America's Hit Parade (Spring/Summer 1996)

Side 1

Weird Al Yankovic-Gump
Spice Girls-Wannabe
LL Cool J-Doin' It (last verse and chorus)
Smashing Pumpkins-Tonight, Tomight
snippet of Fugees' "Family Business"
R. Kelly-Down Low
Live-Lightning Crashes
Jamiroquai-Cosmic Girl
snippet of Smashing Pumpkins' "Mayonnaise"

Side 2

Issac Hayes-Theme From Shaft
Sheryl Crow-All I Wanna Do (picks up after 1st verse)
Cake-The Distance
snippet of Pearl Jam's "Corduroy"
Green Day-Brain Stew
Nirvana-In Bloom
Rage Against The Machine-Bulls On Parade
Green Day-Basket Case
snippet of Seven Mary Three's "Cumbersome"
snippet of Nirvana's "Heart Shaped Box"

After completely pillaging my sister's childhood cassette collection (which was very small and I couldn't dare to record over any of the Disney storybook stuff which I still fondly adored), I had to start looking to other sources to continue my adventures in radio. By this time the school year was getting ready to wind down and I was about to graduate from the 8th grade, but in typical behavior of me, I still held on to stuff you would think I'd have no use for. Even to this day, I still believe that random junk will come in handy, such as a broken umbrella, two pairs of 3-D glasses and a green lei I got from a party. My hoarding proved to be fruitful for once as I was able to use an America's Hit Parade cassette for the year 1932. I had it since the 4th grade. One time in class we were playing games and our teacher, Sister Charlene, gave away prizes for whoever won. I walked away with a miniature card set and this tape. I popped it in once in its original state for a few seconds and all I could recall was a jaunty sounding tune. To this day, I have no idea what songs used to be on it.



The America's Hit Parade cassette had a running time that was twice as long as anything I had worked with previously. It was to be my epic, much in the same way as All Eyez On Me or Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness. Because of its length, I'm sure that I listened to it more during the summer than any of the other previous tapes. Once again, there are snippets galore all over this tape since I had a habit of recording over songs to make space for a new infatuation. It's easy to spot the places where I still didn't have money to buy new cassettes because I started this tape in the spring but eventually songs that got airplay later on in the year made their way on here, such as The Spice Girls' "Wannabe" and Jamiroquai's "Cosmic Girl."

Some of you will look at that timeframe and think nothing of it, but for the few of you who are as obsessed about release dates as I am, you're probably wondering how an American was able to record those songs off the radio. "Wannabe" did not break in the U.S. until early 1997 and "Cosmic Girl" was not even released as a single in the States. The answer is that I was able to hear these imports and many others from a weekly syndicated radio program called The World Chart Show, which true to its name was a countdown of the most popular songs around the globe. The majority of the songs were already popular here in America, along with a few that never caught on (Warren G's "What's Love Got To Do With It," I'm looking at you with a quizzical eyebrow), but there were a good deal of songs from the U.K. that charted, many of which that factored into my early days of making mixtapes as you'll see in future posts. To this day, I still like to keep up with singles from Europe, something that is made much easier thanks to the Internet.

The success of The Spice Girls and Jamiroquai in America later on made me feel even more justified in liking their songs because for the longest it felt as if they only existed in my world. I felt a rush of joy at seeing "Wannabe" on MTV for the first time and then instantly being able to sing along to all the words. After a while, they were no longer my secret and I took a ton of pride in knowing about them before most of the country.

Having listened to "Wannabe" for months before finally watching the video, I had my own vision of what The Spice Girls looked like. In my mind there were four of them and they all wore the same skirts with baseball caps on their heads tipped to the side. I was already familiar with Jamiroquai due to the "Return of the Space Cowboy" video from a few years prior, so I knew what they looked like, but I always envisioned the video for "Cosmic Girl" looking more futuristic. Every time I look at it, I'm a little disappointed at the lack of holograms and hovering cars.



Listening to these mixtapes also makes me think of the visuals in my mind that I would have for songs I'd listen to on radio for months before seeing the video. Since I hardly listen to the radio nowadays, I come across a lot of tracks for the first time through YouTube, which means that I get the visual and the song at the same time, therefore negating a good deal of my imagination. I must have come up with scores of treatments back in these days, a number that has sadly decreased now.

The rest of this tape followed along my usual diet of alternative rock, hip hop and R&B that I was heavily ingesting at the time. There are big hits from that year such as "Down Low," "Tonight," "Doin' It," "Brain Stew," "Bulls On Parade" and "Gump,"— the last two which I recorded off the TV—and songs from a few years ago like "All I Wanna Do," "In Bloom" "Basket Case" and "Lightning Crashes." Two of the songs that stand out the most are Isaac Hayes' "Theme From Shaft" and The Fugees' "Family Business." I'm pretty sure that I had recorded something else previously in the place of "Shaft," but usually when I dubbed over something it would be for a specific song. I can't imagine that I spent hours honed in on the oldies station waiting to hear it. What's even more confusing is that I'm pretty sure I have the song in its entirety on another mixtape, but it's very conceivable that I might have been excited at recognizing it and immediately hit record. This tape is so bastardized from its original form that I can't even recall what was there in the first place. The only clues are the leftover clips that are scattered all over the place.

The inclusion of "Family Business" is notable because it was an album track that I recorded from a Ruffhouse sampler that my cousin had. I was addicted to the Fugees at this time and anything I could get my hands would appease me just fine until I got my hands on The Score. I'm guessing that after I finally had it in my possession, I recorded "Tonight, Tonight" over it.

Two of the songs I was looking forward to the most when I played this tape were Cake's "The Distance" and Seven Mary Three's "Cumbersome." I've always been a fan of alternative songs that mixed genres and switched things up from the typical guitar play that dominated airwaves (think Beck and Fun Lovin' Criminals), which is why I was drawn to "The Distance." Sometime after I had moved back with my mother, I had this song playing loudly in my room, with images in my head of me running from sunup to sundown as I danced back and forth. My mother burst through the door suddenly without warning and asked what the hell I was doing and what the hell I was listening to. I quietly replied "nothing" and sheepishly turned the volume down on my radio. It would take me a long time before I was able to listen to music without fear of anyone questioning me or not understanding it. At this point in my life I usually kept my love of rock and anything eclectic under wraps.




The year 1996 was probably one of the last great ones to feature bands following in the musical blueprint of Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains to have success on the charts. In just a few years, nu-metal would later become the sound of mainstream rock and aside from Creed, Days Of The New and a few others, the sound of grunge was no longer becoming fashionable. After Pearl Jam's 1992 album Ten, record labels hopped aboard the trend to cash in. One of the songs that benefited from this movement was "Cumbersome," one of my favorites to come out of the post-grunge period in the mid-90's. I used to love the amount of syllables in the chorus (for some reason that always made me think the song had more depth lyrically), but it was also catchy and passionate at the same time.



At this point in my mix-making days, I still allowed traces of the DJ announcing the song or even the first few measures of the next one onto the tape. It irritates me that I let this go on, but it is the sound of someone who is just beginning, which gives it a bit of charm. Eventually I got tired of it, but I'm not sure where that point will come or what the catalyst for it was.