Hot Mix Fridays (July 25th, 2014) - Y 2 K

Why the year 2000?

Well, there are a lot of reasons. Here are the main two—“Absolutely (The Story of A Girl)” and “Back Here.”

Those are both incredible pop songs, but they are not from the 90’s, and therefore, did not qualified to appear on one of the five previously issued and marginally successful mixtapes here on the blog.

In pondering the ever changing pop music landscape, I realized that from about 1998 until maybe 2000, things start to blur together a little more—there is definitely less distinction where you can clearly say something is from the 90’s. On the eve of the millennium, there was the rise and subsequent sharp fall of “bubblegum pop” music—boy bands, Britney Spears, et al. And then there was the similar trajectory for the other big trend—Rap Metal.

There’s also a different, pre-9/11 feeling to music. This is something that we talked about a little on the last podcast here, where I played “Drops of Jupiter” by Train, which was released that summer. I mean that is a fucking awful song, but it, to me anyway, best exemplifies the feeling of a completely different time before there was such a dramatic shift to the way we lived our lives.

It wasn’t easy finding songs that were released in the year 2000. There are some that I probably should have put on here and didn’t, and there were some I could have maybe bent the rules for—things like “The Thong Song,” which was on an album released in 1999, but not officially put out as a single until the new year.

I picked 17 songs to include on this since the year 2000 was the year I turned 17. It was the year I became a senior in high school. And if you read my humor column, you’ll know it was the year I got arrested. The year itself was not, like, AMAZING for pop music, however it did give us D’Angelo’s last album, Stankonia, and Kid A, amongst others. I feel like that, even though it was 14 years ago, enough time hasn’t passed yet for us to be nostalgic for longing for the year 2000, but I hope that at least with some of the more well known tracks I picked of this bunch, you will maybe recall a moment in your life from that year and be like, “Oh hey, I remember that song.”

Anhedonic Headphones Presents Y 2 K (save link as blah blah blah you know the drill)

1. B.O.B. by Outkast

2. Rollin' by Limp Bizkit

3. Idioteque by Radiohead

4. Better Off Alone by Alice Deejay

5. The Light by Common

6. Back Here by BBMak

7. New York by Richard Ashcroft

8. Wonderful by Everclear

9. (Rock) Superstar by Cypress Hill

10. Why Does it Always Rain on Me? by Travis

11. Bye Bye Bye by N'sync

12. Absolutely (The Story of A Girl) by Nine Days

13. Three Libras by A Perfect Circle

14. If You're Gone by Matchbox 20

15. Change (In The House of Flies) by Deftones

16. Feelin' on Yo Booty by R. Kelly

17. Untitled (How Does it Feel?) by D'Angelo