Mix By Year

Here are the rules:

1. Each mix must only include songs from the specified year. In the cases where a song came out one year but became popular in a different year, the correct year is arguable.

Ex: The Hives' Veni, Vidi, Vicious was released in 2000. However, the song "Hate To Say I Told You So" was not a huge success until 2002, during the rock revival. This song will be on the 2002 mix.
However, "Cry Me a River," from Justin Timberlake's Justified was released in 2002, yet did not become a single until 2003. Since the record was out in 2002, people were talking about it, and the only reason it did not become a single until 2003 is that they wanted "Like I Love You" to get time as the first single. Therefore, "Cry Me a River" will be on the 2002 mix.

2. There are five main ways in which songs will be evaluated for inclusion:

a) Quality.

The most important measure, quality is also the most subjective. Many people will object to some of the inclusions on this ground, just as while I recognize the importance of the song, I will never have "Get Ur Freak On" on any mix of mine.

b) Cultural importance.

This includes popularity which places the song in the collective memory of the public ("Hey Ya"), but it also includes major trends (The Rapture's "House of Jealous Lovers").

c) Influential sounds.

This will become more important as the mixes get older, but generally this includes songs that will affect musical trends in future years. Dizzee Rascal's "I Luv U" is a good recent example of this.

d) Stand-alone strength.

There will be times when it will be tempting to include a song simply because the record surrounding it is so strong. This is will be avoided as much as possible, as the purpose of this mix is not to create a sampler, but rather a collection of singles which represents a specific time.

e) Broadness of genre.

It is a goal of this project to include as many important genres as can be included in an 80 minute cd (this is a specific reference to the length of many dance songs). I'm aware that there are hundreds of musical genres that I'm not aware of, and so it can be clearly understood that the purpose of this project is to create mixes that represent the popular and critical opinion of American music listeners. Genres will be ignored if it can be legitimately argued that there is no case for true development and attention.

3. All mixes will be posted here, after which there will be an amount of time for people to respond to the mix and suggest alterations. Eventually, the final mix will be constructed and reposted.

4. Any of these rules can be broken when I feel like it.