Side A
311-Beautiful Disaster
one verse of TRU's "Fedz"
Stone Temple Pilots-Interstate Love Song
Tool-Stinkfist
Pearl Jam-Evenflow
Missy Elliott featuring Da Brat-Sock It 2 Me
snippet of Mary J. Blige's "I Can Love You"
Missy Elliott-The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)
Will Smith-Men In Black
Radiohead-Creep
Smashing Pumpkins-The End Is The Beginning Is The End
The Verve Pipe-The Freshmen
Puff Daddy and The Family-It's All About The Benjamins (Rock Remix)
Beck-Deadweight
Side B
No Doubt-Sunday Morning
311-Don't Stay Home
Sheryl Crow-A Change (Would Do You Good)
Timbaland & Magoo featuring Missy Elliott-Up Jumps Da Boogie
Jewel-You Were Meant For Me
Meredith Brooks-Bitch
Aerosmith-Sweet Taste of India
Green Day-When I Come Around
Monica-For You I Will
Aerosmith-Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees)
Oasis-Wonderwall
Jamiroquai-Alright
Ginuwine-I'll Do Anything/I'm Sorry
snippet of Bjork's "Big Time Sensuality"
The title is a bit embarrassing now that I look back at it, but the sentiment was certainly true to how I felt at the time. I had never dealt with a cassette that had a length of 90 total minutes and where I could write down the track list, giving it a more authentic album feel. The moment was too epic to not have a fitting title to mark the occasion. This was also probably the first blank tape that I bought with my own money, for which I'm assuming that I got for vacation when I went to Tennessee with my cousin. I vaguely recall bringing this one with me along for the trip, which would place its creation sometime around June or July of 1997.
I almost wasn't sure if there had been another mixtape I had created in between this one and the previous one, which was back in the fall of 1996. That's at least eight months unaccounted for where I did not have a new cassette to record over. This is where the practice of recording over songs on previous mixtapes came in handy and why so many of them have snippets all over the place. I wasn't too sure if I had made anything during this time, so I had to consult the Superlist in the hopes of finding any songs that would have sparked my memory and revealed that I had indeed placed it on another mixtape.
So what exactly was the Superlist? In probably one of my biggest moments of music geekdom as an adolescent, I had created a weekly chart called the Superlist where I would note which songs got the most airplay across radio and video channels. It was a very unscientific method and based purely on feel. I never included songs that I disliked either, so a bit of my taste was injected into it as well, but wasn't the overall determining factor. To give you an idea of what a Superlist looked like, here's a page. Click to enlarge.
Just to quickly decipher it, Close Calls were songs that almost made the top ten, Creepin' On Up were new songs that were gaining in popularity, Goners of the Week is self-explanatory detailing what fell out of rotation and the Surefire Hit of the Week was my pick for a new song that I felt would chart and become a big hit. Since I did this nearly every week for two years, it is a resource that I go to constantly whenever I want to research songs from that era or if I'm making a list. I looked through it briefly for this post to see if there were any songs I liked that were unaccounted for on this mixtape and concluded that I really had survived two seasons without making a new one.
I still recorded over songs though for this one, despite having written down the track list in pen. One of my favorite substitutions was excising Mary J. Blige's "I Can Love You" for Missy Elliott's "Sock It 2 Me." I still enjoy the Blige track, but once again it was one of those songs recorded more out of familiarity then with love. On the other hand, how I feel about "Sock It 2 Me" is unconditional.
This was a great time for urban radio since Timbaland's work was just starting to be ubiquitous. Three of his productions are on this tape alone, which is telling even if "Sock It 2 Me" was placed on here a few months after. His trademark stuttering drum patterns were quickly gaining in popularity and I was absolutely in love with it. One of my favorite records from Timbaland's early era was "I'll Do Anything/I'm Sorry," which gave the guitar riff in Stevie Wonder's "Visions" a modern spin. I really liked how Ginuwine's vocals smoothly glided over a track that seemed frenetic on the surface, but was as laid back as they come. For some reason, there's also a forward slash in the title of the song, which to me usually meant a coda or a big movement, but since there wasn't one, it helped make the song feel more unique to me.
One of my favorite moments from this tape was the transition from "Men In Black" to "Creep." All of the previous songs had a fair amount of groove or noise going on, so when the bassline to "Creep" came on and slowed things down, it always took my attention. I never planned on sequencing it that way since I just focused on finding songs to record regardless of order. I feel that having 45 minutes on each side allowed more room for things like this to happen. Momentum would have to happen eventually, right?
The other downside to having 45 minutes on each side is that it allowed me more opportunities to record songs I wasn't all that crazy about. I'll definitely defend a good deal of the output from No Limit Records during this time on any given day, but if I had to be honest with myself, there were about a couple of other dozen songs I liked more than "Fedz" at the time, which is why I eventually recorded over most of it with "Beautiful Disaster." Along with that one, the previously mentioned Blige song, The Wallflowers' "One Headlight" and Dave Matthews Band's "What Would You Say?", that's a total of four songs on Side A I lost no sleep recording over. That's not a knock on any of the tracks since I liked them well enough to record them in the first place, but when something more to my liking came along, it was an easy sacrifice.
One of the more notable tracks from this mixtape was "Bitch," which amused me mostly because of its title, but I was actually fan of the song itself. I was no stranger to profanity, but it was still shocking to hear it on the radio, a place where edits were heavily enforced. It also remains as one of my favorite one-hit wonders from the decade. I usually pride myself on being able to know more than one song by a one-hit wonder (I have the Lou Bega and Right Said Fred mp3s to prove it), but I don't remember much from Meredith Brooks after this one. On a sidenote, she is still writing songs with artists, so that's nice to know.
I used to put on one of my mixtapes or albums every night before I went to bed, which oddly enough helped me sleep. I think one time I might have been listening to this mixtape or it could have been the radio, but Jewel's "You Were Meant For Me" came on and I just laid there in the darkness empathizing with her. The imagery of her walking around solemnly just happened to be stronger at that point despite having heard the song countless times before then. Just your typical teenage musing, is all.
With this being my first 90 minute mixtape, it was definitely a learning experience. I had gotten much better at stopping the recording of songs before they cut off (hearing a DJ's voice for more than three seconds meant that I had failed), but there was still room for improvement as far as my selection. As I mentioned before, I included songs that I could have dealt without (Add Aerosmith's "A Sweet Taste Of India" to that list. How I let that one survive will forever be a mystery) and I probably overindulged myself a little bit with the amount of tape space. This mixtape also marked the beginning of the end for the World Chart Show, which played a big part in exposing me to music from the U.K. There could be a few more inclusions from the show on upcoming mixtapes after Jamiroquai's "Alright," but I honestly don't remember recording too many international songs after this one. The World Chart Show eventually stopped airing shortly after and I have not heard about it since then. I went more in depth about the importance of the World Chart Show for the America's Hit Parade mixtape, so you can imagine how devastated I was to tune in one Sunday afternoon and hear the station's regular programming instead. Before the file-sharing craze took off, the World Chart Show had been my only window to music outside of the United States and with its demise, it ended a special era in my mixtapes. It's really a shame since with this volume I had now became addicted to 90 minute cassettes.
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