Magic Potion “Cheddar Lane”

About two thirds of the way through this song the tempo suddenly decreases, and this fairly perky riff rock tune becomes very, very drowsy. It sounds like the song is just strolling along and then gets hit by a tranquilizer dart to the neck from some sniper in the distance. It’s a weird move, but I like it, and how it connects to these stoner-ish lyrics about movement and sleep. The solo in the sleepy section has a nice melody, but the performance feels vaguely staggered and unsure, as if the guitarist is literally nodding off and just trying to stay awake long enough to get to the next note. This could come off like a mess, but the band makes it all feel like a pleasant daze.

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Wilco “Normal American Kids”

“Normal American Kids” is not the fun sort of nostalgia where you make a version of the past that flatters you and is edited carefully so you only get the fun bits. This is Jeff Tweedy, a man on the edge of 50, remembering what it was like to be a teen in the early ‘80s and…well, I don’t think he’s embarrassed, per se, but it’s not exactly flattering to realize how much of your formative experiences were driven by fear and anxiety. The young Jeff of “Normal American Kids” is a sullen stoner who needs to distance himself from the “normal” kids, and spins feelings of alienation and confusion into an elitist pose. This is a beautiful song, one of the loveliest of Tweedy’s impressive career, but it really gets under my skin because I was that sort of kid too. Not a stoner, but definitely someone who built an identity around opting out things. You get older and realize that being “normal” isn’t the worst thing you could be, but it’s hard to shake reflexive cultural elitism and feeling like you don’t belong anywhere once it’s burned deep enough into your mind. I think that’s where Tweedy is coming from here – he’s tracing a line from his youth to the present, and finding a peace with how things have been and how he’s turned out.

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Toadies “Possum Kingdom”

I’m with Arianna on this one. “Possum Kingdom” is also my favorite song from the perspective of a vampire, my favorite song that makes the phrase “do you wanna die?” sound like a flirt, and my favorite song about seducing someone with the promise of immortality. And look, “Possum Kingdom” doesn’t have much or any competition in any of those categories, but even if it did it would almost certainly still be the best.

On a surface level, “Possum Kingdom” is a generic alt-rock song, but as much as it is a very representative example of the form, it also feels like an outlier. Alt-rock rarely had this sort of seedy swagger, and generally stayed closer to vaguely morose grandiosity or a stoned, vaguely ironic or shrugged-off version of “rocking out.” The Toadies’ sound isn’t quite ~sexy~ but it’s definitely sexual, and the song is one of very few notable mid-‘90s alt-rock hits to be sung from the perspective of a person who believes they are sexy. (Low self-esteem was very big back then.) There’s a heavy touch of black comedy to the lyrics, but the music doesn’t totally undermine the character’s predatory horniness, and the result is a bit like a ‘90s version of Twilight with Trent from Daria cast as the hunky teen vampire.

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Bush “Swallowed”

Gavin Rossdale has had an extremely charmed life, but it’s still a bit unfortunate for him that his band arrived in exactly the window of time when they would get the least respect. Worse still that those biases have carried on long after people stopped caring about whether or not they were another corporate rock Nirvana rip-off fronted by a guy who looked like a male model, but more handsome. I am certain that if Razorblade Suitcase came out today, it would be warmly received, and the people most likely to have dismissed it back in the day would be the first to welcome a record so full of dynamics cribbed from Nirvana, Pixies, and PJ Harvey records that they just went ahead and had Steve Albini record it for them. In 1996, this type of music was in surplus and we could shrug off the uncool stuff. In 2016, there’s a lot more of it than there was for a long time, but it was a loooong draught.

Rossdale was great with dynamics and hooks, but pretty iffy when it came to lyrics. It’s hard to imagine that the bizarre syntax and mangled phrases of Sixteen Stone were written by someone for whom English is their first language, but it was the ‘90s and it didn’t take much for a hot dude to make a word salad like “Glycerine” seem deep to teenagers. With this in mind, “Swallowed” is notable for two reasons: 1) The lyrics are actually pretty good for the most part 2) they’re direct and vulnerable in a way that Rossdale habitually deflected up until that point. He’s singing about feeling alone in a crowd, and just wanting to be with the one person he can’t be with. When he sings “I’m with everyone and yet not,” he sounds a bit guilty for not appreciating the good times he’s supposed to be having. Ignore the biographical details about him feeling shitty on a tour for a massively successful album, and this is an incredibly easy song to relate to, especially if you’ve ever endured a long distance relationship. At the end of the song, he’s done being oblique and just says exactly what he means: “I miss the one that I love a lot.” It’s a very real moment from a guy everyone assumed was just a hunky poseur.

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Everclear “Electra Made Me Blind”

There are so many reasons Everclear do not get the respect they deserve, and some of them are maybe fair: Art Alexakis has a reputation for being an abrasive dick, and they really threw themselves into the deep end of the corporate rock market with gusto at a time when naked careerism was reviled. Then there are unfair reasons, like weird ageism about Alexakis being noticeably older than everyone else in the scene, and a bias against their subject matter focusing almost exclusively on lower middle class people who’d proudly claim to be “white trash.”

Everclear arrived at the beginning of a major class divide in rock music that’s essentially torn the genre apart and made it less relevant over time – there’s the indie-derived music on one side for the educated and well-off, and the aggressive, unapologetically hedonistic, or unambiguously uplifting rock aimed at the radio and working class people. As you move into the 00s, the yuppie side of rock music starts to disown “rock,” and move away from its signifiers. Kid A is ground zero for that, and we haven’t seen the end of it. For a great many people, rock music – along with mainstream country – is kinda embarrassing because it’s the music of the uncool poor and working class. But classism is a thing we rarely talk about in the United States, so people rarely have the self-awareness to notice they have this bias in the first place. Sure, people will be all about Bruce Springsteen’s working class boosterism, but almost anything speaking for that audience since the early ‘90s is somehow beneath contempt.

“Electra Made Me Blind” sets the stage for Sparkle & Fade, a record full of songs about broke losers and recovering junkies trying to make it the world. Alexakis’ character is leaving a small town and heading for a “new life in old L.A.,” and he’s fighting through reflexive pessimism just enough to feel good about things. It’s not a complicated song but the dynamics are very impressive – the band makes every moment feel as urgent and physical as possible, and the refrain of “I KNOW! I KNOW! I KNOW!” sounds like Alexakis banging his head against a wall in frustration. The main feeling of this song is the thrill of escape, and listening to it on its own feels like freezing yourself in a moment of high hopes and ambition before having to find out what all the obstacles ahead of you are going to be.

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The Tragically Hip “Ahead By A Century”

Like pretty much all other Americans, I had ignored The Tragically Hip through their entire career. I knew about them. I knew they were hugely popular in Canada, but were at best a cult act in the United States. I was dimly aware of a song of theirs called “Butts Wigglin’” in the ‘90s, and must have decided they were basically another Barenaked Ladies and did not give them any thought at all until just recently, when they played their final run of shows after their frontman Gord Downie was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. After reading a few rather heartfelt tributes to the band, I decided to actually listen to them. As it turns out, they’re…not like the Barenaked Ladies. Their music generally falls into this post R.E.M./U2 aesthetic – really, more like Live than either of those two bands – but even the most blah songs are lifted up by Downie’s words, which are genuinely poetic and thoughtful, and uniquely obsessed with Canadian culture and life. The song that really grabbed me and got under my skin was “Ahead By A Century,” which turns out to be their biggest chart hit. It’s a little like encountering R.E.M. for the first time in 2016 and being like “wow, you guys, this ‘Losing My Religion’ song is just terrific!” But that’s how it happened.

“Ahead By A Century” has a peculiar emotional resonance, mainly because the band is mixing overt sentimentality with this sort of oblique tone. The main guitar part is lovely but would be extremely cloying if it weren’t played in an open tuning that brightens the first half of the riff but darkens the hammered notes at the end. Downie’s words fall in an intriguing gap between the universal – small moments in our youth that in retrospect are crucial to our development into adulthood – and the enigmatic in their strange specificity. You relate to the broader experience of having had experiences, but it’s hard to say what these particular vignettes are supposed to add up to. But then, if someone pushed you to explain why odd little moments from your own life have stuck with you, you’d probably have a hard time explaining them too.

The most ambiguous thing about “Ahead By A Century” is the chorus, and the question of who Downie is addressing, and what “you are ahead by a century” actually means. It’s such an evocative phrase – self-effacing and guilt-ridden, but also full of awe for whoever it is he’s singing about. This is never resolved in the song, but he adds “and disappointing you is getting me down” at the end of the last chorus, which at least clarifies that the phrase is intended to communicate a feeling of inadequacy. It’s such a potent feeling, but Downie doesn’t oversell it. He’s presenting a complicated set of feelings but refuses to connect the dots, just trusting the listener to recognize this pattern of thoughts and emotions.

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Vince Staples featuring Kilo Kush “Loco”

Vince Staples’ lyrics have an incredible density – verbose and highly detailed, sure, but he has a talent for layering meaning in his verses so his songs are like narrative high rises. There’s a lot going on in “Loca,” enough that it’s hard to keep the “plot” straight, in as much as this song could be taken as a linear series of events. It’s more about the accumulation of moments – frenzied hookups, hustling for money, bouts of panic and depression, racial tensions, good memories tied to mom, bad memories tied to dad. DJ Dahi’s track signals paranoia, but also traces of lust and rage, and it frames Staples’ vocal performance without getting too matchy-matchy. Kilo Kush’s vocals are what really pop here – she’s so relaxed and playful compared to Vince, and she seems like a tether to softer feelings, or just sanity in general.

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Noname featuring theMIND “Sunny Duet”

There’s something in the sing-song lilt of Noname’s voice that makes her verses feel both playful and a bit sad at the same time. She always sounds like she’s making an effort to stay optimistic and kind, and that effort is wearing on her more than she’d like you to notice. In “Sunny Duet” she plays the part of the woman trying to be patient with a man who’s trying to get his act together and be on his best behavior for her, but the surest sign this isn’t going to work is the complexity of her thoughts in comparison to his. Noname’s two verses touch on vulnerable confessions, nostalgic recollections, philosophical musings, while theMIND’s parts plead in such a low-key way that you wonder how much he’s invested. That’s the thing they both have in common, I guess – there’s a yearning for connection on both sides of this song, but also a vague ambivalence that’s hard to get around.

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Frank Ocean “Pink + White”

A very large portion of Frank Ocean’s Blonde has no percussion, or at least none in the form of traditional physical percussion or drum programming. Things like organ vamps or palm muted guitar will keep the tempo in some places, but in others, it’s just this free-floating ambience and Frank’s voice. I’m a bit conflicted about this: It is very interesting and bold, but the absence can scream “ARTISTIC DECISION!” in a way that drowns out the actual songs. It’s good for vibe and theme, but some songs sound like they would be improved by the shape and dynamics that good drumming can provide. It is often quite boring. It certainly doesn’t help that most of the best cuts on the record actually do have percussion.

“Pink + White” is one of the few songs with full percussion on Blonde, and it is not coincidentally the best song on the album. It’s an exceptionally elegant Pharrell Williams production, and frames Ocean’s voice with piano chords that ripple and pulse like small waves on the shore. He’s singing about having no control over life, at least in the sense that you can’t just linger forever in the prettiest moments. Ocean is known for obsessing on nostalgia, but this song is a bit more complicated than reckoning with memories or fearing that the good times are about to dry up. This is more about finding peace in perspective and the passage of time, while still joking “bitch, I might like immortality!” in a way that suggests he doesn’t care too much about dying but can’t bear to stop experiencing life.

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Angel Olsen “Shut Up Kiss Me”

I like the way Angel Olsen sings this with a sort of pouty affect, and how the chorus sounds a bit like a tantrum with its demanding language and clipped phrasing: Shutupkissmeholdmetight! Shutupkissmeholdmetight! It adds a bit of humor to a song that is otherwise pretty sad, and is basically a plea to keep a relationship going despite some resistance on the other end. Olsen is stubborn and tough, and that’s just as much in her language as in her guitar playing and vocal effect, which nudges a melancholy melody into the red without fuzzing it up so much that it obscures the fragility in her performance. It’s just enough to sound like a bit of armor.

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Slow Club “Give Me Some Peace”

It’s been a pleasure watching Slow Club evolve from tuneful but cutesy folk pop into one of the most sophisticated indie bands of their generation, but it’d be even more satisfying if I didn’t feel like I was observing this growth all on my own. It is frustrated to think of how many people would love their songs if only they had some way of knowing they exist. This is the trouble with acts with somewhat broad appeal who work in an indie context – the indie people end up thinking they’re sorta square and ignore them, and the audience who would cherish them are totally unaware because the money required to reach a mainstream crowd is beyond their budget.

“Give Me Some Peace” is Rebecca Taylor in sentimental waltz ballad mode, which has become a major strength for the band over the past two records. Taylor’s voice can be quite brassy and powerful, but even when she’s belting out her lines she conveys a lot of vulnerability and insecurity. She always sounds like someone who is bravely trying to get over a relationship but has a hard time muting any of her feelings, so she occasionally is like “fuck it” and lets her emotions loose. There’s tears, there’s anger, there’s self recrimination and exhaustion. It all sounds very lived-in and true.

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Field Mouse “The Mirror”

Field Mouse give you exactly two guitar strums to get your bearings before blasting into the circular riff and propulsive beat of “The Mirror,” the opening song from their album Episodic. The spiraling sensation and violent momentum reminds me of Sunny Day Real Estate, but Rachel Browne’s vocals are a lot more…well, let’s say more stable than anything Jeremy Enigk ever sang. Browne is singing a break-up song of the “no, fuck you” variety, and starts with indignation before building up to bitter sarcasm on the chorus. She doesn’t sound quite as vicious as her words get, but I like that effect – smiling and composed while tearing into whoever it is for whatever the reasons might be.

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Miya Folick “Pet Body”

Miya Folick sings with a passion and flair that sometimes reminds me specifically of Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker. Not so much the aspects of Corin’s voice that could blow a hole through a mountain with their volume and intensity, but certainly the times when her phrasing becomes more playful and deliberately camp. Folick leans into this approach when she’s conveying sarcasm and irony, which is to say, a lot of “Pet Body.” She’s singing about feeling alienated from her own body in humorous terms – “I’m just a brain with a pet body,” “I’m just a sack of flesh, don’t take me so seriously” – but it’s a dark joke at her own expense. This is extreme self-deprecation to the point of self-negation, and her emphasis on the fragility of this body that’s just incidentally tethered to her mind makes every part of her life seem arbitrary and precarious. Folick nails a very tricky balance of comedy and terror here, in large part because she commits so fully to her performance.

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of Montreal “Gratuitous Abysses”

I’ve been following Kevin Barnes’ career closely for about 12 years now, and in some ways it’s like being heavily invested in a hysterical psychedelic soap opera starring someone I feel like I know extremely well but have only ever met in passing. Innocence Reaches is a strange record, mainly in that Barnes’ stated goal of making something open-hearted and positive fizzles out after the first couple tracks, and then “Gratuitous Abysses” comes along and throws the rest of the album off on a very different set of textures and themes, most of which won’t be surprising to fans of post-False Priest of Montreal.

“Gratuitous Abysses” mainly concerns Barnes’ struggles with establishing a new relationship with his ex-wife, and his fears about over-mythologizing their past while worrying that they’ve become boring. This fear of being boring and predictable comes up at other points in the record too, and it’s both sad and funny that he’s doing everything but straight-up declaring himself to be a messy bitch who lives for drama. (Not sure how he feels about robbery or fraud, though.)

There are other songs on Innocence Reaches that address other relationships and flings since he’s been divorced, but the songs that are most obviously about his marriage are the most potent. Maybe it’s because Barnes’ darkest sentiments have become so blunt over the years, and he’s so merciless in the way he picks at his own flaws, and those of other people. It’s very compelling to me, and it’s particularly difficult when I relate to what he’s saying. He’s holding a mirror up to himself, but a lot of the times you just see the worst of yourself in the reflection.

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AJJ “American Garbage”

If I were to make a Girls character quiz at BuzzFeed, I would go in assuming that very few people would want to get Shoshanna as a result. She’s strange, awkward, and extremely abrasive. A lot of people hate Marnie, but would still like to be told that they’re like the show’s most conventionally attractive woman. A lot of people think Jessa is a sociopath, but would still like to be told that they’re sexy and charismatic. Up until around the fifth season, Shosh is mostly portrayed as this strange cartoon character and her sexuality is typically played like a joke at her own expense.

And yet AJJ’s Sean Bonnette has written this song declaring that he’s a Shoshanna, and identifies with her two defining qualities: confused and rude. He goes on to compare himself to other unflattering things, and the album this song comes from is essentially a litany of Bonnette’s flaws and failures. It can be hard to tell whether his goal is to self-flagellate, to preemptively counter criticism, or to display his worst qualities with a perverse pride. Maybe it’s a little bit of all of those things. I can’t imagine Shoshanna doing any of that, though – she’s more about trying to seem normal and failing in her attempts to obscure her weirdness. Oversharing your worst qualities is more of a Hannah thing, you know?

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Thee Oh Sees “The Axis”

Let’s skip ahead in this song and focus on the ending, in which John Dwyer plays a guitar solo that starts off as compelling yet fairly standard shredding, but gradually shifts until it sounds like the notes are literally shredding. It’s a beautifully ugly sound, and it’s the perfect, magnificently cathartic conclusion to a song in which he spends a lot of time moaning questions like “don’t you know how much I don’t love?” in an uncharacteristically inert voice. You don’t really ask a question like that if it’s not at least somewhat untrue, and that guitar bit at the end is like him saying “You know what? I do love you, but fuck that and fuck you –– I’m outta here!” and slamming the door behind him.

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Tennis “Ladies Don’t Play Guitar”

I’ve never had a grasp on Tennis’ identity as a band. I’m not totally sure if they do either. They definitely have an aesthetic – very clean and glossy, but also refined and not particularly flashy – but their personality is rather vague and seems to shift with whatever their inspiration happens to be in the moment. This is a good moment for them, though. “Ladies Don’t Play Guitar” has a sexy but understated late ‘80s/early ’90s groove – think “Justify My Love” by Madonna or “Back to Life” by Soul II Soul – and lyrics that are considerably more pointed and direct than you’d expect from a typically quite mellow and agreeable act. Alaina Moore’s vocal part isn’t particularly aggressive, but it’s clear that she’s pushing back against a lot of aggravating assumptions in her own way, and probably also challenging herself to say a bit more with her music. This is certainly the best song I’ve heard by them, so it’s a move in the right direction as far as I’m concerned.

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Britney Spears “Private Show”

Britney Spears has been mainly singing like a horny cyborg for nearly a decade, a move that originated in necessity circa her public breakdown album Blackout but has persisted as an aesthetic choice ever since. It suits the sort of electro pop that she’s focused on over the years, and can be read as a commentary on the public perception of her as a zonked-out yet hypersexualized person who has lived most of her life as a heavily mediated product. Less charitable people would say that it makes up for her limitations as a vocalist, but I think “Private Show” ruins that argument. Her voice is processed but she’s singing the hell out of the song, and veering into an adventurous R&B space that has more to do with Beyoncé/Destiny’s Child or TLC than anything Max Martin has ever done. The lyrics aren’t especially noteworthy – it’s basically her singing about doing stripper moves for her dude, which seems like exactly what you’d expect of her even if she’s never done it before. But the track, which is produced by T-Pain protégé Young Fyre, is exceedingly slinky and falls in the same odd zone between classic soul and clipped robotic pop as her vocal performance. It’s traditional but slightly off, and makes something that might otherwise seem a bit trashy sound genuinely sweet and wholesome.

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Wild Beasts “Alpha Female”

The major through line of the Wild Beasts discography has been Hayden Thorpe and Tom Fleming’s deeply conflicted relationship with masculinity – their own, mostly, but also in broader terms. Sometimes it’s a critique, and other times it’s a celebration. Thorpe’s early vocal performances would toggle dramatically between masculine and feminine extremes, as if different parts of himself were struggling for dominance, which would sit in contrast with performances by Fleming that exaggerated his handsome, deeper voice to the point of sounding like he was playing a knight in shining armor type.

Wild Beasts were becoming steadily more subtle, cerebral, and sedate over their past two albums, but have abruptly shifted gears with Boy King, their fifth record. They’ve eliminated all subtlety and delicacy in favor of thrusting, throbbing electronic grooves and lyrics that directly state much of what had been gently implied in their words on the past four records. I appreciate the blunt approach, though I don’t think a lot of this record stacks up with their best work. That said, they do sound liberated and reinvigorated, and that confident energy makes a song like “Alpha Female” much more powerful. I mean, would a song declaring admiration for and subservience to a powerful woman be as potent if the guys performing didn’t sound like strutting, virile rockers? The song is making an important point: Giving power to women does nothing to diminish the masculinity of men.

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This is the final installment in my series of 1980s survey mixes, which have been anthologizing each year of that decade in reverse order. These compilations are designed to give context to the music of this era, and give a sense of how various musical niches and trends overlapped or coexisted in their cultural moment.

Early on in the process of doing this project I made preliminary playlists of each year so I knew the general shape of things in advance. So I knew from more or less the start that 1980 was going to be one of the best years in the series, and maybe the best of any decade series I could make. The sheer number of enduring classics in 1980 is staggering – I think the only year in the ‘80s as ridiculously fertile as this is 1987. There’s a lot of different trends coming to a head at once – new wave/post-punk, metal, disco, prog, country pop, early hip-hop – and you can get a sense just by listening to this that almost everyone represented here was feeling inspired, enthusiastic, and ambitious. Everything just sounds so vital and electric, and in a lot of cases, the music doesn’t sound dated at all.

You can find all of the other 1980s surveys on this page. I have updated most of the surveys to include some key songs and artists that I accidentally missed the first time around. Thanks to Chris Conroy, Sean T. Collins, Chris Ott, Rob Sheffield, and especially Paul Cox for their help in compiling these mixes. I don’t think this project would’ve worked without Paul, so please send him a shout out if you can.

DOWNLOAD DISC 1

Talking Heads “Once In A Lifetime” / Blondie “Call Me” / Lipps Inc “Funkytown” / Kool and the Gang “Celebration” / Diana Ross “I’m Coming Out” / The Rolling Stones “Emotional Rescue” / Queen “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” / Dolly Parton “9 to 5” / The Pretenders “Brass In Pocket” / The Clash “Train In Vain” / Billy Joel “It’s Still Rock & Roll To Me” / Bruce Springsteen “Hungry Heart” / Daryl Hall & John Oates “You Make My Dreams” / Steely Dan “Time Out of Mind” / Pink Floyd “Another Brick in the Wall Pt 2” / Devo “Whip It” / Mission of Burma “Academy Fight Song” / Squeeze “Pulling Mussels (From the Shell)” / The Police “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” / Van Halen “Everybody Wants Some!!” / Kurtis Blow “The Breaks” / Loose Joints “Is It All Over My Face (Larry Levan Mix)” / Christopher Cross “Sailing”

DOWNLOAD DISC 2

U2 “I Will Follow” / Joy Division “Love Will Tear Us Apart” / Colin Newman “& Jury” / Peter Gabriel “Games Without Frontiers” / David Bowie “Ashes to Ashes” / Prince “Head” / Change “The Glow of Love” / George Benson “Give Me the Night” / Cristina “Mamma Mia” / Kid Creole and the Coconuts “Mr. Softee” / Pointer Sisters “He’s So Shy” / The B-52’s “Give Me Back My Man” / Elvis Costello and the Attractions “New Amsterdam” / The Jam “That’s Entertainment” / X “The Unheard Music” / Wipers “Alien Boy” / Ozzy Osbourne “Crazy Train” / Magazine “Because You’re Frightened” / The Cure “A Forest” / Siouxsie and the Banshees “Happy House” / Sister Nancy “Papa Dean” / Jackie Mittoo “Lovers Rock” / Herbie Hancock “4 A.M.”

DOWNLOAD DISC 3

The Slits “In the Beginning, There Was Rhythm” / Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force “Zulu Nation Throwdown” / Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five “Freedom” / Paul McCartney “Coming Up” / Chic “Rebels We Are” / James Brown “Rapp Payback (Where Iz Moses)” / Spoonie Gee & The Treacherous Three “New Rap Language” / Sugar Minott “Jah Got the Handle” / Delta 5 “Try” / Y Pants “Off the Hook” / The Pop Group “Justice” / Barbra Streisand “Woman In Love” / ABBA “The Winner Takes All” / Kate Bush “Babooshka” / The Roches “My Sick Mind” / Bob Marley & The Wailers “Redemption Song” / Willie Nelson “On the Road Again” / Van Morrison “Wild Honey” / Bob Dylan “Saved” / Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band “Against the Wind” / George Jones “He Stopped Loving Her Today” / Bette Midler “The Rose”

DOWNLOAD DISC 4

AC/DC “You Shook Me All Night Long” / Pat Benatar “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” / Judas Priest “Breaking the Law” / Neil Young “Union Man” / Dead Kennedys “Holiday In Cambodia” / Mötörhead “Ace of Spades” / Bush Tetras “Too Many Creeps” / Young Marble Giants “Credit in the Straight World” / Grace Jones “Warm Leatherette” / Chaka Khan “Clouds” / Brother D & Collective Effort “How We Gonna Make the Black Nation Rise?” / Bad Manners “Here Comes the Major” / Stevie Wonder “Master Blaster (Jammin’)” / Jermaine Jackson “Let’s Get Serious” / Donna Summer “The Wanderer” / Daryl Hall “Something In 4/4 Time” / Olivia Newton-John “Magic” / Dexy’s Midnight Runners “Geno” / Madness “Baggy Trousers” / A Certain Ratio “Shack Up” / Glenn Branca “Lesson No. 1 for Electric Guitar” / Fred Anderson Quartet “Black Woman”

DOWNLOAD DISC 5

Echo and the Bunnymen “Rescue” / Rush “The Spirit of Radio” / Joan Armatrading “Me, Myself, I” / Killing Joke “Requiem” / Paul Simon “Late in the Evening” / Martha and the Muffins “Echo Beach” / Arthur Blythe “Miss Nancy” / Dire Straits “Romeo and Juliet” / Carlene Carter “Baby Ride Easy” / Kenny Rogers “Lady” / Tom Waits “Jersey Girl” / Yes “Into the Lens” / The Blue Brothers “Gimme Some Lovin’” / The Blasters “Marie Marie” / Captain Beefheart “Ashtray Heart” / The Flesh Eaters “No Questions Asked” / Black Flag “Jealous Again” / The Cramps “TV Set” / Lydia Lunch “Mechanical Flattery” / Cher Never Should’ve Started” / The Vapors “Turning Japanese” / Split Enz “I Got You” / Pete Townshend “Let My Love Open the Door” / Steve Winwood “While You See A Chance” / Air Supply “All Out of Love”

DOWNLOAD DISC 6

Ultravox “Vienna” / Roxy Music “Over You” / Oingo Boingo “Only A Lad” / The Birthday Party “Mr. Clarinet” / Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark “Enola Gay” / Pere Ubu “Rhapsody in Pink” / The Fall “Rowche Rumble” / The Residents “Perfect Love” / Public Image Ltd “Poptones” / The Feelies “Crazy Rhythms” / The Durutti Column “Sketch for Summer” / Joe Jackson “Beat Crazy” / Ramones “Do You Remember Rock & Roll Radio?” / The Soft Boys “I Wanna Destroy You” / The Knack “Baby Talks Dirty” / XTC “Generals & Majors” / Adam and the Ants “Kings of the Wild Frontier” / The Human League “Being Boiled” / The Cars “Touch & Go” / Boz Scaggs “Breakdown Dead Ahead” / Village People “Can’t Stop the Music” / The Brothers Johnson “Stomp!” / Shalamar “Work It Out” / The Specials “Rat Race”

DOWNLOAD DISC 7

Art Ensemble of Chicago “Old Time Southside Street Dance” / Burning Spear “This Population” / Tanya Winley “Vicious Rap” / Kano “I’m Ready” / Teddy Pendergrass “Can’t We Try” / Carly Simon “Jesse” / REO Speedwagon “Keep On Loving You” / Pylon “Cool” / The English Beat “Noise In This World” / Bauhaus “Terror Couple Kill Colonel” / Cabaret Voltaire “Partially Submerged” / Linton Kwesi Johnson “Bass Culture” / Sugarhill Gang “8th Wonder” / Aretha Franklin “United Together” / Crystal Gayle “It’s Like We Never Said Goodbye” / Genesis “Turn It On Again” / Iron Maiden “Running Free” / Conway Twitty “I’d Love to Lay You Down” / Ronny Milsap “Cowboys & Clowns” / Charley Pride “Honky Tonk Blues” / Marcia Griffiths “Feel Like Jumping” / Captain & Tenille “Do That To Me One More Time”

DOWNLOAD DISC 8

John Lennon “(Just Like) Starting Over” / Michael Jackson “Rock with You” / Irene Cara “Fame” / Benny Mardones “Into the Night” / Robbie Dupree “Steal Away” / Dr. Hook “Sexy Eyes” / Smokey Robinson “Let Me Be the Clock” / Maze ft. Frankie Beverly “Joy and Pain” / Ray, Goodman, and Brown “Special Lady” / Ry Cooder “634-5789” / Charlie Daniels Band “In America” / Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers “Refugee” / Joe Walsh “All Night Long” / The dB’s “Black and White” / Hazel O’Connor “Glass Houses” / Barnes & Barnes “Fish Heads” / Weird Al Yankovic “Another Rides the Bus” / The Beach Boys “Goin’ On” / Kelly Marie “Feels Like I’m In Love” / Andy Gibb “Desire” / The Doobie Brothers “Real Love” / 7th Wonder “The Tilt” / Was (Not Was) “Wheel Me Out” / Henry Badowski “My Face” / Ethiopian “Hard Times”