19 from '88 | THE HI54 YEARBOOK MIXES
I’ve had the idea of making Mixcloud mixes based on a ‘19 from Year / 20 from Year’ format for awhile (as there’s a good ring to that + it makes for a perfect mix cd length), but it wasn’t until participating in one of those “post 4 albums that came out when you were 14” social media things…
…when it occurred to me that it’d be a fun project to go back through EVERY YEAR that I’ve been alive and make a mix out of the music that came out during that calendar timeframe. And not only would it be a nice mix of nostalgia & discovery/rediscovery for my ears, but it would also give me a new recurring blog post / Mixcloud topic that I could run with for a good stretch of blahg time. Because I’m an old.
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So, let’s jump all the way back to 1988 when I was doing my first and only run as a ring bearer (fwiw that marriage is still together, so I obviously beared that ring good). This was also the year that the Olympics were held in Calgary, which was not too far away from where I was living as a 5-year old Albertan, but all I really remember from those Olympics comes from the 1993 film Cool Runnings. 1988 was also probably the first year that someone got to feel temporarily cool by saying that Die Hard is their favourite Christmas movie. Otherwise, not a whole lot else happened back then.
But, to be honest, I was probably too young to really remember much from the time—the main thing that stands out in my memory was moving to a new town/school in kindergarten and being too scared to ask the teacher to go to the bathroom and eventually just slowly pissing my pants and hoping no one would notice (they did)…
…so if I could pass a mix tape back to that shy 5-year old bearer of rings to let him know that all the cool kids pee their pants, that mix would sound a bit like this:
Now, I wouldn’t necessarily say these are “THE 19 BEST ALBUMS/TRACKS OF 1988”, but based on my recent deep dive + past listening experiences, I would say that these are definitely some of the best ones. Also, just like every other year since forever, there was A LOT of nice music that came out in 1988 and it’d be impossible to perfectly capture it all in 19 tracks anyways . So the artists featured in this mix are a good combo of music I personally have nostalgic feelings for (even if those feelings probably don’t specifically come from 1988) + tunes I’m feeling now —but, as always, the main focus is on creating a mix that flows nicely from one track to another.
SO, if you’d like to dive a bit deeper into 1988 than the 19-track digital mix tape provided (for example, you may reach the end of the above mixtape and think “I’d like more of that vibe, sir”), well, I’ve also had the realization that it’d be a good time for the both of us if we extended the 1988 musical exploring into something more than just the tracks/artists that made the mixtape cut. And since I have stopped taking on the work of dealing with music submissions and now have a bit more time/energy for taking on more #blahgstuff, I figured this would be a good time to go back & follow through on the idea of putting together a 54-track digital mix cd playlist for even further 1988 vibing.
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And 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 also listen to all the HI54 Yearbook Mixes one-after-the-other with this Mixcloud playlist or check out the individual episodes below:
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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