*~ Summer Mix ~ 1999 ~ good vibes only ~*
August 2, 2019 10:23 PM Subscribe
Go back to twenty years ago with Summer Mix 99 - Hard Knock Life - Hit Me Baby One More Time - No Scrubs - Steal My Sunshine - Miami - Mambo No. 5 - I Want It That Way - All Star - Livin La Vida Loca (Extended: Millennium - I Try - If You Had My Love - Take My Picture - My Name Is - What's My Age Again?))
Charli XCX & Troye Sivan - 1999 [Official Video] - Remember 1999 (Previously)
The thing that's hard to remember about Steal My Sunshine is that the video was made before the HD revolution and so seeing things in the wrong aspect ratio all the time wasn't so infuriating back then. I miss those days!
posted by aubilenon at 10:43 PM on August 2, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by aubilenon at 10:43 PM on August 2, 2019 [8 favorites]
I will defend the Len album forever and ever amen. It's all of the 90s rolled into one incoherent dj mix of old achool rap and scratches and pop punk and actually my least guilty guilty pleasure album I still listen to.
posted by downtohisturtles at 10:56 PM on August 2, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by downtohisturtles at 10:56 PM on August 2, 2019 [7 favorites]
I clearly remember the first time I heard Hard Knock Life. I thought it was very catchy but also gimmicky in a way that made me think that Jay-Z was someone from whom we’d probably never hear anything more.
So consider that when deciding whether to take any of my opinions seriously ever again.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 11:08 PM on August 2, 2019 [13 favorites]
So consider that when deciding whether to take any of my opinions seriously ever again.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 11:08 PM on August 2, 2019 [13 favorites]
Oh yeah, thanks - this is a much better way to musically remember the summer of 99.
For me it's always been shaped by one night. Going to a big end of year high school class campout, me driving my mom's tiny hatchback with my gf in shotgun, 3 friends crammed in the back, just a radio. We flipped stations endlessly and just kept getting the same 3 songs it seemed: Santana's Smooth, Creed's Take Me Higher, Live's The Dolphin's Cry.
I've since come around on Smooth. Absolute barn burner of a pop blues track that just happened to get forced into my ears when I was way too angsty of a teenager to enjoy it. But fuck me do those other two still manage to make me irrationally angry when I hear them to this day.
Steal My Sunshine is a gem though and will always be the one true summer of 99 song. At the time it was a guilty pleasure, and ever since I've never once passed up the chance to crank it when it comes on.
posted by mannequito at 11:19 PM on August 2, 2019 [7 favorites]
For me it's always been shaped by one night. Going to a big end of year high school class campout, me driving my mom's tiny hatchback with my gf in shotgun, 3 friends crammed in the back, just a radio. We flipped stations endlessly and just kept getting the same 3 songs it seemed: Santana's Smooth, Creed's Take Me Higher, Live's The Dolphin's Cry.
I've since come around on Smooth. Absolute barn burner of a pop blues track that just happened to get forced into my ears when I was way too angsty of a teenager to enjoy it. But fuck me do those other two still manage to make me irrationally angry when I hear them to this day.
Steal My Sunshine is a gem though and will always be the one true summer of 99 song. At the time it was a guilty pleasure, and ever since I've never once passed up the chance to crank it when it comes on.
posted by mannequito at 11:19 PM on August 2, 2019 [7 favorites]
I completely unabashedly love "Steal My Sunshine" - it rescued me from a giant super shitty summer of being worked way, way too hard.
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:29 PM on August 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by drewbage1847 at 11:29 PM on August 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
Oh god. The summer after 8th grade. Thanks, I hate it
posted by potrzebie at 11:30 PM on August 2, 2019 [13 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 11:30 PM on August 2, 2019 [13 favorites]
Oooh. 1999, huh? I turned THIRTY that summer. A grown-up with bills (bills, bills) and everything.
The only songs I liked (and still do) from the list above are "Steal My Sunshine" and "My Name Is". Most of the songs I remember and like from that year were pretty much British, some of which were popular to an extent in the US: Fatboy Slim's "Praise You", Chemical Brothers' "Let Forever Be", Supergrass's "Pumping on Your Stereo", and the Funkstar Deluxe remix of Bob Marley's "Sun Is Shining". I don't remember is if some of these were from a little later or earlier in the year, but they were all my jams.
That picture of the CD was cute. My CD-R's had lines on them already, and I wrote out song titles neatly in small letters, not only because I was an adult, but also because I burned the files onto the disc as data and not as tracks, so as to get more songs on it. My CD Walkman played them all just fine.
posted by droplet at 11:45 PM on August 2, 2019 [9 favorites]
The only songs I liked (and still do) from the list above are "Steal My Sunshine" and "My Name Is". Most of the songs I remember and like from that year were pretty much British, some of which were popular to an extent in the US: Fatboy Slim's "Praise You", Chemical Brothers' "Let Forever Be", Supergrass's "Pumping on Your Stereo", and the Funkstar Deluxe remix of Bob Marley's "Sun Is Shining". I don't remember is if some of these were from a little later or earlier in the year, but they were all my jams.
That picture of the CD was cute. My CD-R's had lines on them already, and I wrote out song titles neatly in small letters, not only because I was an adult, but also because I burned the files onto the disc as data and not as tracks, so as to get more songs on it. My CD Walkman played them all just fine.
posted by droplet at 11:45 PM on August 2, 2019 [9 favorites]
Hot Dad Mambo number 5 for life
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:54 PM on August 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:54 PM on August 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
'Steal My Sunshine' has a wonderfully evil hook to it and
an earworm that gets me every time.
... i love it.
posted by quazichimp at 11:55 PM on August 2, 2019 [4 favorites]
an earworm that gets me every time.
... i love it.
posted by quazichimp at 11:55 PM on August 2, 2019 [4 favorites]
I was really really really punk during this era but every time i would hear "i want it that way" when i was in the grocery store shoplifting soymilk or whatever i'd be super stoked. i seriously think it is a really good song, like good structure, good performance, good hook....uh.....gah i so want to be OVER being embarrassed about liking pop songs from that age but it still feels weird to admit.
I have this one uncle who is really into music, he's like 18 years older than me, and i remember trying to talk to him about Boston's first album in like 2005 maybe and he was not stoked to talk about it because it represented some kind of mainstream cheesiness to him that was not really apparent to me, or at least not enough to make me not like it. maybe the 30 year cycle or whatever?
anyway i am finally gonna say i want it that way
posted by capnsue at 12:26 AM on August 3, 2019 [13 favorites]
I have this one uncle who is really into music, he's like 18 years older than me, and i remember trying to talk to him about Boston's first album in like 2005 maybe and he was not stoked to talk about it because it represented some kind of mainstream cheesiness to him that was not really apparent to me, or at least not enough to make me not like it. maybe the 30 year cycle or whatever?
anyway i am finally gonna say i want it that way
posted by capnsue at 12:26 AM on August 3, 2019 [13 favorites]
I saw "Go back to twenty years ago" and thought "aren't we sick of 80's nostalgia yet?" and then I realized "oh no, *1999* was twenty years ago"
posted by JDHarper at 5:05 AM on August 3, 2019 [31 favorites]
posted by JDHarper at 5:05 AM on August 3, 2019 [31 favorites]
Apparently I was already out of touch with popular music 20 years ago. Good to know...
posted by jzb at 6:51 AM on August 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by jzb at 6:51 AM on August 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
See also The Rub's History of Hip-Hop 1999 mix, featuring such songs as "25 Lighters," "Whoa," "Ms. Fat Booty," "Simon Says," and "Party Up."
posted by box at 6:56 AM on August 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by box at 6:56 AM on August 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
This thread smells like Body Shop's Oceanus and tastes like the OG Taco Bell gorditas.
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:00 AM on August 3, 2019 [9 favorites]
posted by fluttering hellfire at 7:00 AM on August 3, 2019 [9 favorites]
That's a DVD+R not a mix CD. It's a phony! Someone has cynically abused our nineties nostalgia!
posted by Monochrome at 7:09 AM on August 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Monochrome at 7:09 AM on August 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
In 1999 I was circling a WARP Records rabbit hole, via Nothing Records. Squarepusher, Autechre, Plaid, mostly, but also filling out my Aphex Twin collection. Atari Teenage Riot, Lard, and Ministry... and when September rolled around, Coil's Musick to Play in the Dark and Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile came out, the latter changed everything for me (really!).
Every single song listed there induces feelings of revulsion... Pop came roaring back with the Spice Girls, and I was solidly not in that camp. Which is too bad, because my adolescent rejection of pop music had me missing out on a lot of really catchy tunes that were the soundtrack to fun times for lots of other people! I'm not proud of my instant revulsion! It's not that I wasn't having fun times, but I had so solidly put up this wall between me and what was on the radio. I was not ready to give up on the mid-90s angsty weirdo thing though. I've made peace with pop music since, although I still haven't come around to fully embracing it.
posted by Leviathant at 7:22 AM on August 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
Every single song listed there induces feelings of revulsion... Pop came roaring back with the Spice Girls, and I was solidly not in that camp. Which is too bad, because my adolescent rejection of pop music had me missing out on a lot of really catchy tunes that were the soundtrack to fun times for lots of other people! I'm not proud of my instant revulsion! It's not that I wasn't having fun times, but I had so solidly put up this wall between me and what was on the radio. I was not ready to give up on the mid-90s angsty weirdo thing though. I've made peace with pop music since, although I still haven't come around to fully embracing it.
posted by Leviathant at 7:22 AM on August 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
Ah, here we have proof that I was already old 20 years ago. I recognize like three of these songs.
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:31 AM on August 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by soren_lorensen at 7:31 AM on August 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
Squee!! Steal My Sunshine!!! My favorite 90s tune!!
posted by sundrop at 7:33 AM on August 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by sundrop at 7:33 AM on August 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
I bought my first (and, so far, only!) house in July 1999. When my realtor and I walked in for the first time, the owner had the tv on and Ricky Martin was singing Livin La Vida Loca on one of the morning shows. I instantly go back to that time (buying a HOUSE! This is SO ADULT!)whenever I hear that song.
posted by bookmammal at 7:36 AM on August 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by bookmammal at 7:36 AM on August 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
every time i would hear "i want it that way" when i was in the grocery store shoplifting soymilk or whatever i'd be super stoked
It's a good song, but I love Weird Al's "eBay" parody version even more. That "I'm highest bidder!" gets me every time.
posted by straight at 7:40 AM on August 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
It's a good song, but I love Weird Al's "eBay" parody version even more. That "I'm highest bidder!" gets me every time.
posted by straight at 7:40 AM on August 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
IIRC this is also the summer of Wild Wild West
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:42 AM on August 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:42 AM on August 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
The Ringer has been going through a similar retrospective, including a lot of the same songs (I think they have a spotify playlist linked in the article as well). What was weird for me was that I felt like a lot of these songs came out while I was still in college, when I had actually graduated a couple years earlier. But I was so sure that my roommates and I had been sitting around bagging on how awful LFO was.
Pop music generally wasn't my thing either, but I can't deny the power of "Steal My Sunshine", "I Want it That Way", or "No Scrubs". The album list at the Ringer has a lot more of the stuff I actually paid money for on it.
posted by LionIndex at 7:43 AM on August 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
Pop music generally wasn't my thing either, but I can't deny the power of "Steal My Sunshine", "I Want it That Way", or "No Scrubs". The album list at the Ringer has a lot more of the stuff I actually paid money for on it.
posted by LionIndex at 7:43 AM on August 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
I was 14 and those songs really mark the end of my childhood summers. I still felt like a kid and didn’t know it.
posted by lydhre at 8:03 AM on August 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by lydhre at 8:03 AM on August 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
No Scrubs was/is not only a great song but also kind of a explosive device of forced woke-ness ... as I drove around in cars a lot with my dumb friends trying to talk to girls. That song as Diegetic back drop to that behavior was... well if the "broken glass" sound effect had played over that scene it would have been fitting.
posted by French Fry at 8:06 AM on August 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by French Fry at 8:06 AM on August 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
I've always loved that Filter song. It's "Take a Picture", not "Take My Picture".
I thought for sure this was the summer that Poets was everywhere in Canada, but nope, that was the year before. But 1999 gave us Bobcaygeon.
posted by oulipian at 8:30 AM on August 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
I thought for sure this was the summer that Poets was everywhere in Canada, but nope, that was the year before. But 1999 gave us Bobcaygeon.
posted by oulipian at 8:30 AM on August 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
Stereogum talked to Marc Costanzo back in 2016 about Steal My Sunshine, and it's quite an interesting chat.
posted by hippybear at 9:15 AM on August 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
posted by hippybear at 9:15 AM on August 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
I've always loved that Filter song. It's "Take a Picture", not "Take My Picture".
It's a great song, but I've always found it kind of weird that it's by the same band that did Hey Man Nice Shot, given the vast differences in tone.
posted by dephlogisticated at 9:40 AM on August 3, 2019 [6 favorites]
It's a great song, but I've always found it kind of weird that it's by the same band that did Hey Man Nice Shot, given the vast differences in tone.
posted by dephlogisticated at 9:40 AM on August 3, 2019 [6 favorites]
I've always loved that Filter song. It's "Take a Picture", not "Take My Picture".
It's a great song, but I've always found it kind of weird that it's by the same band that did Hey Man Nice Shot yt , given the vast differences in tone.
Richard Patrick was a touring member of NIN and when he started Filter he carried into it a very sharp industrial edge with a focus on melody. Just the album that Take A Picture is on, Title Of Record, is quite a journey. It's probably my favorite album of theirs. I tried to continue along their journey, but they went in a direction that didn't resonate with me as much as that one album. I listen to it quite often. I'm a bit shocked I haven't done an album post about it yet. I might do one soon.
posted by hippybear at 10:00 AM on August 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
It's a great song, but I've always found it kind of weird that it's by the same band that did Hey Man Nice Shot yt , given the vast differences in tone.
Richard Patrick was a touring member of NIN and when he started Filter he carried into it a very sharp industrial edge with a focus on melody. Just the album that Take A Picture is on, Title Of Record, is quite a journey. It's probably my favorite album of theirs. I tried to continue along their journey, but they went in a direction that didn't resonate with me as much as that one album. I listen to it quite often. I'm a bit shocked I haven't done an album post about it yet. I might do one soon.
posted by hippybear at 10:00 AM on August 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
1999 was such a year that's it's a bit of a life marker. That's when I stopped being homeless after some odd uncountable years. I'm not sure of the years before because, well time didn't really matter beyond another day. But it's '99 that I can pin things down to it being over because one of my duties was installing NTP clocks to prepare for the possibilities of Y2K fallout. So '99 and a year-ish before are like a rebirth into finding out what's been going on for the past half-a-decade or so. Around here was the joy of Napster, and then a co-worker just telling me to hit up his Anonymous FTP server and go nuts. After a few paychecks I bought a car and moved into an apartment where I still live but one of the first things after moving in...
In the laundry room on that table where people leave stuff that's free for the taking...
Was that fucking Len CD, still have it. About half of these songs and video clips I remember because there's a big gap for the previous years and it was all new. But I think the one little thing in the video that really took me back was Quake III. OMFG we spent so many hours at work playing QIII on the local server that being all *nixy I had to appropriate a Mac to play on and then got accused of cheating when I went to play on public servers (low-ping bastard and we played a *lot* of QIII).
All in all, 1999 was an awesome year and the future was looking so bright you needed to wear shades. Then things went all hell in a handbasket worst timeline. Sigh, these 20 year flashbacks are going to go real dark soon, enjoy it while it lasts.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:39 AM on August 3, 2019 [6 favorites]
In the laundry room on that table where people leave stuff that's free for the taking...
Was that fucking Len CD, still have it. About half of these songs and video clips I remember because there's a big gap for the previous years and it was all new. But I think the one little thing in the video that really took me back was Quake III. OMFG we spent so many hours at work playing QIII on the local server that being all *nixy I had to appropriate a Mac to play on and then got accused of cheating when I went to play on public servers (low-ping bastard and we played a *lot* of QIII).
All in all, 1999 was an awesome year and the future was looking so bright you needed to wear shades. Then things went all hell in a handbasket worst timeline. Sigh, these 20 year flashbacks are going to go real dark soon, enjoy it while it lasts.
posted by zengargoyle at 10:39 AM on August 3, 2019 [6 favorites]
So... All-Star but without memes?
Not sure I am down, tbh.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:52 AM on August 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
Not sure I am down, tbh.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:52 AM on August 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
This was also the summer of The Matrix soundtrack.
posted by mbrubeck at 11:02 AM on August 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by mbrubeck at 11:02 AM on August 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
The Singles Jukebox wrote a really great, compehensive series of blurb reviews that explore why Charli XCX and Troye Sivan's "1999" isn't actually about 1999, based on the references, lyrics, and the age gap.
Note, I also write for this website, but I was a fan of it for 7 years beforehand because the writing is so insightful about popular music.
posted by yueliang at 2:27 PM on August 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
Note, I also write for this website, but I was a fan of it for 7 years beforehand because the writing is so insightful about popular music.
posted by yueliang at 2:27 PM on August 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
This post reads like a Neil Cicierega to do list.
posted by snofoam at 4:10 PM on August 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by snofoam at 4:10 PM on August 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
I See a Darkness
Held
Aying
Center of the Universe
So Shy
Lucky Denver Mint
Get Up
The Men in Blue
Flame
Can't Stand It
Windowlicker
Denise
Morse
San Dimas High School Football Rules
Everything's Okay
With a Child's Heart
Run On
Svefn-g-englar
Cannon
She's a Bitch
Waitin' for a Superman
198d
Genie in a Bottle
The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side
Weekend Sex Change
Come Original
FWIW I probably would have done this exact thing 20 years ago, just trying to never change like all those people who signed my senior year high school yearbook wanted.
posted by carsonb at 5:59 PM on August 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
Held
Aying
Center of the Universe
So Shy
Lucky Denver Mint
Get Up
The Men in Blue
Flame
Can't Stand It
Windowlicker
Denise
Morse
San Dimas High School Football Rules
Everything's Okay
With a Child's Heart
Run On
Svefn-g-englar
Cannon
She's a Bitch
Waitin' for a Superman
198d
Genie in a Bottle
The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side
Weekend Sex Change
Come Original
FWIW I probably would have done this exact thing 20 years ago, just trying to never change like all those people who signed my senior year high school yearbook wanted.
posted by carsonb at 5:59 PM on August 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
My favorite pop jam from 1999 is LFO’s Summer Time Girls. Just the most ridiculous lyrics but it somehow works.
Also, according to the movie Hired Gun, Richard Fisher told NIN frontman Trent Renzor he needed more money to continue working for NIN, so they got him a job delivering pizza and told him if he wanted more money he should write songs. Hence Filter. And he took Reznor’s financial advice as well and paid his band something closer to minimum wage than rock salaries.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:48 PM on August 3, 2019
Also, according to the movie Hired Gun, Richard Fisher told NIN frontman Trent Renzor he needed more money to continue working for NIN, so they got him a job delivering pizza and told him if he wanted more money he should write songs. Hence Filter. And he took Reznor’s financial advice as well and paid his band something closer to minimum wage than rock salaries.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:48 PM on August 3, 2019
Hey Parasite Unseen, I'll do you one better: I first saw "Hard Knock Life" at the end of a Chris Rock Show episode and thought it was a parody underlining how lame rap had gotten.
Unlike you, I'm not convinced I was wrong.
posted by whuppy at 5:02 AM on August 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
Unlike you, I'm not convinced I was wrong.
posted by whuppy at 5:02 AM on August 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
My favorite pop jam from 1999 is LFO’s Summer Time Girls.
I think you mean "Summer Girls".
"Summertime Girls" is a much older, much different song.
posted by hanov3r at 8:55 AM on August 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
I think you mean "Summer Girls".
"Summertime Girls" is a much older, much different song.
posted by hanov3r at 8:55 AM on August 5, 2019 [1 favorite]
it was a parody underlining how lame rap had gotten.
'Hard Knock Life' (and, really, almost all of 'Volume 2') was Jay, as he put it, dumbing down his lyrics to double his dollars. And it worked--'Reasonable Doubt' (which he thinks is his best album) and 'Volume 1' sold about a million, while 'Volume 2' sold four and marked his commercial breakthrough.
As it turns out, more people want to hear club jams about money and hoes than, like, extended metaphors about how the music industry is like selling crack and musings about how the desire for money and power corrupts people. Jay responded to this kind of criticism on 'The Blueprint' and 'The Black Album, essentially saying 'I know those songs were stupid--I did them for the money.'
posted by box at 9:53 AM on August 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
'Hard Knock Life' (and, really, almost all of 'Volume 2') was Jay, as he put it, dumbing down his lyrics to double his dollars. And it worked--'Reasonable Doubt' (which he thinks is his best album) and 'Volume 1' sold about a million, while 'Volume 2' sold four and marked his commercial breakthrough.
As it turns out, more people want to hear club jams about money and hoes than, like, extended metaphors about how the music industry is like selling crack and musings about how the desire for money and power corrupts people. Jay responded to this kind of criticism on 'The Blueprint' and 'The Black Album, essentially saying 'I know those songs were stupid--I did them for the money.'
posted by box at 9:53 AM on August 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
Thanks for the context, box! My respect for Jay-Z is now far less grudging.
posted by whuppy at 6:33 AM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by whuppy at 6:33 AM on August 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
Todd in The Shadows: 1999 and "You Get What You Give"
posted by The Whelk at 10:58 PM on August 17, 2019
posted by The Whelk at 10:58 PM on August 17, 2019
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posted by bleep at 10:24 PM on August 2, 2019 [16 favorites]