneak into their bedrooms and sample hits from the eighties (a-ha is still a favourite.)
i’ve had the idea for this mix in the back of my mind for a while. a selection of songs from some of the artists & albums that were on high rotation when i was a teen: 1995-99. a time when i was finally receiving enough pocket money to go out and buy CDs – when i began to discover the music that would come to define my adolescence.
but CD’s were pricey, and like everyone else i mostly relied on borrowing discs and actually copied them onto cassette tapes. TAPES! i spent literally hours making those tapes, deciding on the order of the songs and then attempting to squeeze the entire track list onto that stupid little paper sleeve that would go into the tape box… that you would inevitably lose anyway.
i could write a paragraph about every one of these artists and how they fit into my history. it’s weird to think that the youngest song in this mix is 12 years old. playing them now brings back so many memories – i hope some of them do the same for you.
formative years. listen to it on Spotify here.
playlist in chronological order:
- the cure – boys don’t cry (boy’s don’t cry, 1980)
- pixies – here comes your man (doolittle, 1989)
- cranberries – linger (everybody else is doing it, so why can’t we? 1993)
- nirvana – the man who sold the world (nirvana unplugged in new york, 1994)
- portishead – sourtimes (dummy, 1994) *
- blur – girls & boys (park life, 1994)
- foo fighters – big me (foo fighters, 1995)
- red hot chili peppers – my friends (one hot minute, 1995)
- no doubt – sunday morning (tragic kingdom, 1995)
- smashing pumpkins – thirty-three (mellon collie and the infinite sadness, 1995)
- fugees – fu-gee-la (the score, 1996)
- jamiroquai – virtual insanity (travelling without moving, 1996)
- beck – devils haircut (odelay, 1996)
- radiohead – let down (ok computer, 1997)
- bjork – hunter (homogenic, 1997)
- lauryn hill – to zion (the miseducation of lauryn hill, 1998)
- air – all i need (moon safari, 1998)
- chemical brothers – music : response (surrender, 1999)
ps: there are a few artists i could have included in this mix who i didn’t. daft punk, faithless and a bunch more electronica come to mind. there are also some i have left off simply because they irritate me now. alanis morissette / jagged little pill: i’m sorry, i did love you once.
i’d like to know – what music did you listen to as a teen?