19 from '96 | 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 1hr-ish 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 back to the calendar year when I was wearing the kind of glasses that look like a trendy snapchat filter now, BUT, actually were not all that cool or respected when you were an awkward 13 year old in 1996. The year Mad Cow Disease hit the UK and Prince Charles & Diana got divorced (coincidence?). It was also the year that the MLS had their first season and the N64 launched and probably some other 3-letter acronym stuff happened.
As for my actual experience of 1996, I was riding the pine as a grade 7’r on a rural Alberta junior high basketball team, trying to discover music thru a Columbia House mail order CD subscription because the radio always played the same songs over & over again…
…and if ‘96 me and current me where to get together and put together a mix for that year, it’d probably definitely sound a bit like this:
Now, I wouldn’t necessarily say these are “THE 19 BEST” of 1996, 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 1996 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 that nostalgia may have come after 1996 for some of these tracks) + tunes that I was feeling when putting things together — but, as always, the main focus is on creating a mix that flows nicely from one track to another and gives a good taste of the year, which means albumsI had intentions of trying to fit in & artists which you might think “how could you not include?!” just never fit in before the 19-track limit was hit.
SO, if you’d like to dive a bit deeper into 1996 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 1996 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 doing more #blahgstuff, I figured this would be a good time to follow through on the idea of putting together a 54-track digital mix cd (aka: a playlist) for even further 1996 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:
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In closing, 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.
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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