Today on my way to workout I decided to rummage through my little sister's vast mix cd collection stored in random nooks & crannies of her vehicle to get a gauge of her music taste. While I know we have different tastes in general, I was interested to see how many of her cd's I thought I could tolerate. My friends and I were talking about how frightening it can be when someone turns your ipod on shuffle because a person's music collection is like x-ray glasses to your soul - the beans are spilled, and there is no place to hide. I will shamelessly share that on my ipod you can find anything from the "I Just Had Sex" SNL & Akon mix, a live Phish album, a motivational Wayne Dyer track, U2, Celine Dion, Bill Frisell, Union Station, Gaga and of course some Sam Cooke for good measure. I may even have some live recordings I've made of myself which is uber scary to have made public at a party thanks to the lack of genius with shuffle. Needless to say, I typically try to avoid offering up my ipod at a party unless I've got a party playlist or am seated right next to the player in case I need to spring into action and avoid revealing my soul to a bunch of intoxicated friends who will excommunicate me at the first few notes of My Heart Will Go On.
I came to find out my sis has a lot of top 100 pop - some of which I really enjoy - and then a lot of soft guitar boys. She really likes her sleep songs - Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, and is quite a fan of Michael Bubble - I know it's Buble, but I like to think his bubble will eventually burst and spare us all from further anguish. Needless to say, my sister's music taste is more poppy & adult contemporary focused, where mine is a little more across the board. Flicking through her cds, stored very casually in the console in a giant unorganized stack, I stumbled upon a very unexpected gold nugget. Like most my age, mix cds we made in high school were long lost in that time our car got broken into, or were scratched beyond repair and flew high into the sky into mix cd heaven, never to be seen again and quickly forgotten. However, on my nosy drive today I found a mix cd I made about ten years ago that had somehow been spared from the thieves & the scratches.
Like a little kid at Christmas, my eyes twinkled and I raced to eject the Bubble out of the player to swap in my Dancing the Night AWAY mix cd. The gold STAPLES cd had my creatively written title drawn all awesomely in black sharpy across the top and then down the side because I ran out of room, as you do, from the excitement of naming your new mix cd. While I don't recall exactly what year this mix was made, I do know for sure that it had to be a summer mix sometime around 2002, because I distinctly remember listening to these classic dance beats on the way down to the Waterfront with Phillips, Piening, Weisbrot & Jordan on our way to dance. The formula for this mix cd was simple - we're about to be in the car to head to a place where our energy and fun levels need to be balls to the wall, and the only way to achieve this is to have just the right amount of party, crazy & fun in your mix to get us going. We wanted to dance, try and get an adult beverage despite our mature underageness, and we needed a mix cd to get us pumped up and ready to break it down.
Dancing the Night AWAY nailed it! Mission accomplished! We were without a doubt the most hyper, crazy teenage freaks on the dance floor by far! I think we even scored at least one free bev and lots and lots of laughter by making fools of ourselves and not caring in the slightest what other people thought of us. We had an uncanny ability at doing this, and I know it was definitely driven in part by our incredible creativity with building the mix cd.
In light of that stellar memory, I've included the track list below with a few links to help paint you a picture or better yet, take you back to that amazing time & place of 2002. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do and that it brings some amazing memories up to the surface which you may or may not have wanted to remember...
Dancing the Night AWAY - Mix CD 2002
1) Kiss - Prince
2) Mo' Money Mo' Problems - Notorious BIG feat P Diddy & Mase
3) Techno Cumbia - Selena **I loved loved loved this lady since Sra Soto introduced me
4) Booty Call - Blackstreet
5) Electric Slide - Marcia Griffiths boogy woogy woogy
6) Dance with me - 112
7) B. O. B. - Outkast
8) No, No, No Remix - Destiny's Child feat Wycleff
9) Rollout - Ludacris
10) Get Into the Groove - Madonna
11) In My Pocket - Mandy Moore - definitely foreshadowed my love for that Indian sound
12) Lights, Camera, Action! - Mr. Cheeks
13) Sandstorm - Darude *This brings back memories of dancing like crazy and people turning the lights on and off with the beat dancing to this song in someone's basement for a new year's party...fantastic!
14) Cotton Eye Joe - Rednex
15) Better Man - Pearl Jam - the last track of any mix cd - it's a wtf track in terms of flow, a save the best for last, a driving home song, but most importantly it encompasses the fact that everyone has a song they like which they need to listen to on repeat in the car TODAY regardless of whether it flows with the rest of your songs in the mix. Besides, how can you deny Pearl Jam?
Enjoy Today,
Lauren
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