First off, #MusicTwitter rules.
Since the COVID lockdown, I’ve fallen in with a bunch of like-minded music lovers although we don’t all share a passion for the same music. It seems that every month there’s several wonderful “challenges” proposed where users are encouraged to share their passion in a particular fashion. I’ve even come up with a good two or three myself.
In the first round of #AtoZMixtape I chose 1970s T — a playlist a lá mixtape where all tracks start with the letter T. When the round-two opportunity came to tackle the same but a decade letter, I jumped at the chance.
As you do with mixtapes, flow is everything. I ruminated and played with different starting points for about a week, then I began to center toward songs that started and ended hard, and those that faded in and out. Then I started playing around with different moods and themes, while giving an edge towards crowd-pleasers. Not surprisingly, these twenty tracks clearly display my bias towards the early 80s; I got even deeper into music as the decade continued but these tunes called to me — I guess nostalgia was on the mind.
Side A kicks off with three tracks presented in the order as per their original LPs – three up-tempo blasts designed to hook the listener and get the foot a-tappin’. And they also provide a bit of a theme for these types of mix-tapes: slices of time that bind us together over years, months, and days. Tracks 4–6 seemed a good place to vary the mood, with grungy-punk, country-folk, and pure pop. 7–8 get a little adventurous, before settling back into more pure pop. A quick one-two of charged aggression and then it’s time to flip the tape.
Side B launches with three very different views of new wave before we slow things down with a too-80s power ballad that could only come from one pen. The mood mellows before popping into two sure-fire butt shakers with 17 & 18; a bit of artsy skank and then settle in to a track which seems an apt close (even though it was the lead track from a 1980 classic).
Many, many more terrific tunes left on the cutting room floor, but yet they just didn’t seem to fit into the story which presented itself. This is not an ultimate 80s T-list, not are they my absolute favorite T-tunes… so then, what is it? And I really don’t know. But I sure like the way this story gets told.
