CMJ Anniversary Compilation III
1989

It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these, so a quick refresher might be in order. When I replaced my car stereo last spring, I found myself without a cassette player in my motor vehicle for the first time in years, with little to no likelihood that I’d have that sort of device again. While there’s a couple cassette players in the house, it’s not likely I’ll opt for those over the wall of CDs we have available of the wondrous, continuous personalized radio station available on my iPod. So, I decided to retire the hefty batch of mix tapes I’ve been toting around, some of them, like the one delineated today, for around twenty years. Before they hit the magnetic tape graveyard, I track through the respective mixes here.

This particular mix tape is dubbed off of a collection of CDs that CMJ, the trade publication of college radio, released in conjunction with their twentieth anniversary. I’ve gone through the details of that collection previously, but I’ll note again that this release represented an invaluable audio tutorial for me in the summer between my freshman and sophomore years.

SIDE ONE
TALK TALK, “It’s My Life”
STYLE COUNCIL, “You’re the Best Thing”
ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN, “The Killing Moon”
This is one of the bands that I knew of peripherally in high school, mostly familiar with them because of the goofy name and one single that doesn’t exactly represent one of their high water marks. Hearing this long, lush, piercingly dark pop was part of the long, sustained process in teaching me to set aside my dopey preconceptions and dig deeper into the music I may have thought I already had all figured out.
MICHAEL HEDGES, “Aerial Boundaries”
NEW ORDER, “Blue Monday”
SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, “Institutionalized”
While it went against my radio programming instincts at the time, I did love the jarring transition from New Order’s icy techno to this thumping adolescent scream. Just one Pepsi, fer chrissakes.
RUN-D.M.C., “Rock Box”
Another eye opener. Like a lot of sheltered suburban kids, Run-D.M.C. first crossed my peripheral vision when they unearthed a few Boston mummies for a cover song that may have been hailed as revolutionary by the tentative souls at MTV, but didn’t give me much flavor of the real power and potency of their music. This song corrected that.
U2, “Pride (In the Name of Love)”
SPECIAL AKA, “Free Nelson Mandela”

SIDE TWO
PRINCE, “When Doves Cry”
On the other hand, I will admit it would have been helpful if the CMJ collection had dug a little deeper in the Purple One’s bag of tunes. I can stand apart and recognize the impressive nature of this track, but I was already developing a weariness for the overly familiar, and “Doves” fits that descriptor. Any sort of Prince epiphany would need to wait for another day.
REPLACEMENTS, “Unsatisfied”
BILLY BRAGG, “A New England”
It’s a huge signature song from an artist who’d already become a new favorite, but I was so immersed in Workers Playtime (in rotation when I started at the college radio station) that it was helpful to have this poking at me to look and listen earlier.
SUZANNE VEGA, “Marlene on the Wall”
LOS LOBOS, “Will the Wolf Survive?”
HOODOO GURUS, “I Want You Back”
HUSKER DU, “Pink Turns to Blue”
I actually prefer the mildly mellowed version of Husker Du that followed Zen Arcade, but the strident ferocity of this track is incredible and rejuvenating. The Walkman usually got turned up to problematic levels when this started to unspool.
THE SMITHS, “How Soon Is Now?”
THE WATERBOYS, “The Whole of the Moon”
MINUTEMEN, “Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing”
Like most college radio stations, WWSP had huge, heartbreaking holes in our collection, usually caused by the volunteer DJs surreptitiously supplementing their own music libraries with station property. The Minutemen loomed large as a band I was supposed to know, but had no ready access to their music. For ages, this song was one of the only samplings I had of their efforts. Happily, it’s a fine introduction. Still, given how many of the songs selected from the other artists represent their consensus pinnacle, how did the compilers bypass “History Lesson – Part II”? Had that not settled in as the song yet? Did it actually take Michael Azerrad to make that happen?

(Posted simultaneously to “Jelly-Town!”)