OK, so I found an old mix tape. It's a TDK MA90. Unlike many of the 
ferric tapes I've got, this one still sounds half decent. For a tape. 
Considering that it's 20+ years old. The right channel seems a bit 
faint, the treble is a tad muffled, and there's a teeny bit of tape 
hiss, but other than that it's in remarkably good condition.

So how has my taste in music changed in 20 years? Well, let's see what 
the track listing reveals...

First, I need to rewind the tape. (Remember that?) Five minutes later, I 
hit play on side-A. This is what I hear:

   "All that she wants", Ace of Bass. (1992)

   "Tribal Dance", 2 Unlimited. (1993)

   "The land of make-believe", Bucks Fizz. [I never knew that!] (1981)

   "Sweat", Inner Circle. (1992)

   "Water on glass", Kim Wilde. [Really??] (1981)

   "In the hall of the mountain king", source unknown. (It appears to be 
entirely synthesizers. I might perhaps be able to figure out who did it 
if I raid my dad's CD collection.)

   "Boom Shack-A-Lak", Apache Indian. (1993)

   "Go West", The Pet Shop Boys. (1993)

   "Boom!, Shake the room", DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince. (1993)

   "Maximum Overdrive", 2 Unlimited. (1993)

   "Mr Vain", Culture Beat. (1993)

   "Loving of the Common People", ?Paul Young. (1983)?

It should be noted, almost all of these tracks I never know who the 
artist was. When I was a teenager, I never cared about such things. I 
listened to songs. The ones I liked ended up on tape, regardless of 
author, year, style or popularity. If I liked it and my dad had a CD, he 
put it onto tape for me.

In compiling this list, I've looked up all the songs to find out their 
release dates and author. I've been quite surprised by who some of the 
songs were performed by, and quite how old some of them are.

(Also, is it wrong that I can actually /remember/ some of the running 
order before I get that far on the tape? I guess when your whole musical 
experience consists of just one tape, it gets a bit ingrained...)

Oh yeah, side B:

   "Denis", Blondie. (Original is 1978, but I think this particular 
remix might be 1988.)

   "No Limit", 2 Unlimited. [Like you didn't know that!] (1993)

   "It's a sin", The Pet Shop Boys. (1987)

   "Tainted Love", Soft Cell. (1981)

   "Let the beat control your body", 2 Unlimited. (1994)

   "Doop", Doop. [No, really.] (1994)

   "No More", unknown. [Maybe once Google invents audio searches. :-P]

   "Meet the Flintstones", The B-52s. (1994)

   "Think about the way", Ice MC. (1994)

   "Here we go again", unknown.

   "Two princes", Spin Doctors. (1993)

   "Give it up", The Goodmen. (1993)

   "Young and proud", Ace of Base. (1993) [The tape cuts out after half 
a verse. Clearly I was trying to cram more onto the tape than it would 
hold...]

Man, generic one-hit-wonder dance tracks are remarkably hard to track down!

As some of you may have guessed, much of the source material for this 
tape came from here:

   http://tinyurl.com/bwadvyf

and here:

   http://tinyurl.com/c5dzw5s

I know this, because I recognise the CD labels. (No, seriously...) It's 
frankly miraculous that Wikipedia has the entire track listing for every 
single compilation in this series. (Consider how many generic 
compilations are released every single day...) Unfortunately, there is 
apparently no way to search for a particular track in the compilation to 
attempt to find out what other tracks came from that CD. (At least, if 
there /is/ a way, I can't figure it out.)

I'm fairly sure a couple of the tracks came from another dance 
compilation who's name I don't remember. (But if anybody finds it, I'll 
recognise it. It's purple.)

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