1998: That goes in there, and then it's over

Back in the day, I used to spend the afternoon of New Year's Eve putting together a tape of my favourite songs of the year. I started this at some point in the early 90s and have done so ever since, save for the odd occasion where I haven't had time and done it the day before or after. (These days I put together two 45 minute playlists instead. as committing it to tape would involve a lot of frantic stabbing at buttons on different remote controls, but it's the same principle.) There are, obviously, important rules; no more than one song per artist, one album track that wasn't a single allowed but not compulsory, ditto one b-side/extra track. I've broken all of these rules over the years, but then that's half the fun.

Usually I would then spend January making up additional tapes of other things I liked during the year, invariably ending up with this sort of thing:


Mobile Phone Photography Corner, there.

And so, unable to resist Simon's Muxtape Challenge, I fairly naturally gravitated to my tapes of the year to make my selections from. Originally I'd wanted 1999, on the grounds that that always seemed like quite an important year, as if I became fully-formed or something, but someone had beaten me to that one (and did a much better job, although I'd have had Flame and possibly You Can Have It All as well), and so I took 98 instead.

So, 6 hours worth of listening to cassettes later, and refusing to deviate from what was on the tapes (hence nothing from Four Lads Who Shook The Wirral or Music Has The Right To Children, both of which I came to later), this is what I came up with.

It was an interesting year to revisit: I think I was on the cusp of something, the tapes veering between fairly bog-standard major label indie (it's quite nice to hear Solomon Bites The Worm by The Bluetones again, but it's not something I'd really want to play to someone else), hype I'd bought into (hence the Lo-Fi Allstars, who I thought were the most 1998 band I came across, if you see what I mean, although I would have left them out if I'd have found Buzzin' by Asian Dub Foundation anywhere) and the slightly more, er, esoteric.

It did seem to be a year of epic singles; in the playlist I made as I listened there are nine songs of over 6 minutes, and in the end I left most of them out as they were making the tape teribly long; I can't imagine anyone wanting to listen to someone else's music for over an hour. Hence no Ice Hockey Hair, Stay Young by Ultrasound or 88-92-96 by Six By Seven, splendid though they all are (and I couldn't get Xmas Steps by Mogwai to fit into the file size limit). Instead, er, Pimblico. I'll probably regret that one later, but then I like rudimentary two minute pop songs which are so insubstantial that they're barely there.

Anyway, it was a fun exercise, and I may eventually do one for 1999 anyway, once I've got through listening to the pile of ten-year-old CD singles and albums I've blown the dust from.