A few years ago I was introduced to Fluxblog’s annual survey of music and have absolutely loved it. I look forward to downloading every year.  It is seriously one of my most favorite things. More recently I discovered  that Fluxblog’s author, Matthew Perpetua, created music survey’s for each year of the 1980s.  This year he is publishing surveys for each year of the 1990s.

I have been downloading the 80s survey’s year by year and savoring them one at a time, in order. It is like listening to the most epic mixed tape ever created. So many memories. I thought it might be fun to share some of the songs that jump out at me as I go through these.

He published the 80s surveys in reverse chronological order, starting with 1989. 1989 was an interesting year for me because it was the year I left Spokane for the first time and moved to New York. My world was opened up in so many ways, music being one of those ways.

I am currently working my way through the 1987 survey. 1987 was the year I graduated from high school, so quite a memorable year for me. So far I am finding the music from that year so cringe-worthy and cheesy. For example, the song, “(I’ve had) The Time Of My Life” came out. Debbie Gibson was popular. This morning on my walk to work I heard “Always” by Atlantic Starr. :shudders: Can you get diabetes from listening to music?

Juxtoposed next to this saccharine music are songs like Nitzer Ebb’s “Join In The Chant.”

I remember my first exposure to Nitzer Ebb. It was 1989 and I was living in New York. My nanny friends all went to a small theater to see a show. They were seeing someone that was relatively new to the music scene at the time: “Nine Inch Nails.” The song “Head Like A Hole” was playing in the clubs and we all  loved it.  I couldn’t go because I had to work that evening. I was so, so bummed. The next day my friends excitedly told me about the opening act, Nitzer Ebb and said that I HAD to listen to them because I would LOVE them. They were totally right. I completely fell head over heels for this band and this style of music. It was like nothing I had every heard. It was the opposite of the saccharine shit I was force fed on the radio in Spokane.

This is the memory I thought of when “Hearts and Minds” played on my iPhone on my walk to work this morning.