Download the 1994 mix here.

Undoubtedly the most difficult year post-1970, 1994 had so many things coinciding at once that I could have easily made two 80 minute mixes that were every bit as relevant as any other year of the 90s. The last gasp of grunge, the year punk broke, the year Brit Pop exploded, and some fantastic singles, from Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” and “Hurt,” to the Meat Puppets’ “Backwater.”

As major as all of those things are, 1994 was really owned by hip hop. Not since 1988 had hip hop had so many classics, and you can look at most of the music on later mixes as direct descendents of this music: Illmatic, Tical, Resurrection, Regulate, Ready to Die, Word… Life, Ill Communication, Boxcar Sessions, The Main Ingredient, Hard to Earn, Southernplayalisticcadillacmuzik, Genocide and Juice, Fear Itself, Fadanuf Fa Erybody, Blowout Comb. All in 1994. That’s music from northern and southern California, Altanta, Chicago, Houston, and New York, all at the top of its game, representing the best they have to offer. So you understand the difficulty I had in narrowing down this list. I made a few tough choices: I went with the one-hit wonder “Flava In Ya Ear,” which basically started Bad Boy off, and I moved Nas to 1993, where “Halftime” first hit, and hit big (in New York).

But rock’s showing isn’t exactly shabby. Green Day’s “Longview,” Stone Temple Pilots’ “Big Empty,” Pavement’s “Cut Your Hair”… Does music get any better than this? 1994. Wow.

Songs I didn’t include: Nirvana: “The Man Who Sold the World”; Urge Overkill: “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon”; Soul Coughing: “Screenwriter’s Blues”; Outkast: “Player’s Ball”; Ace of Base: “I Saw the Sign”; Ahmad: “Back in the Day”; Coolio: “Fantastic Voyage”; Crystal Waters: “100% Pure Love”; Goldie: “Inner City Life”; Ini Kamoze: “Hot Steppa”; Primal Scream: “Get Your Rocks Off”; Salt-N-Pepa and En Vogue: “Whatta Man”; Veruca Salt: “Seether”; Bad Religion: “21st Century Digital Boy” and “Infected.”

1. Corduroy - Pearl Jam - 4:37
2. I Used To Love H.E.R. - Common - 4:38
3. Big Poppa - The Notorious B.I.G. - 4:12
4. Bring The Pain - Method Man - 3:09
5. Big Empty - Stone Temple Pilots - 4:56
6. Long View - Green Day - 3:59
7. Backwater - Meat Puppets - 3:41
8. Doll Parts - Hole - 3:31
9. Sabotage - The Beastie Boys - 2:58
10. Flava In Ya Ear - Craig Mack - 3:36
11. Regulate - Warren G - 4:08
12. Cut Your Hair - Pavement - 3:06
13. Buddy Holly - Weezer - 2:39
14. Girls & Boys - Blur - 4:50
15. Live Forever - Oasis - 4:38
16. Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden - 5:17
17. Sour Times - Portishead - 4:14
18. Last Goodbye - Jeff Buckley - 4:35
19. Hurt - Nine Inch Nails - 6:14

Download the 1995 mix.

Oh jeez, this takes me back. Punk broke big in the end of 94, so along came The Offspring (Smash it Up came out in '94, but broke big in '95) and No Doubt, as well as And Out Come the Wolves..., one of the best Punk records ever. Bush tried to keep Grunge afloat with their huge success, and Brit Pop continued its renaissance with Pulp's Different Class and Oasis's What's The Story (Morning Glory)?

I kicked off the mix with four straight females, but I neglected to include "You Oughta Know," simply because I do not like that song anymore, and I cannot bear to listen to it. It's probably the biggest song I've left off of any mix, but I'm the boss, so there.

I hadn't noticed this, but looking at my order, this is probably the most segregated of my mixes. The back to back Wu triumphs were inevitable, and "Crossroads" sits so nicely next to "Waterfalls" (which was released in '94 but didn't hit big until "Creep" was worn out). Tricky's "Black Steel" was the bigger song, but got switched because of time for an equally appealing track.

Some songs I left off: Smashing Pumpkins: "1979"; Garbage: "Stupid Girl"; D'Angelo: "Brown Sugar" or "Shit, Damn, Motherfucker"; The Presidents of the United States of America: "Lump"; Blur: "Country House"; Foo Fighters: "This is a Call"; Mobb Deep: "Shook Ones, Pt. II"; anything from Liquid Swords.

1. Stutter - Elastica - 2:22
2. Just A Girl - No Doubt - 3:32
3. Missing - Everything but the Girl - 4:58
4. Down By The Water - PJ Harvey - 3:14
5. Hell Is Round The Corner - Tricky - 3:47
6. Ice Cream - Raekwon - 4:13
7. Shimmy Shimmy Ya - Ol' Dirty Bastard - 2:41
8. Gangsta's Paradise - Coolio - 4:01
9. You're All I Need - Method Man & Mary J Blige - 5:09
10. Crossroads - Bone Thugs N Harmony - 3:49
11. Waterfalls - TLC - 4:39
12. Aeroplane - Red Hot Chili Peppers - 4:44
13. Common People - Pulp - 5:51
14. Everything Zen - Bush - 4:38
15. Self Esteem - Offspring - 4:18
16. Ruby Soho - Rancid - 2:37
17. Hyper-Ballad - Björk - 5:21
18. Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead - 4:50
19. Don't Look Back in Anger - Oasis - 4:47

Download the 1996 mix.

I don't think you have to be from California to like "California Love," but it definitely helps. I stuck it up front, along with two huge Los Angeles songs, "What I Got," which broke Sublime nationally (and posthumously) and "Where It's At," the very successful (though not as big as "Loser," still Beck's biggest hit) first single off the now-classic Odelay. I also picked another lone representer: Squirrel Nut-Zipper's "Hell" didn't hit big nationally until early 1997 when the swing revival totally took hold, but the record was released in 1996 and was already pretty well-established in LA, certainly after Swingers was released that year.

What really comes through on this mix though is hip hop. Dr. Octagon exposed a huge population to the underground hip hop world, and Shadow's Endtroducing... is probably one of the best records ever. The Fugees hit huge, and NaS had a big hit with the female Fugee that sounded nothing like his previous record and basically ruined the next five years of his career. And Outkast was Outkast, making unique, brilliant hip hop that didn't quite sound like anything else of the time.

I'm particularly proud that I was able to fit "Born Slippy" on the mix. At ten minutes, it's one of the longer tracks included, and it's also a great dance song, one of the best of the decade, and a great indication of the style of the time. It was so difficult to leave off some excellent dance tracks, particularly because they were too long, so whenever I get the chance to fit one on I like to push it.

I also know I have to explain my Fiona Apple choice. "Criminal" was of course her big song. It was the hit that everyone knows and her label expects from her. It's also one of her weakest songs, and a great deal of Fiona fans (including one who has access to where I sleep) would be very upset with me if I included it. The other big singles from the album were "Shadowboxer" and "Sleep to Dream." I like both about equal, but the latter - along with being a minute shorter than the former - is a more representative track, thus its inclusion.

This was a really big year for catchy throwaway singles, here's some stuff I left off, throwaway or not: Busta Rhymes: "Woo Hah!"; Butthole Surfers: "Pepper"; Folk Implosion: "Natural One"; Photek: "The Hidden Camera"; Spice Girls: "Wannabe"; R. Kelly: "I Believe I Can Fly"; The Wallflowers: "One Headlight"; Rage Against the Machine: "Bulls on Parade"; Cake: "The Distance"; Everclear: "Santa Monica"; Collective Soul "The World I Know"; Space : "Female of the Species"; The Primitive Radio Gods: "Standing Outside a Broken Phonebooth; anything from If You're Feeling Sinister or Reasonable Doubt.

1. California love - 2pac - 4:01
2. Where It's At - Beck - 5:30
3. What I Got - Sublime - 2:51
4. Virtual Insanity - Jamiroquai - 3:45
5. Lovefool - The Cardigans - 3:18
6. If I Ruled The World (Imagine That) - NaS - 4:42
7. Ready Or Not - The Fugees - 3:46
8. No Diggity - Blackstreet - 5:04
9. Earth People - Dr. Octagon - 4:44
10. Hell - Squirrel Nut-Zippers - 3:12
11. El Scorcho - Weezer - 4:03
12. Down - 311 - 2:52
13. Novocaine For The Soul - Eels - 3:08
14. Stink Fist - Tool - 5:10
15. Sleep To Dream - Fiona Apple - 4:09
16. ATLiens - Outkast - 3:50
17. Born Slippy - Underworld - 9:44
18. Midnight In A Perfect World - DJ Shadow - 5:02

1997

Download the 1997 mix here.

This disc is a mix of songs from modern classics (Homogenic, OK Computer, Homework) and songs from people who... didn't do much else (Sneaker Pimps, Harvey Danger, Cornershop). The Mighty Mighty Bosstones are going to be the only representatives of the brief Ska revival, and The X-Ecutioners' "Turntablist Anthem" will have to represent the DJ movement at the end of the nineties, which wasn't really a singles movement anyway.

Looking at this mix now, I can see why it seemed like Electronic was going to take over the world. Bjork, Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, and Roni Size were all at the top of their games in very different styles, and that's without Prodigy and Cornershop, who had Fatboy Slim remix their hit, "Brimful of Asha," to great success (I included the original here because I like it more). The nineties, I believe, are going to be explored more by music historians, because I think the decade was a battle in a lot of ways between the systemic racism of the music industry and the desire of the consumer, which by this time was for hip hop to take over the world. Rock tried with Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but by 1997 the whole genre had basically cooled off - even OK Computer had electronic elements and was a step away from the classic sound. I would argue that Foo Fighters' The Colour and The Shape was the last really strong rock album of the 90s that worked both commercially and critically. The predominantly white music magazine business (especially in Britain, where NME is notoriously biased) needed new heroes, and so they threw their full weight behind Electronic. It failed for a number of reasons (which you could write a book about), but we know the result: hip hop took over the world, which by this point was pretty unstoppable.

By the way, I knocked off "Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen" at the last moment. While that was a huge song, it just became too much of a chore to listen to, and anyway "Bittersweet Melody" is certainly the song to start off this mix with, one of the great anthems of the 90s.

Other songs not included: Missy Elliot: "Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)", OMC "How Bizarre," Chumbawamba: "Tubthumping," Hanson "Mmmbop," Green Day: "Good Riddance," anything from Camp Lo's Uptown Saturday Night, Wu Tang's Forever, or Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind. However, I'm thinking about including some Bob Dylan songs in the 60s. not really sure yet.

Comment below.

1. Bittersweet Symphony - Verve - 5:58
2. Block Rockin' Beats - The Chemical Brothers - 5:13
3. Song 2 - Blur - 2:01
4. Hypnotize - The Notorious B.I.G. - 3:49
5. On & On - Erykah Badu - 3:45
6. 6 Underground (Nellee Hooper Edit) - Sneaker Pimps - 3:54
7. Everlong - Foo Fighters - 4:10
8. Brimful Of Asha - Cornershop - 5:16
9. Walking On The Sun - Smash Mouth - 3:26
10. The Impression That I Get - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - 3:14
11. Paranoid Android - Radiohead - 6:24
12. Around The World - Daft Punk - 7:09
13. Firestarter - Prodigy - 4:41
14. Brown Paper Bag (Full Vocal Mix) - Roni Size - 4:43
15. The Turntablist Anthem - The X-Ecutioners - 3:48
16. Autumn Sweater - Yo La Tengo - 5:14
17. All Is Full Of Love - Björk - 4:33