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…

…and then 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 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 (especially if I do a ‘yearbook mix’ every other week, which is the plan). Because I’m old and have been alive for more years than I realize.

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So, let’s jump from when I was graduating high school into the soon to be changed by 9/11 world of 2001 to the year when we were all obliviously unaware that we were living our last days of non-pandemic living. 2019. The year that my sister, an ICU nurse, got married and had about 6 months of normal married life before her occupation became the most stressed out and overworked occupation one could ask for. And because she lives in a province with a pos political party in charge, she is getting rewarded this year with a pay cut — but, oh well, at least people clapped for a few days at the beginning of this pandemic (a pandemic that is still going on, fyi). Also, the church that they got married in burned to the ground last month, in what may or may not have been related to the recent acknowledgment in the mainstream media that the Canadian government and Catholic church were doing a bunch of genocide in the not too distant past (still no consequences have been faced for the atrocities, unless you count some church fires, some of which may have actually been caused by the climate change induced heat waves currently sweeping the Pacific North West — speaking of things that those responsible never face any consequences for).

So, I guess you could say that quite a lot has happened since 2019…

…and this mix is a a good sample of what I was listening to back in those naively naive about just how bad things could get times of 2019:

Now, I wouldn’t necessarily say these are “THE 20 BEST” of 2019, 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 2019 and it’d be impossible to perfectly capture it all in 20 tracks anyways (which is why my ‘20X19=380 TUNES FROM 2019’ playlist also exists). So the artists featured in this mix are a good combo of music I personally have nostalgic feelings for + tunes that I was feeling while putting things together this morning. But, as always, the main focus is on creating a mix that flows nicely from one track to another, which means albums I had intentions of trying to fit in & albums which you might think “how could you not include?!” just never fit in before the 20-track limit was hit and the mix was done.

But if you’d like to dive a bit deeper into the 20 albums that I’ve plucked a track from in order to make the above ‘yearbook mix’, I’ve put together a ‘20 from 19’ Spotify playlist that features the full albums (so you can either listen top to bottom or throw it on shuffle for a good random 2019 flavoured listening experience — think of it as a 20 disc CD player from 2019).

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And if you’d like to extend the ‘soundtrack-by-HI54-mixtape’ vibes all day, go press the play button over on MTR - FRESH TAPES (which’ll play one HI54 mix tape after another, all day — with new HI54 Mixcloud mixes like the above added every Monday & Thursday). 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.

\M/