Side A
Devo-Whip It
Sneaker Pimps-6 Underground
Queen-We Will Rock You
Queen-We Are The Champions
Fiona Apple-Sleep To Dream
The Prodigy-Breathe
Smash Mouth-Walkin' On The Sun
2Pac-I Ain't Mad At Cha
Space-Female Of The Species
snippet of Oasis' "Champagne Supernova"
311-All Mixed Up
snippet of Collective Soul's "The World I Know"
Side B
ZZ Top-Legs
Garbage-Stupid Girl
Lauryn Hill-Sweetest Thing
snippet of Local H's "Bound For The Floor"
Metallica-Hero Of The Day
Peggy Scott Adams-Bill
Tori Amos-Silent All These Years
Ginuwine-Pony
Very very short snippet of Scarface's "Never Seen A Man Cry"
As I mentioned before in the previous entry, I also received this tape from my brother, who had previously used it when I was younger. That fact is most evident by a brief clip of him singing at the beginning of Side A that I never bothered to record over. He also included ZZ Top's "Legs," which I decided to keep also since I already liked the song. If I recall correctly, that might not have been the only ZZ Top song originally on here, but "Legs" was the only one I recognized.
I also did a bit of singing of my own on this tape as well. There was a lot of space before "Legs" on Side B, but not enough for a full song, so I fooled around a bit, testing my voice my out. I hardly ever get complimented on my singing and my renditions of The Verve Pipe's "The Freshmen" and a few years later, Beck's "Sexx Laws," won't change anyone's opinions.
I can admit that some songs that have made it onto previous mixtapes have been filler in the sense that I wasn't crazy about them in the first place, but still recorded them because I liked them just enough. I can look at each full song on here and say that I like it just as much as I did back in 1996. A few of the songs I can remember that used to be on here were "Garbage's "#1 Crush," Bush's "Greedy Fly" and and Foxy Brown's "Get Me Home" with BLACKstreet. I'm about 75% sure that the Garbage and Bush songs used to be on here because I feel like they were on a clear cassette, and it would sadden me if they actually were gone, but "Get Me Home" was one of those tracks I didn't mind and can't say I was excited to hear anytime it came on. Although recording over songs has lead to snippets, which can be frustrating at times, it served its purpose in eliminating weaker songs.
While I don't think "Champagne Supernova" and "Bound For The Floor" are weak songs by any means, they did end up being replaced by two of my favorite songs of all-time. Fans of R&B will probably recognize "Sweetest Thing" as one of Lauryn Hill's best songs and it's no hidden treasure, which is why I would rather highlight "Female of the Species." It might be more commonly associated with being the song that plays during the end credits of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, but in 1996 it was my theme song. Women still have an intoxicating power over me and this tune spoke to the awkward girl-crazy adolescent that was me. I actually imagined a video for this song where it took place in a lounge and involved women dressed up as monsters, along with a big dance floor sequence between the guys and ladies. Only a kid raised on MTV could daydream in music videos.
Another song that I was crazy about at the time was "All Mixed Up" by 311. I usually like the 311 songs that have a solid balance between Nick Hexum and SA Martinez on vocals, so it's not surprising this is my favorite one. Not to take anything away from those guys as individuals, but I always felt it made the band more distinct when they shared duties equally. I also recorded this song and "Female of the Species" from Q101's (Chicago's alternative station) daily Top Five at 5 countdown. It was an easy way to record stuff because if it was popular enough, you'd know exactly when it would be played.
I also recorded Peggy Scott Adams' "Bill" from a countdown, but it was for WGCI's Top Nine at 9 instead. The fact that I got it from a countdown is miniscule when looking at the song's content, which is about a woman in a relationship with a closeted gay man.
Q101 recently switched formats about a month ago and the station now has a talk news format. The slow decline of Q101 over the years has been noted by just about any rock fan in Chicago and instead of going through the multitude of reasons why people stopped listening, I'll simply say that it was a great station when they could put a five-year old Tori Amos song into moderate rotation. "God" and her cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" were my first exposure to Ms. Amos, but "Silent All These Years" was the one that made me take notice of her and solidified her as a quality artist in my eyes. I wonder if a lot more stations would be doing better if they snuck in five-year old songs every now and then.
Another great one-hit wonder from this decade that time has seem to forgotten is "6 Underground" by Sneaker Pimps. Around this time, artists like Portishead, Tricky and Massive Attack were making trip hop popular, which only made it a matter of time before it trickled down into the mainstream and made bands with a similar sound more accessible. I'll take a watered down version of Massive Attack any day.
While I continued to get better at recording songs so just the music and not the DJ's voice made it on to tape, I'm still surprised at my sense of time, or more likely the lack of it. The snippet for "Never Seen A Many Cry" is literally about five seconds long, maybe less. It's hard to think that five seconds of a song mattered that much to me, but I suppose I was in such a zone while recording that it never dawned upon me to see how much space I had. Maybe I should take those five seconds as a sign of fun.
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