1979-1983: A very abbreviated musical history

November 1, 2019 7:27 AM

The Hood Internet presents 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, and 1983; concluding a series of 5 3-minute mashups, featuring 50+ songs from each year.

Also available on SoundCloud.
The Hood Internet previously on MetaFilter.

posted by schmod (13 comments total)

1979 previously, credited to The Hood: 50 songs in 2:55 (October 4, 2019).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:52 AM on November 1, 2019

Does this mean they aren't doing any more?
posted by Miss Cellania at 8:13 AM on November 1, 2019

These are fantastic, as always!

Although, at first I went into total Comic Book Guy territory because putting Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself" in 1980 does not ring true at all. Turns out, yes, it was technically released in an earlier version in 1980 with Idol's first band, but the video and the version we associate came out in late 1981.

Then it occurs to me that the mashup creators were around one or two years old in 1980, and were probably looking at Wikipedia like, "Cool, we can put it in" and now I'm all like: "Ohhhh, this is what it feels like to be truly middle-aged."
posted by jeremias at 8:45 AM on November 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

Good stuff, a bit like Girl Talk but with shorter samples and tighter temporal focus, so less wild swings in genre are available (e.g. I don't think anything like Ludacris existed in 1970 when War Pigs came out).
posted by SaltySalticid at 8:53 AM on November 1, 2019

As a counterpoint to my previous "get off my lawn" comment, the 1982 mashup is absolutely transcendant, a work of art!
posted by jeremias at 8:56 AM on November 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

They change the key of some of the songs to get them to mashup, so this is just 'ok' to me. In one Hall & Oats (1983 maybe?) turned into The Chipmunks after a night of hard drinking.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:02 AM on November 1, 2019

I went looking on their website and their video channel to see if there was any info about how they go about making these, but I didn't find anything. I would love to know more about the process.

These are really cool, schmod - thank you so much for posting them!
posted by kristi at 9:12 AM on November 1, 2019

Fantastic. I can't say that the early 80s felt all that great for me at the time, but I do have great nostalgia for the music, fashion, makeup and hair & think there were some really interesting things happening there for a brief while.
posted by slkinsey at 9:24 AM on November 1, 2019

1982 has some particularly good material to work with.
posted by Quasirandom at 9:45 AM on November 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

I've not considered them as rubbing against each other in the same space and time, when, of course, they were. Good stuff. Thanks for posting.
posted by zerobyproxy at 10:18 AM on November 1, 2019

These are fantastic (1983 hitting the sweet spot for me) but man are they frustratingly short. I'd love a full-on "Mixtape Volume 1983" like the annual mixtapes they used to do.

And if these are the only 5 they're doing, I'm very curious why the years 1979-1983 specifically?
posted by howling fantods at 10:54 AM on November 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

"Also available on SoundCloud."

As an added bonus, they have been made downloadble on Soundcloud too!
posted by howling fantods at 11:02 AM on November 1, 2019

So many subtly awesome mashup moments. "9 to 5" meets "The Breaks," in the 1980 vid? That's genius.
posted by Lyme Drop at 11:23 AM on November 1, 2019