Artist	Song
Social Distortion	The Creeps
Lyres	I Want to Help You Ann
ZZ Top	Sharp Dressed Man
Eurythmics	Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
New Order	Blue Monday
Herbie Hancock	Rock It
Talking Heads	Burning Down the House
ESG	Spaced Out (Moody)
Liquid Liquid	Cavern
Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel	White Lines (Don't Don't Do It)
Fearless Four	Fearless Freestyle
Double Dee & Steinski	Lesson 1 (The Payoff Mix)
Cybotron	Clear
Indeep	Last Night a DJ Saved My Life
Eddy Grant	Electric Avenue
Nena	99 Luftballoons

Comment:

It was with this mix CD that I simultaneously (a) set my rule of at least 15 songs and 60 minutes in each CD of this series and (b) realized it might be a bit tricky to reach that goal. As for this year's big stories: a jazz veteran scoring an unlikely hip-hop hit (Hancock's "Rockit"), a legendary psychedelic-era veteran group on the verge of collapse letting out one last furiously sardonic gasp (Pink Floyd's "Not Now John"), the best hip-hop song to date (Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel's "White Lines")... and synths, synths, synths! Of course, most of that stuff sounds mostly nostalgic (read: horribly dated) today, while the leadoff track- from the debuting California punkabilly legends Social Distortion- sounds like it could've been recorded yesterday. The future ain't what it used to be. But then again, maybe there's something to be said for horribly dated syntho-pop stuff. I'd mull this over more but I need sleep, badly.

UPDATE, 12-18-02: If "99 Luftballoons" is good enough for Vice City and Boogie Nights, it's good enough for me. I'm also very proud of the garage-rock to synth-pop bridge that ZZ Top has presented me with. Hooray for them and their monstrous beards!

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