It's an autobiographical playlist!
I spent about one year - mid 1984-mid 1985 - living in a house at the corner of Lincoln and Strain in my hometown of Sullivan, IL. It was the house my grandparents had lived in my entire life and had only recently vacated in order to downsize to a spot across the street.
I lived there the summer prior to my 5th grade year, the school year itself, and a little bit of the summer after. Later that summer, we moved to Champaign, IL, a town that was only about an hour away, but culturally on an entirely different wavelength. As a result, that year is burned into my brain as a sort of milestone. Short time period, clearly demarcated by physical surroundings, marks a significant life change.
At any rate, I spent a lot of that year in the house engaging in couchpotato-ry, as was my nature. And, with the recent advent of MTV, I didn't even need a good excuse to watch something on TV. I could just sit and stare. All videos. If I didn't like one, I only had to wait 3.5 minutes for the next roll of the dice.
As a result, there are lots and lots of songs that, in my psyche, always play inside that house. Memory is an imperfect thing, but I'm not too worried about accuracy here. You may research one of these songs and find that it wasn't recorded until November of 1985 or find out that it, in fact, did not have a video. That's totally ok. This mixtape is solely created based on the information in my brain files, a haphazard and entirely unreliable database. Still, it's a fun place to hang out! Nothing edgy or ground-breaking, here. Pure pop hits!
There are lots more songs in the database, but some of them are not songs I want to listen to in the shop. Remember, that's the binding quality that every song in every LB Mixtape needs to share. I don't need to listen to "Infatuation" by Rod Stewart, for example, even though I had it on 45 when I lived in that house. Nor do I need to hear anything from New Edition's "Candy Girl" album, even though I completely wore out that cassette that year. And, unfortunately, Slade's "Run, Run Away," is not available on Spotify.
Please go to Spotify and follow the playlists, as I may be adding to tracks to them as we go. And, if you have any response to, connection with, or stories about the songs in the list, please share them in the comments.
Setting the coordinates for 1984. Flux Capacitor, fluxing.