It will take awhile to get all of my mixes onto this blog but it WILL happen eventually. My mixes start with 1950 and end with the present year. The first few years of the 50’s only have one volume a piece as I don’t have enough great music to make more. The end of the 50’s have two volumes each (so far). The first few years of the 60’s have three volumes a piece. Everything from 1965-2009 have six volumes a piece. My plan is to roll out as many volumes as I have in a given year at the same time. I will include the date that I originally made the mix beside each volume- sometimes songs will be included on later volumes that I may consider better than songs on previous volumes but I may not have known those songs (or had them) at the time.
THE RULES
I am all about imposing self-made rules upon myself and sticking to them. The rules of the mixes are as follows:
1. I only pick songs that I consider to be great (at least at the time I made the disc)
2. Only one song per volume per artist but if a particular artist is in two or more different bands they can be included in each of them (i.e. in a best of 1970 volume 1 there can only be 1 Beatles track, but there can also be 1 Paul McCartney solo track, 1 George Harrison track & 1 John Lennon track on the same volume if I so desire.
3. I try my very best to place a track on a year that it was first commercially released. Sometimes I may not include a track that was a single in a previous year if the album was released the following year. By the same reasoning if an album comes out in a previous year but a single off of that album comes out a year or two after the album I will still use the album release date. (i.e. the song “Thriller” was big in 1984 but the album came out in 1982 so I would use 1982). I may not be 100% accurate on dates but I am very close. I will be a little bit lenient with myself if I put a track in a year after its original release date (as long as the track was big that year) but I will never put a track in a year before its original release date.
4. I try to maintain a great song to song flow in each of my mixes but it’s more important to me to get the very best tracks for that given year than to have perfect flow between the songs. I also try to hit on various genres that were important in each given year to make the mix as eclectic as possible but again not if I’m sacrificing song quality.
5. Although I LOVE both of these genres I rarely include jazz tracks or lengthy techno/electronica tracks on these mixes. The exceptions are when the jazz songs were commercial hits (or less than twenty minutes long) 🙂 Same basic principle for the electronica tracks- though I’m more concerned a song’s accessiblity than its commercial appeal in this case. Even if I love it I won’t be including an eighteen minute ambient piece because it would completely mess with the flow of the mix. So for everyone wondering where the hell all of the Miles Davis and John Coltrane went that is my answer. Classical is also not included.
6. Yes I really do realize how geeky these mixes and rules are. I’m addicted and I just can’t stop
7. I am linking every available track to iTunes for purchase.
I hope these mixes turn you on to lots of new and old music!