#0098 IRON DJ: 1984

An impenetrable, majestic fortress of some of the best songs, samples, and sounds from 1984.

As I started looking at songs, I realized that there was a ton of great music released in 1984, when I graduated high school. So much of it, though, falls into that category of “80s music.”  We hear it in elevators, barber shops, or shopping malls on any given day….all those songs that are compiled on hundreds of “Best of the 80s” CD compilations. So, I eliminated any of those right off the bat, with perhaps one or two exceptions, but exceptions that are so good, they justify their own existence on this mix. Many of the songs I listened to back then, but I heard a lot of them later in the 80s too. All songs were released in 1984. Besides too many big hits, I also kept away from some heavy favorites like Iron Maiden, Accept, and Priest and tried to include some different things (so that eliminated Aces High, Losing More Than You’ve Ever Had, and Jawbreaker).

At first I was trying to cram the songs I wanted into an hour long package. But then I thought about old cassette mix tapes. The ones that really sucked were the tapes that were 30 minutes on each side, or one hour mixes. 90 minute mix tapes were okay, but I really  liked 100 minute cassette mix tapes, which is the length that I ended up settling into over time. And so that’s what I made here. The longer format works for some mixes, and I think it works for this one too.

Hope you like it.

1. *Repo Man Theme (Instrumental) – Iggy Pop
2.  Death Ship – Hoodoo Gurus
3.   Wonderin’ – Neil Young**
4.  Wait – Wang Chung
5.  A Friend I Call Desire – Ultravox
6.  Got Me Under Pressure – ZZ Top ***
7.  Priestess – Wendy O. Williams
8.  Master and Servant – Depeche Mode
9.  Handsome Devil – The Smiths
10. Somebody’s Watching Me – Rockwell
11. Pink Turns to Blue – Husker Du
12. Jam On It – Newcleus
13. Ivo – Cocteau Twins ****
14. Mama’s Boy – Ramones
15. It’s My Life – Talk Talk
16. Realization – The Art of Noise
17. Nobody’s Home – Deep Purple
18. I Would Die 4 U – Prince
19.  Stay the Night – Chicago
20. Snaggletooth – Motorhead
21. 88 Lines About 44 Women – The Nails*****
22. Maybe Partying Will Help – Minutemen
23. 99 Red Balloons – Nena
24.  Show Me – The Pretenders
25. Slippery People – Talking Heads******
26. Fight Fire With Fire – Metallica

*          Repo Man
**        Ghostbusters
***      Spinal Tap
****    Making the Grade
*****  The Man with Two Brains
****** Red Dawn

#0076 – The Road Most Traveled

Just your basic mix of cover songs. Ska covers! Bluegrass covers! Metal covers! Punk covers!

Just your basic mix of cover songs. Ska covers! Bluegrass covers! Metal covers! Punk covers!

I know, it’s been done, but dammit it’s MY TURN.

It was brought to my attention though that on a few of these, the original songs may be less well known, so I’ve created a second mix containing the same playlist in the same order, but all original songs rather than the cover versions.

Play
Play

01. Turisas – Rasputin (Boney M)
02. Van Canto – Kings of Metal (Manowar)
03. Dinosaur Jr. – Just Like Heaven (The Cure)
04. Melvins – Going Blind (KISS)
05. Apocalyptica – Welcome Home (Sanitarium) (Metallica)
06. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Puff The Magic Dragon (Peter Paul and Mary)
07. The English Beat – Tears of a Clown (Smokey Robinson and the Miracles)
08. Fishbone – Date Rape (Sublime)
09. Reel Big Fish – Hungry Like The Wolf (Duran Duran)
10. The Meat Purveyors – Round and Round (Ratt)
11. Iron Horse – Polar Opposites (Modest Mouse)
12. Lucero – Kiss The Bottle (Jawbreaker)
13. Ramones – Needles and Pins (The Searchers)
14. Seu Jorge – Five Years (David Bowie)
15. The Slackers – Wanted Dead Or Alive (Bon Jovi)
16. Five Iron Frenzy – It’s Not Unusual (Tom Jones)
17. The Urge – This Is Radio Clash (The Clash)
18. The Protomen – No Easy Way Out (Robert Tepper)

Play
Play

#0009 – File under: Chicago, Party

Play

Less than 48 hours to go until the crew rolls in, this is part 1 of a two-part theme music set. If you’re in the right headspace for mischief, this set makes sense. At any rate, artists include an almost unrecognizeable Metallica, The Blues Brothers, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Tower of Power, Granddaddy, a little Schoolhouse Rock action, Kinobe, Ladytron, Badly Drawn Boy, Shriekback, The White Stripes, Muddy Waters, 311, The Go! Team, Q-Tip and Luther Allison.

If you’re going to go on a tear through Chicago, this mix is entirely appropriate 🙂