Side A
Melissa Etheridge-I'm The Only One
V.A.S.T.-Touched
Busta Rhymes-Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See
Outkast-Rosa Parks
Ecoline Crush-Surefire
Fatboy Slim-Praise You
Love Unlimited Orchestra-Love's Theme
Lenny Kravitz-Fly Away
Sugar Ray-Everymorning
snippet of Nirvana's "The Man Who Sold The World"
Side B
Chemical Brothers-Block Rockin' Beat
The Offspring-Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)
Stevie Wonder-For Once In My Life
snippet of ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man"
Marilyn Manson-I Don't Like The Drugs But The Drugs Like Me
Busta Rhymes-Gimme Some More
Eminem-My Name Is
With there being more than a few random mixtapes that don't belong to The Collection, I often get confused with the chronology. I didn't realize that the introduction of Sony's red tapes could have possibly put this one before Vol. 9, but I can't honestly say that with any confidence. I don't exactly recall the reasoning behind me getting a 60 minute cassette, especially since I was obviously in love with the 90 minute ones, but it might have been one of those times when the hour tapes were the only ones available at Walgreens. I did not label this one or even bother to write down a tracklist, probably out of frustration at it not being 45 minutes on each side. To me, its feeble running time did not deem it worthy of being part of The Collection. Nonetheless, I still had some good times with this one, even if it did get the stepchild treatment.
Song that I always forget the name of and the band itself, leaving me to doubt if I ever knew it back then: Ecoline Crush-Surefire
It happens about once a year, where I start randomly singing to myself, "Sheeee goes ballistic on meeee." I always struggle with remembering any information about the song, which is rare and makes me pretty positive that I never knew it to begin with. I'm pretty good when it comes to recalling the names of songs and artists, but whenever I Googled those lyrics and the results came back as Ecoline Crush, I only felt more confusion because I did not recognize the name. After writing about it now, I'm hoping that won't be the case anymore.
That one time I hit record without ever hearing the song before and it worked out just fine: Fatboy Slim-Praise You
It was late at night one Saturday and I was listening to the radio through my headphones, so as not to wake anyone up. As soon as the DJ said "new Fatboy Slim," my ears perked up. Having been a fan of "The Rockafella Skank," I was curious to see what he would come up with next. It's always a gamble whenever you're recording a song blind and this was one of the bigger payoffs since "Praise You" came to be one of my favorite songs of the year. I pressed my headphones tighter to my ears, so as to catch every little nuance and touch of soul throughout the record, tapping my feet and nodding my head in delight during its duration. When the song was finished, I wanted to listen to it again, which I eventually did over and over.
Just how great was 1998 for hip hop, right?: Outkast-Rosa Parks
Going through some of these mixtapes, it's pretty amazing that 1998 gave us terrific albums by Big Punisher, Jay-Z and Lauryn Hill, not to mention efforts by DMX, Black Star, Juvenile, Goodie Mob, Beastie Boys, Redman and about a dozen others. As if things couldn't get any better, Outkast released Aquemeni that fall, which was arguably the best hip hop album of the year. The lead single, "Rosa Parks," was just as thrilling and about as eclectic as I thought hip hop could get (until they proved me wrong just two years later, but that's for a later entry). It was definitely jarring to have a harmonica solo and a bluegrass breakdown in the middle of the song since it was something that I wasn't used to, but I loved it because of that.
Song that I never would have figured for annoying until I heard it as an adult: The Offspring-Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)
I distinctly remember this song dividing people back at school: either you were a fan or you thought it was crap. I was strictly in the fan camp since I always enjoyed humor in my music and thought that the song's detractors were trying hard to be cool by dissing it. I mean, c'mon, he played Vanilla Ice instead of Ice Cube! Cracked me up back in the day. When I listened to it again for this post, the song did make me smile a bit, but with the obvious punchlines and the babyish female vocals on the chorus, I can now see how someone could have viewed this as annoying.
My absolute third favorite song on here, behind "Praise You" and "Rosa Parks": Busta Rhymes-Gimme Some More
Aside from the video being one of my all-time favorites, "Gimme Some More" is as great an example of why Busta is one of the most technically pure MCs ever. The beat itself, which took a snippet from the score of Psycho, was already challenging enough, but he made it sound like the most hardcore thing ever. I remember thinking how both that sample and Busta made the song an unreal listening experience.
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