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
“Not with a whisper, but with a bang.” Heavily inspired by the post-punk sounds included in the oeuvre of director Richard Kelley in movies such as Donnie Darko and Southland Tales,