An 80’s Birthday Present For An Old Gen-Z Soul

I have trouble keeping up with the names of generations. Gen-X is easy. That’s an old fart like me who grew up riding station wagons and paying a quarter to make phone calls (phone booths were nasty, by the way). After that it gets confusing. Is it millennials before Gen-Z or the other way around? I’ve even seen the word zillennials doing research for this post. Go figure!

Anyhow, it’s my privilege to know a Gen-Z person who has an appreciation for music and culture from the past. She even bought herself a cassette player. Most kids her age are smashing them! Isabel is bright, creative and I consider her to be a true artist. Here’s my birthday present that she made just for me!

Now it’s time for me to reciprocate! I know how much she loves the 80s, so I created an 80s birthday mix for her. I thought it would be a cinch since I lived through the 80s and I can easily reference a plethora of songs. I underestimated the task!!

The challenge I had with this mix is that older music wasn’t produced in the way music is today. Retro pop music wasn’t really designed to be mixed, so I had to get creative with where to mix in and out of songs. This is also my first time doing a loop-heavy mix, so I’ve really had to stretch myself a bit.

Here’s a quick tutorial by Ellaskins on how to mix old school 80’s music. I used his tips as well as tips from Digital DJ Tips on looping.

Lastly, the songs I chose were with Isabel in mind. It was hard to edit the number of songs down to 12. I could mix 80s music all day, but then the mp3 file would be too huge to upload. 

Happy birthday to Isabel who, On August 11, turned 19. Here’s to the lovable Leo! I hope you enjoy the mix!