Side 1 of a cassette compilation, recorded sometime in March 1990, lost sometime in the next two decades, reimagined and recreated 11th August 2024.
And the hits just keep on coming...
If you were here for last weekend's opening brace of 80s-themed mixtapes, you'll know that of the five cassettes I recorded in 1990, only three remain.
The two lost volumes covered 1982 to 1985 and I've had a go at recreating the track listing and cover art (kind of) from scratch. Some songs I vaguely recall being on the original mixtapes, others I've no idea, but I've excluded any songs that I couldn't have owned or borrowed in spring 1990. Lots had to be left out, inevitably, but I think the end results are faithful reproductions that sit well with their contemporary cassettes.
1982 was another fantastic year for pop and I realise how lucky I was to grow up surrounded by all this diverse and exciting music troubling the Top 40. Synths were fully embedded in the mainstream by now but with all sorts of influences and flavours stirred in.
Looking back, there's a marked shift towards heavy marketing and promo by this point: videos, double pack 7" and 12" picture discs with free posters, saturation on kids' TV shows, and so on. If a single wasn't a hit, it would be re-mixed, re-recorded and re-re-re-released until, damn it, it became a hit.
Kiss Me is a prime example of this. Stephen Duffy originally formed the band Tin Tin with a couple of guys from Fashion, a Dexys Midnight Runner and producer Bob Lamb. Kiss Me was their debut single in November 1982 and flopped. The single was remixed and released in the USA by François Kevorkian in 1983 and became a minor club hit.
Taking notice, Duffy's label released the remix in the UK in 1984 and it scraped to #78. Undeterred, Kiss Me was remixed yet again, this time by J.J. Jeczalik (Art Of Noise) and Nicholas Froome, and given one last shot in early 1985. Fourth time lucky, as Stephen 'Tin Tin' Duffy reached the dizzy heights of #4 and enjoyed several other hits afterwards.
I've cheated a little here and gone for François Kevorkian's remix from 1983, partly because I didn't own the original Tin Tin single back in the day and partly because it's a much better version than the 1982 original.
I've also plumped for the 12" remix of Talk Talk's eponymous single to open proceedings. An early purchase from Plastic Wax Records in Bristol, back when it was in Old Market, opposite the Trinity. As with most Talk Talk extended mixes, there are fewer vocals than the single/album version and lots of none-more-80s bridges, bells and whistles.
I was tempted to drop in the 12" mix of Party Fears Two by Associates but it pops up quite frequently in my 80s mixtapes so I've stuck with the single version here instead. Hearing this for the first time on Top Of The Pops was an attention-grabbing moment and began a lifelong love of Billy MacKenzie. What a voice.
Making their debut here along with Talk Talk are Tears For Fears, Blancmange and Scritti Politti, who will all (probably) reappear in later volumes. Others, like Yazoo, ABC and Monsoon make one-time appearances in this series.
Squeeze wrapped up an incredible run of singles with Annie Get Your Gun, recorded to promote their essential compilation, 45s And Under.
And should any 1982 collection be without Pete Wylie's epic The Story Of The Blues? No Wah!, sorry, no way!
No prizes for guessing the year in tomorrow's post...
1) Talk Talk (Extended Mix Long Version): Talk Talk
2) Don't Go (Album Version): Yazoo
3) Party Fears Two (Single Version): Associates
4) Living On The Ceiling (Single Remix): Blancmange
5) The Story Of The Blues Part One (Single Version): Wah!
6) Mad World (Album Version): Tears For Fears
7) Kiss Me (U.S. Remix) (7" Version): Tin Tin
8) Poison Arrow (Single Version): ABC
9) Windpower (Single Version): Thomas Dolby
10) Ever So Lonely (Single Version): Monsoon
11) Asylums In Jerusalem (Album Version): Scritti Politti
12) Annie Get Your Gun (Single Version): Squeeze
