1999
Download the 1999 mix here.
Like probably many of you, the nineties was my decade, my coming of age years, and my formative music years. Most of the songs I have the strongest connections to come from these years, and as we go further back in the mixes, it becomes harder and harder for me to seperate the actually worthwhile stuff from the stuff that was either important to me or has a big enough cheese factor in my life as to be impossible to ignore. You'll notice that the early nineties may be where I make my biggest concessions to the mainstream, and I just can't help it. I apologize in advance for Kriss Kross.
As for 1999, well, it was the big year for Dre, who broke Eminem and put out Dre 2001. The hard rock phenomenon hit bigger with KoRn, Limp Bizkit, etc. I'll be ignoring that pretty much, although I like Incubus enough to include their first single ("Drive" was bigger, but it didn't fit on 2000). One last minute change here was replacing Everlast's "What It's Like" with Fiona Apple's "Fast As You Can." It was a simple case of not being able to listen to the former song, whereas I think Fiona's work was fairly important musically, as it showed a more unusual side of the conventional female singer-songwriter genre.
Blackalicious's contribution will be especially enjoyable for those who haven't heard it, and I defy any Macy Gray doubters to listen to "I Try" again and not admit that it is a thoroughly enjoyable song. I'm also ignoring Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys, because I'll be ignoring most teeny bop music (sorry NKOTB fans).
I left a lot out on this one, but here are the big ones: ODB: "Got your Money," Aphex Twin: "Windowlicker," Blink 182: "What's My Age Again," Chemical Brothers: "Let Forever Be," Madonna: "Beautiful Stranger," Santana: "Smooth."
1. My Name Is - Eminem - 4:28
2. Still D.R.E. - Dr. Dre - 4:30
3. Guerilla Radio - Rage Against The Machine - 3:26
4. Pardon Me - Incubus - 3:43
5. Steal My Sunshine - Len - 4:08
6. No Scrubs - TLC - 3:34
7. Umi Says - Mos Def - 5:10
8. I Try - Macy Gray - 3:59
9. Simon Says - Pharoahe Monch - 2:53
10. Back That Ass Up - Juvenile - 4:28
11. I See You Baby (Fatboy Slim Mix) - Groove Armada - 5:43
12. Red Alert - Basement Jaxx - 4:17
13. You Got Me - The Roots - 4:19
14. Fast As You Can - Fiona Apple - 4:40
15. Race For The Prize - The Flaming Lips - 4:18
16. Tender - Blur - 7:40
17. Alphabet Aerobics (The Cut Chemist 2 1/2 Minute Workout) - Blackalicious - 2:13
18. Debra (Edit) - Beck - 5:35
posted by bza @ 10/24/2005
17 Comments:
I've got strep throat so I'm home today and I should be medicated but I'm not. So here goes the next best thing, commenting on BZAs mixes! i'm excited for the 90s... maybe they won't be as bad as I always seem to remember them as. This one looks pretty good.
Anyway, good move in my opinion for ditching everlast. Sure it was popular, but I don't see it as a precursor or part of any movement, except mayve "Shit That Suck".
I think Incubus covers the 'nu-rock/metal' thing pretty well. I'm not a huge fan, but I respect them, which is somethign I can't say about Limp Bizkit or non first album korn (thats a decent metal album).
Can't get into that macy gray song, but I wouldn't suggest you remove it. I've just never been into her. Maybe I heard I try 1 or 100 too many times.
Umi Says instead of Ms. Fat Booty? I dig both songs but I remember Ms Fat Booty being the more ubiquitous of the two.
No ODB is pretty hard to take, and I'm surprised that you left it off. It was huge, awesome and also one of the earlist, dopest Neptunes beats. I know Big Baby Jesus will get some love in other mixies with wutang clan, but Baby I Got Your Money really was and is one of the larger solo Wu-Hits.
Can you tell me about Tender? I know the song and like it a lot... I guess, can you defend the inclusion of one nearly 8 minute song over ODB and say, Chemical Brothers? I don't know Blur as well as you, and I don't remember the song from 99, so I want the skinny.
To me, ms. fat booty doesn't have the essence of the mos def impact that Umi Says does. I also feel like Umi Says was everywhere in late 2000.
I decided to include one ODB solo song, and I picked "Shimmy Shimmy Ya," which was a bigger hit than "Got Your Money." As for replacing it with tender, it is one of those situations where it comes down to which song you prefer. Neither song was a huge success in the states, Tender hit #2 in Britain (kept off number one by "Baby One More Time"), and made the biggest US splash for blur that had an actual title. The chemical brothers did well with Let Forever Be, and it was kind of the last gasp of big beat (I guess Tender was the last gasp of brit pop). But neither of those songs grabs in the way that "Tender" does. It's a tough move, and I could probably be convenced to change it, though I'm not there yet.
What I really wanted to get on here is "Windowlicker," which is a major track, but it just didn't fit.
Sorry to hear about your strep. Don't kiss me.
I guess that the way I see it, in mixology, an 8 minute song takes up twice as much of the limited resource (time) as a 4 minute song. To me, that means it's gotta be really fucking important. People exclude songs from mixes all the time for being too long. Tender is a great song that I enjoy listening to for 8 minutes, but when time is limited, do you think that a whole tenth of the mix should be devoted to it? I'm not convinced that it shouldn't be, I'm just not convinced that it should either.
That's a good point.
Give me a convincing track list.
This mix definitely takes you back. Especially, I think, for those of us who graduated HS in 99.
My comments - since "Got Your Money" was the first time this white bread suburban girl from Kansas had heard of ODB, it has a special place. As does "What's My Age Again" for those of us who grew up thinking the epitome of punk was Green Day - Dookie.
Yes I know I'm lame.
However, as you can imagine I'm pleased as punch about "Fast As You Can" replacing Everlast - if I heard that song again I think I'd puke.
I will continue to dislike Macy Gray, but I do like that song. It's kind of like my feelings about Ani Difranco - good songs, not a good singer. Someone else should have picked up "I Try."
I love "Beautiful Stranger", but the caveat is that I love every Madonna song - even the bad ones. The video was also great.
My last comment is about supposed "teeny bop music." I think it's unfair to say "I'm ignoring Britney Spears" since you already included Toxic from the later years. Not that I'm advocating for her inclusion, and I know that "quality" is the number one consideration, but many good critics who hate "teeny bop music" will concede that Backstreet Boys "I Want It That Way" is one of the most iconic pop songs ever written.
That said, "I Want It That Way" was my least favorite of all the Backstreet Boys songs, but I absolutely HATE "Steal My Sunshine" by Len and would definitely consider that song "teeny bop music" even if the performers themselves are not teeny boppers.
I am very much looking forward to the 90's my friend.
On the Britney Spears tip:
I was not using "teeny bop" as an insult. While I'm not a particular fan of any of that music, I think the fact that it is mass produced and created on an almost cyclical basis makes the majority of it irrelevant to music history. They are basically an entirely different type of music. While I ignored Britney in 1999, I didn't ignore toxic or I'm a slave 4 u, which I considered strongly, because at that point she had really past the teeny bop stage, as had justin when he made cry me a river.
At the time, "I Want it That Way" was impossible to ignore, and so it was included on that horrible Rolling Stone list of the best pop songs of all time. If you made the same list now, it would not be included. The passage of time has not worn well on backstreet boys, and maybe only a few n'sync songs are notable ("pop" and the nelly collab are the only ones that come to mind). At the time of new kids, the right stuff was a huge success, and was widely regarded as a fantastic pop song. No one would say the same thing now. It's just the nature of the industry.
negative on the strep culture, so we're good to french.
while I come up with my convincing track list, let me ask you this: reasons for still DRE over Tha Next Episode? I'm doing some track list futzing and wanted your take on that choice.
wow, this mix really gets blood going to my regions. nostalgia. This may get emotional as we go forward. backward.
both "the next episode" and "xxplosive" are better songs than "still d.r.e." but the latter was the first single, then came "without me." Those two songs played for probably six months, well into 2000, before either of the better songs played. In fact, I didn't hear "xxplosive" on the radio until 2001.
So while I would put those other songs, Still D.R.E. was the song that annouced dre's return to the top, hit HUGE (although Without Me may have been even bigger) and really succeeded.
I would also mention that dre's verses on "Still D.R.E." were ghost written by Jay Z, which makes it even more notable, I think.
wow, I did not know that. that's really cool.
without me? the eminem song? do you mean forgot about dre?
i agree that Still D.R.E. works well because it was the first big comeback single for him and snoop. I only brought it up because Next Episode is half the length. It also has Nate Dogg, but I imagine he'll pop up a few times on the mixes...
yeah, I meant forgot about d.r.e.
1999 Mixed - Tender - Umi Says + Ms Fat Booty + Got Your Money + Windowlicker = 80 minutes exactly.
although i'm worried it may not burn to a disc.
You know, on the way to work today, I had a sort of mixistential crisis while I was listening to Tender. It's a great fucking song, and I'm having doubts about my doubts about it being on the mix. And my doubts are bigger than tender, bigger than blur and bigger than 1999. I think its about long songs in general, and by long I mean like 6 and over.
On one hand, Tender is really long. Almost twice as long as many of the other songs on the mix. Taking it off means you could fit two more songs. However, its length didn't prevent it from charting high, which is a strong statement.
Then there's the issue of what does a song do with its length. There are long songs which really cram the 6 plus minutes with many different ideas. Tender uses its time to build and build, but it essential works on two parts the whole time. Don't get me wrong, it's a great listen but my question is, in an arena where time is of the essense, does it warrant 7:40?
Then I also thought of other long songs that may go on the mixes. Do you have an overall ideology about long songs? For me, I would have a hard time putting Bela Lugosi's Dead on the 79 (?) mix, even though it spawned an career, a style of music, and pretty much an entire facet of culture that is still going strong today. It's like 9 minutes, and pretty much meditates on the same riff and dub effects. Does it use its 9 minutes well? I DON"T KNOW. Tender still is a outstanding song, so I'm just saying... I don't know what I'm saying. Does anyone have anything to say about this? I know government members are being indicted today and all, but this is the really important shit! Lets debate on long songs! Please?!?
I'm taking a break from following the gratifying display of a White House peeing its political pants. I understand and respect the points you are making re: the length and therefore doubled need for Tender to rock this mix in a crazy, crazy way. Howevah, I am here to say that I think Tender is a ridiculously awesome song that doesn't sound like a single thing that came before or after it. I think it is worth two songs' spots. I still recall the cold winter morning in high school when I woke up to my alarm clock and that song was playing on WFNX and I freaked out and scrambled across my room to find a tape on which to tape it and I accidentally taped over a mix that was very dear to me on a personal level. But it was worth it. Just one girl's story.
I just remembered: Beta Band - Dry The Rain. I think it's kind of long, and this mix is alreay tight but it was a pretty big song that began the career of an oddball, beloved band. Its probably the only Beta Band song that could make it to one of these mixes too. Thoughts?
no beta band. I think the only argument for them is that they were prominently featured in High Fidelity, and that ain't good enough.
Your point about Tender and long songs in general is really interesting. I think it is the most difficult part of creating these mixes, because a ten minute song that is successful is usually REALLY successful, because something has to be really good/epic to be that long and get played on the radio. The eighties had its share of long songs with the emergence of a serious dance community, and the seventies had its share of drug-riddled operas. Many of these songs were not included simply for space, some are way too self-indulgent for me (most prog, "In-a-gadda-da-vida", etc.). But when a big one comes along, I tend to build the mix around it e.g. a 1979 mix without "Rapper's Delight" is not a 1979 mix.
ok, first off - my bad. Three EPs is 98, and the EP that Dry the Rain is on is from 1997, so 1999 has nothing to do with the Beta Band (High Fidelity was 2000). That said, I have to disagree that the only arguement for them stems from the film. The three EPs made a huge critical splash, and was namechecked at the time by many artists, including Radiohead and Oasis. They didn't become known at all in the US until 2000, but the three EPs was the begining of a critically acclaimed career that was cut short in the end by a lack of commercial success. Those who did like them were pretty hardcore about it. That said, it really comes down to whether you, mix master BZA, like them or not, because I feel like there have been inclusions of artists of similar predicament (big critical/artist acclaim, underachieving commercially) and I'm getting the vibe that you don't.
On an completely other note, wasn't Californication from 99? That was the RHCP comeback record. I'm not going to fight for that one at all, but did you consider?
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