19 from '88 | THE HI54 YEARBOOK MIXES
[LAST RE-BLAHG’D: 11-9-24]-----
↓ First things first, let’s start by pressing play (▶) button ↓
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Because the number one perk for us even being on this particular blog post, at this particular moment in time, is… and I’m quoting directly from the manual here:
PERK #1: Because Jeremy/hi54lofi once traveled back in time (via basic headphone magic) and put together a 19-track digital mixtape featuring 19 different tracks from 19 different artists—all from 19 different 1988 releases—you can now listen to that “19 from 88” yearbook mix whenever you want, wherever you are on the internet, for the low, low cost of just clicking a button or 2.
But the only way for you to take advantage of this FREE-to-listen-to sample of somebody-somewhere’s nineteen-eighties audio-nostalgia is for you to press the ‘play’ button on that embedded player above OR by jumping over to Mixcloud to listen over there (ps - Mixcloud also has an app for easier phone listening, if that be your listening preference).
Alright… has everybody pressed play?
Yes?
Nice.
OK, how about we just listen for a bit… yeah?
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TRACKS 1-6
(1) Pixies - Where Is My Mind? (2) Boogie Down Productions - Illegal Business (3) Metallica - One (4) Bobby Brown - My Prerogative (5) Joan Jett And The Blackhearts - I Hate Myself For Loving You (6) Jungle Brothers - Straight out the Jungle
Even though I was only 5 years old in 1988, I am still surprised at how long it took for me to get properly exposed to how great the Pixies were. For me, it wasn’t until self-guided musical explorations became more possible in the late aughts & early twenty-10s that I finally came to discover just how stocked the Pixies ‘good tunes’ cupboard was. I blame growing up in rural Alberta (Canada) during pre-internet times, as my brother and I (and our acquaintances & etc) listened to the local area “rock” stations quite a lot in the 80s/90s and I don’t remember “100.3 FM… The Bear” ever playing any Pixies. Which seems insane given how many Pixies’ tracks (like the one featured in this ‘88 YEARBOOK Mix’) would have sounded perfectly in place with all the other stuff that 80s/90s Edmonton (AB) “rock” radio stations were playing over and over (and over) again instead.
The good ol’ days, eh?
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To be honest, my pre-internet, rural Albertan upbringing meant that I wouldn’t first hear most of the music in this ‘88 mixtape until well outside my actual existence in the 1988 calendar year. For example, there was a long stretch of time when I only knew of KRS-One as that rapper referenced in that Sublime song called “KRS-One”. Because a kid living on a farm in #preinternet Canada couldn’t just go “check out” stuff they heard about in some song (or from some person or on some show or etc) — a lot of the times we just had to go on with our lives not knowing about a lot of stuff.
Metallica’s music, on the other hand, was never hard to bump into back in the day, but they’ve never really been my jam (although, I do enjoy their documentary). Their music is just generally too angry in the vibes for how little I ever feel like being angry in my own life. However, it also felt inaccurate to my ‘looking/thinking-back to 1988’ experience if I were not to include a track from “…AND JUSTICE FOR ALL” (which is a pretty big album from ‘88 for a lot of people). I also liked the way that “Illegal Business” transitioned into “One” on the digital mixtape, AND THEN, how “One” transitioned into “My Prerogative” (also: some Metallica songs, like the one on this mix, objectively rip in places).
My mix, my prerogative, innit?
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And no shade to Joan Jett (or anyone else on this mix), but if there is one track from the first six tracks that really deserves more ears to be appreciating it, it’s gotta be the Jungle Brothers it’s-a-hit-to-my-ears-at-least “Straight Out The Jungle” — SO — if you’re thinking of bailing on the full mix listen and/or skipping ahead from wherever you got to (you did press play up at the top, right?), I recommend taking a moment to either skip ahead to the 24:45 mark on the mix OR just hitting ‘pause’ on the mixtape for a minute and then pressing ‘play’ on this isolated 1988 gem below:
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Nice, eh?
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TRACKS 7-9
(7) The Traveling Wilburys - Last Night (8) Fine Young Cannibals- She Drives Me Crazy (9) Tracy Chapman - Baby can I hold you
I still have physical copies on my person of the excellent contributions to the year of music that The Travelling Willburys (CD) and Tracy Chapman (vinyl) put out in 1988. They are not official relics from my youth, BUT, I did get them both from either thrift stores and/or garage sales, SO, I guess they’re at least official relics from somebody’s youth… and that adds to their charms (sorry Fine Young Cannibals and all the rest, but I promise I’ll keep an eye out for your ‘88 wares in the local secondhand markets).
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Physical artifacts featuring culture from 1988.
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1988 was also the year that the Olympics were held in Calgary (AB), which was not too far away from where I was living as a 5-year old Albertan in 1988 —AND— also not very far from where I currently live & update this very blog post from, a mountown somewhere off of highway 95eh (BC). However, all I can personally remember from those 1988 Winter Olympics comes from that 1993 film ‘Cool Runnings’ (starring Canadian saint John Candy).
On a related note: here is my Letterboxd list called “19 FROM 88”, which is my ongoing consideration for what are my subjective (and subject to change at any time) favourite best films from the year 1988 — which is a dumb personal project that I’ve been doing for all the other years that I’ve been alive for too (which might become future blahg fodder later).
Like most things from 1988, I was a bit too young to remember much about it from the actual time. The main thing that stands out in my ‘88 memory card was moving to a new town/school in kindergarten and being too scared to ask the teacher to go to the bathroom, eventually just slowly pissing my pants, real stealthily like, hoping no one would notice (they did).
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Physical artifacts featuring culture from 1988.
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I also vaguely remember being a moody bearer of rings at my Auntie & Uncle’s wedding—HOWEVER—it is worth noting that they’re still together and have even produced more humans that also have weddings, SO, I think it’s fair to say that I must have done a pretty good job with my ring bearing duties at their ‘88 nuptials.
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And now here’s an isolated ‘88 love song from Tracy Chapman:
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TRACKS 10-19
(10) Johnnie Taylor - I Found a Love (11) Big Daddy Kane - Ain't No Half-Steppin' (12) EPMD - You Gots To Chill (13) Leonard Cohen - Everybody Knows (14) Robert Palmer - Simply Irresistible (15) Eric B & Rakim - Microphone Fiend (16) Siouxsie and the Banshees - Burn Up (17) Michael Hurley - I Paint a Design (18) Jonathan Richman - Dancin Late At Night (19) Galaxie 500 - Parking Lot
I may be biased, but an ‘88 Mix’ that jumps from Johnnie Taylor to Big Daddy Kane to EPMD to Leonard Cohen to Robert Palmer, well… that may not have been my literal soundtrack back when I was a five-year-old breathing 1988 air, BUT, if I were to picture my current self living back in those times, OR, more reasonably, if I wanted to bring some authentic ‘88 vibes into my current day, I don’t think one could go too wrong with spending more time with that run of releases (hashtag no half-stepping).
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And if that ‘88 Mix’ were to go on to play a run of 1988 gems from Eric B & Rakim and Siouxsie and the Banshees and Michael Hurley and Jonathan Richman and Galaxie 500, well… I’d have to officially call that whole mix one helluva nice way to soundtrack an hour+ of whatever day/year today is — and you can bet your *ss that I’d click a thing or two while I was over here too.
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Now, I wouldn’t necessarily say these are “THE 19 BEST ALBUMS/TRACKS OF 1988” —BUT— based on my eighty-eight deep dive + past listening/living experience, I would say that these are definitely some of the best ones. And, when mixed together like above, I think they paint a pretty nice part of 1988’s much bigger picture.
However, if you feel that there are certain 1988 tracks, artists, and/or albums not included in my “19 FROM 88” YEARBOOK MIX, and it feels personally egregious for them to be missing (ie. something that you couldn’t imagine not including in your own “19 FROM 88” list), well, please feel warmly encouraged to mention your subjective 1988 faves in the comments below (and bonus points to those who don’t just mention who/what they would have included instead, BUT, also say who/what they would remove to make room for in the list of nineteen). PS -this comment about commenting also applies if you have any feelings about my “19 FROM 88” Letterboxd list.
All that being said, if you’d like to dive even deeper into 1988 than what the 19-track digital mixtape provided can provide, WELL, back when I was still using a corporate streamer (ie. Spotify), I had the realization that it might be nice to extend the 1988 musical exploring to something longer than the 19 tracks/artists above. So I put together a 54-track digital mix cd Spotify playlist for even further 1988 vibing:
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Finally, if you’d ever like to extend the ‘soundtrack-by-HI54-mixtape’ vibes all day, go press the play button over on MOUN.TOWN/RADIO (which’ll play one HI54 mix tape after another, all day — with new/old HI54 Mixcloud mixes like the mix tape above added to the top of ‘MTR - SIDE A’ and ‘MTR - SIDE B’ every Wednesday).
Or you can listen to all the HI54 Yearbook Mixes one-after-the-other with this Mixcloud playlist OR you can check out the individual episodes below (amongst some other nostalgia-related posts):
ALSO also: HI54LOFI is in the Mixcloud Select program, which means you can now support the making of these mix tapes & the artists included on them with a monthly subscription (while also unlocking offline listening of hundreds of HI54 mix tapes for yourself) — y’know, if you’d be interested in something like that!
Or nobody would be mad at you if you wanted to make a one-time “thanks for the stuff” donation of your choice to HI54LOFI over here!
Or even if you just told someone else that they might like what they’d find over on the ol’ HI54.BLOG… that stuff helps too!
And, final finally… if you hear something you like in this latest episode (or just in general out on the internets today), make sure to check out the people making the stuff you like and show them a little bit of love / support / appreciation (in whatever ways you can) — because everybody wins if we all start sharing some more metaphorical coffees/beers/cheers with the people making the things that make things a little bit better (and maybe we can also start giving way less to the people out there always trying to keep things shitty?).
Put good things in, good things come out.
Put good things out, good things come in.
Put good things on loop.
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JEREMY / @HI54LOFI
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