New Year’s Eve 2012 was the worst New Year’s of all time. Hands down. It’s usually a disappointing holiday, but this year featured a family-wide stomach virus that had us all seriously ill and contemplating a call for help to 911. We survived – so enough about 2012.
Let’s go back 21 years to 1991. The New Year’s event was your typical fun, courtesy of a J. Lorentz house party and frigid basketball games in the driveway, but it pales in comparison to the legendary soundtrack compiled for the festivities.
I give you Chris and Matt’s New Year’s Eve Party Mix Jam 1991.
The quintessential mix tape recorded in low-def on a middle-of-the-road-quality Maxwell UR 90 cassette featuring “…new high-performance, Pure Crystal magnetic particles.”
It was a phenomenal collection of early ’90s Top 40 woven together by tunes found in every wedding deejay’s top drawer served up with an extra sprinkling of R.E.M. pop.
It felt like cheese then, and it delivers the cheese even today. Why try to even explain it, when the the playlist says it all:
Side A (see cassette tapes had two sides to them youngsters, typically denoted as A and B)
Revolution / The Beatles
Humpty Dance / Digital Underground
Smells like Teen Spirit / Nirvana
Set Adrift on Memory Bliss / PM Dawn
I’m Too Sexy / Right Said Fred
Superman / R.E.M.
End of the World / R.E.M.
So Cruel / U2
We Got the Beat / Go-Go’s
Private Eyes / Hall & Oates
Now That We Found Love / Heavy D and the Boyz
Eye of the Tiger (intro) / Survivor
Thank God I’m a Country Boy / John Denver (remix)
Magic (mix) / The Cars
Side B (once Side A was done youngsters, you turn the cassette over and play Side B – if your boombox didn’t automatically do it for you)
Stand / R.E.M.
Wild Thing / Tone Loc
Just a Friend / Biz Markie
Just Like Heaven / The Cure
Safety Dance / Men Without Hats
Roam / B-52’s
Rush / Big Audio Dynamite II
Shiny Happy People / R.E.M.
Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others / The Smith’s
Pump Up the Jam / Technotronic
YMCA / The Village People
Celebration / Kool & the Gang
I Need You Tonight / INXS
A small insert (not shown) slipped into the cassette says “This album is dedicated to the fallen Magic Johnson & to Larry (#33).”
Make it a resolution to get your hands on a copy of this epic production.