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The 50th tape in The Somewhat Alphabetical Mixtape Series is tape XX aka Dos Equis. It is also the fourth tape in the subset Greatest Hits. There is a blue star on the spine of the J-card (above) and six green stars on the backside of the J-card (below). I had written the names of the artists on the J-card but she had to listen to hear which songs.
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The familiar sound of Sting's voice comes fading in and we immediately recognize the first song on the tape as "Money For Nothing", from the Brothers In Arms album. The track is the full-length album version rather than the single edit so the offensive words are present and I guess it had been a while because we both were surprised to hear them again.
A brief fanfare precedes the winding guitar-riffery of Def Leppard's "Rock! Rock! (Til You Drop)". Despite getting a ton of airplay on our local rock station, the song was only released as a single in Mexico and Bolivia. The song is followed on XX by the big hit single "Photograph" which immediately follows "Rock! Rock!" on the album as well. She was a big fan of the Pyromania album, buying the tape for the Alpine deck in her 1976 Camaro LT before we met.
The fourth song on the tape is Eddie Money's "Shakin'", the second single off his No Control album. The song rocks with a heavy drum component, a naughty lyric that evaded censorship, and a music video noteworthy for starring Patty Kotero (later known as Apollonia in the film Purple Rain). This makes three songs in a row that came out before we were a couple but I found out she liked this song when it played on the radio one night. For nearly the entire first year that we were going out, she drove. Just like the girl in the video.
The opening organ riff of "Let's Go Crazy" signals the fifth song on XX. The track is the album version rather than the abbreviated single edit or the extended-length version featured in Purple Rain and on 12" single. We had hoped to see Prince on his Purple Rain Tour in March 1985 but while waiting in line for tickets to go on sale for the announced show in Phoenix, it was announced that the concert would be moved to New Mexico and we were unable to travel to New Mexico so we reluctantly left the line which we had been standing in since midnight. We finally saw Prince touring as The Artist during his Love 4 One Another Charities Tour in April 1997.
"Freeze-Frame" begins and I can tell by looking at her that she's already dancing in her head and it's just a matter of time hopefully until she lets it out. And there she goes, right after the first chorus. She calls the song "peppy". Freeze-Frame is one of my favorite albums and she really likes the title track and "Flamethrower". Yet another song from before I first laid eyes on her.
The tape moves into a harder rocking phase with Journey's "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)" as track seven. She recalls the music video but I have to pull it up for a refresher only to realize it's pretty bad and I might have blocked it out of my memory on purpose. She then asks if we ever saw Journey in concert and, once again, I have to look on my handy-dandy concert tickets spreadsheet to confirm that we attended a Journey concert on their Raised On Radio Tour in December 1986 with Glass Tiger opening. I pulled it up on setlist.fm and it was apparently a killer show including a couple of Steve Perry solo songs and an Elvis cover. Yet neither one of us remembers it at all. Wow!
The harder rock block builds with the inane lyrics and anthemic bluster of "Rock You Like A Hurricane", which requires a bit of bass boost via the Klipsch Connect app. We both recall seeing Scorpions live a couple of times though the spreadsheet of our ticket stubs reveals we actually saw the German band three times – in 1984, 1985, and 1988. We both recall two shows because one was outdoors near Labor Day and someone died (dehydration?). The other featured a sadly hilarious Spinal Tap moment when a pod malfunctioned and a band member was briefly trapped before the crew freed him.
Van Halen has the ninth and tenth tracks on XX with the final two tracks from Side One of their Diver Down album, the segue of the instrumental "Intruder" into their cover of "(Oh) Pretty Woman". She never professed liking this song but I still sing it to her when it comes on and it sounded pretty awesome in her Camaro. The two times we saw Van Halen live featured Sammy Hagar so these songs were not performed.
Mötley Crüe makes it two covers in a row with their rollicking remake of "Smokin' In The Boys Room" from their Theatre Of Pain album. Also, more of my greatest hit than hers though we saw the Crüe on their Theatre Of Pain Tour right when this song was peaking in August 1985 with the Japanese heavy metal band Loudness opening for them. I remember all of the scantily clad women at the show; she remembers it was piercingly loud.
After the song ends, we're both surprised to hear The Bee Gees "Stayin' Alive" come on, sped up by playing the album version at 45rpm, obviously a gimmick to fill out Side A of the XX tape. While it may have been a gimmick back in October or November 1986 when this tape was dubbed, sped-up versions of songs are a thing.
Side B of XX leads off with the Linn drum machine pattern intro to Wham!'s "Everything She Wants" and then the groove kicks in. The song is the fourth and final single spun from the Make It Big album and is one of those singles that actually runs longer than the album version. We're curious where the playlist will go from here.
Track two softens the groove a bit with Billy Idol's "Eyes Without A Face", the second single off his Rebel Yell album. It's a good transition song for either taking things from slower to more upbeat or vice-versa. This version of "Eyes Without A Face" is the full-length album version and we're still wondering what this tape will spring upon us next.
Our curiosity is soon answered by the opening chords of "What Is Love?", the second single from Human's Lib by Howard Jones. The song sounds great and just after I find myself lost in the music, the song ends. She's staring at me and asks "Did you fall asleep?" Nope.
"At This Moment" begins and she squeezes my hand with a smile in her eyes. We were fans of Family Ties and each of us was kinda sorta invested in Michael P. Keaton's love life at the time with Billy & the Beaters' "At This Moment" being the soundtrack. I stumbled on this yellow radio promo twelve-inch single of the song in 1983 or 1984 at Al Bum's and bought it strictly out of curiosity. I owned a few colored vinyl albums and singles at the time but it was my first yellow one. I was happily surprised when the song showed up on Family Ties a couple of years later.
The fifth song on XX continues the soft groove I had established on the tape. I looked at her and quipped "There are some really great songs on Kool & the Gang's Emergency. "Cherish" is also on the album." She loves the song and I need never hear it again.
I remember first hearing "Keep On Loving You", the sixth song on XX, just after Thanksgiving 1980 on WLS. Despite hearing it thousands of times since then, the song has never lost its appeal. Every girl loved the song and my girl was no exception. I bought the Hi-Infidelity album just before Christmas. I listened to the album repeatedly all through the winter and spring and still enjoy listening to it nearly 45 years later. Never understood all the negativity directed at REO Speedwagon, not that I enjoy all of their music but I found it a little sad watching what was left of the band cease to be a touring entity at the end of 2024.
The next song, Nazareth's cover of "Love Hurts" is a prototypical power ballad straight out of the Seventies. Another song that is more my greatest hit than hers. Originally from the album Hair Of The Dog when I went to buy an album with "Love Hurts" on it I had no idea it was on Hair Of The Dog so I bought the first album I found it on which turned out to be a 1976 Nazareth compilation called Hot Tracks which has Wizard of Oz-style cover art.
The eighth song on tape XX, Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of The Bay" comes drifting in like a gentle tide. Less of a slow groovin' love song than a chill-out anthem, in hindsight the song may not have been the best choice to follow the wounded screeching of "Love Hurts". Since I could not afford to buy the 14LP Atlantic Rhythm & Blues 1947-1974 box set, I acquired the seven individually released double albums on the cheap through Columbia House one at a time as soon as they were offered in 1986. Still one of the best compilation albums ever, my favorite volumes are 5, 6, and 7 covering the years 1962-1974 collectively.
We return to slow groovin' love songs with "Stuck On You", our favorite track off Lionel Richie's massive album Can't Slow Down. She's a fan, too, but she likes just about every Lionel Richie and Commodores song ever released. We listen quietly and are feeling maybe a little too relaxed from all these romantic songs.
George and Andrew show up for the second time on Side B with the 6:30 full version of "Careless Whisper" which features an extended intro before the sax comes in. There is an early version of the song recorded at Muscle Shoals Studios and produced by the legendary Jerry Wexler that a lot of fans seek out but it just doesn't hold up to the tension and drama of this long album cut. We listened to this song until the final note and then silence. Was it the last song?
Then another song started and neither one of us recognized it. More upbeat than the rest of Side B but more synth and dance-oriented rather than rock. I kept waiting for the vocals to begin but they never did. Finally asked Siri what song was playing and she reported back that it was the instrumental mix of "Paint A Rumour" from the Eurythmics Touch Dance EP. The tape ended before the song finished. Another trick to filling up the tape. Like the Bee Gees on Side A, Eurythmics are not listed on the J-card (below).
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