Think back to your early days of high school around the time you first got your drivers license. You and your friends probably had this mix tape.
It was omnipotent. In fact, I’m fairly confident that every single suburban teenager born between 1973 and 1987 had some variant of this same tape. It probably had names for each side of the tape like “there” and “back” and may have contained some modest deviations: a copy stolen from an older brother would potentially include some deeper Led Zeppelin cuts, the Kinks Lola and some Talking Heads; a version nabbed from an older sister could include pop hits like I Got You Babe or Come On Eileen as well as Joe Walsh’s Life’s Been Good and a “romantic” gift from a boyfriend or girlfriend would have probably Alphaville’s Forever Young.
Nevertheless, the core of the tape remained pretty consistent. These mix tape classics helped transition countless kids away from radio pop toward expanded horizons by covering the quintessential hits from catalogs that would become much more interesting in the coming years. Ripple and No Woman No Cry served as undemanding introductions into the worlds of the Grateful Dead and Bob Marley; Piano Man and Tiny Dancer highlighted the piano as a primary instrument in popular music; Tangerine and Blue Sky whet the appetite for guitar virtuosity in an easily accessible casing; and Romeo & Juliet and Feelin’ Groovy served as catchy sing-along fodder. Looking back, it’s pretty funny to think how our musical tastes have evolved. So, what else was on your version?
